“Awesome ride” in teaching
Drouin Secondary College teacher Richard “Rick” Emery has been recognised for an impressive 35 years of teaching.
The third-generation teacher was presented with a certificate celebrating his achievement at a celebratory dinner at Warragul Country Club last month.
Mr Emery said it was “nice to be recognised”, and thanked his wife Chris Giles, for her support.
After graduating from high school Mr Emery decided to follow in the footsteps of his mother and grandmother, as did his sister.
“It was probably a choice between accounting and teaching and just the way things rolled, I went with teaching and the rest, as they say, is history,” he said.
“It’s been an awesome ride.”
Now in his 21st year at Drouin Secondary College, Mr Emery primarily teaches material technology. However, for the majority of his career, he was an English teacher.
“I’ve got one English class at the moment...I’d consider myself to be more of a wood-tech teacher now than an
English teacher,” he said.
“It’s that sort of constant renewal, and you keep yourself keen and interested by doing new stuff.”
After starting at Athlone Primary school in 1984, and working at schools in The Mallee in the late 80s, Mr Emery did some international travelling and came to Gippsland in the early 90s.
“My parents were getting old and I thought it might be a good place to stay around for a few years. I taught in Kurnai down in Morwell, Pakenham and then, when the Drouin job came up, I thought this is a chance to become a part of my own community.”
“You blink a few times and it’s 20 years later and you’re getting on towards the end.”
Mr Emery plans to transition out of teaching in the coming years, however, he has great memories of the teachers he has worked with in his 35 years.
Some of the teachers that had the most influence on him were Jack Howe from Kurnai College and the late Rob Monk from Drouin Secondary College.
“In 35 years you get to work with some great educators,” he said.
“Rob Monk...he to me was the greatest educator that I’ve seen in my time.”
He said he also was greatly influenced by his wife, who is a teacher at Warragul and District Specialist School, saying she is one of the “best” he had seen.
On the industry as a whole, Mr Emery said he has hopes that less pressure will be placed on young teachers in the future.
“The job has become too hard for those kids starting out...that to me is the biggest change that has occurred,” he said.
“I’m okay, I’m pretty good at this game...but I can understand why after five years a lot of them say `you know what, this is too hard.’
“Something’s got to give because it’s not sustainable.”
Mr Emery said aside from the pressure on teachers, changes in technology were another big change he had witnessed. He said it was hard to compete with a computer, no matter how “interesting or engaging you are”.
But, he said, “teaching’s always been about the relationship between the teacher and their class, and that has never changed.”