Behaviour problems big hole in degree

Third-year teacher April Luxmoore says her teaching degree didn’t prepare her for the behavioural problems she has found in her classroom.

Luxmoore, 38, was a travel agent before deciding to go teaching, and did her degree at Auckland University in between having two children, who are now 7 and 4.

She believes life experience has helped her cope with her first job at Mangere Central School.

“I don’t think you are really prepared for a lot of the behavioural problems that come with the job, or the lack of social skills, the problems from home,” she said.

“There is really nothing around that [in training], but it really impacts on your day-to-day teaching much more than you think.”

Although her Bachelor of Education degree included “a little bit of psychology”, she can’t remember learning anything about children with special needs such as dyslexia or autism.

She didn’t learn practical IT skills that she uses in her teaching, such as Google Documents, and she didn’t learn about planning or how to assess pupils’ abilities.

“Your content knowledge, you can always go away and learn that, but I think it’s those day-to-day challenges that the students are facing themselves and bringing to school, which affect their learning and others in the classroom. It’s ways to help the student with that that we really need.” — Simon Collins