“Teaching during lockdown has certainly been an interesting experience”

Teaching is one of those professions that’s reserved for people of a certain ilk and grit for tolerating long-hours, unpredictability presented on all fronts and managing the temperaments of developing students while instilling their education.

It’s a tough job and any teacher will you tell that on a good day. Nonetheless, every teacher will always state how incredibly rewarding their professions are despite the daily challenges.

For Canobolas High School teacher, Mr Jesse Bennett, it all began with a passion for helping people and yearning to provide support towards individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds.

“I didn't decide to be a teacher until I was in high school. When planning my future, I knew I wanted to do something to help people. I considered becoming a paramedic or police officer. But after giving it some thought, I decided that the place where I could do the best for others was in education,” Jesse said.

Working in the faculty of Human Society and Its Environment (HSIE), Jesse’s specialisation is in teaching history, a subject which he has great admiration and interest within.

“I am very passionate about the subject and I believe history is one of the most important subjects students can learn. History provides them with the opportunity to learn about other cultures, understand the context of modern society, and learn how to conduct research and evaluate sources.”

Although, HSIE is Jesse’s bread and butter in teaching, he has taught classes across Science, English and Mathematics. Much thanks to his diverse tertiary education background covering many foundational schooling subjects.

Being a teacher usually requires one’s self to be a jack of all trades. Due to the everchanging modern classroom environments, teachers are having to navigate their students between offline and online teaching. Which has become one of the major challenges presented to educators within this pandemic age.

“The greatest challenge has been the lack of resources developed with this style of learning in mind. Teachers are having to create entirely new units of work designed to support students learning from home.

This includes consideration into whether the classwork is easy or hard enough, are students able to access online material, how are they able to receive and return their work within an COVID safe way. How teachers can assess what students have learnt and provide feedback within this current learning style.

Teaching during lockdown has certainly been an interesting experience,” Jesse describes.

Despite the difficulties and hurdles these lockdowns have thrown at both students and teachers alike, there’s always room for acknowledging the good of what the schooling experience brings during these rocky times.

For Jesse, the best aspects of teaching he enjoys the most are “the relationships you build with the students and colleagues.”

“The students have been absolutely wonderful to teach, chat with, and even play a few games of basketball with when we were able to do before the lockdown.”

Having recently joined the team at Canobolas High School this year, Jesse says:

“The staff at Canobolas High have all been extremely welcoming and supportive. It has been a wonderful experience so far and I look forward to being able to support my students as they continue throughout high school.”

To Jesse and all of the teachers out there, the community sees your hard work and dedication towards this generation of students during these historic, unsettled times. Stay strong and keep up the great work.