If I only had a blog ...

The other day, my son said to me: “I wish I was from a family that has superpowers.”

My response: “How do you know we don’t? I reckon it took some pretty huge superpowers to get all of you kids dressed and into the car today. It certainly takes some special and amazing superpowers to be a teacher.”

You can imagine the groan I got in response.

That evening, in a moment of serendipity, I was working with a team of QTU women to deliver assertiveness training for Union members when my colleague Kevina O’Neill (QTU Redlands/Logan Organiser) gave a beautiful description of what it means to step up as a Union Representative in any forum. It went something like this.

“As a young activist I was asked to go to central office in Mary Street to represent the QTU at negotiations around an important professional issue, and I overheard a senior officer of the department say: ‘They’ve only sent Kevina.’

“It didn’t make a difference to how I approached the negotiations, because I was stepping into that meeting room, not as Kevina the young teacher, but as a well-informed advocate for the members of the QTU. I knew that I not only had the knowledge and ability to argue the case but the support and trust of thousands of teachers.

“It was like putting on my QTU suit – an extra bit of confidence and motivation to get the best outcome for the members of the Union.”

It is the same thing being an assertive professional in the workplace or any other forum. It can be daunting when we step up to question why we should adopt particular teaching strategies or approaches, when we push back around decisions about implementation of curriculum in context, or when we advocate for better resourcing. Some will call us whingers or trouble makers or attempt to paint us as not being part of ‘the team’, when what we are actually doing is being caring and informed professionals. I think it can help to think of our commitment and dedication to what we do and our role as QTU representatives as our suit or cape – and it can help give us the gumption and the motivation to stand up for ourselves.

To confidently assert ourselves, we need to be knowledgeable, and that’s where the QTU website, courses run by QTEC (Queensland Teachers' Education Centre), professional reading and participating in quality professional development play an essential role.

However, it’s more than that. We need to build up a range of strategies for tackling difficult conversations, for saying things that may not be popular or easy for some in our workplaces or the government to hear.

Unfortunately, we don’t get born with superpowers. We need to find that power somewhere within ourselves and through the support of our colleagues and our membership of the QTU. Perhaps we should imagine that somewhere, perhaps hanging on the back of the classroom door or sitting in the bottom drawer of our desk, is a QTU cape or suit.

May you find all of the superpowers necessary to do what you need to do this term!

Sam Pidgeon
Honorary Vice-President

Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 119 No 5, 18 July 2014, p14