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An Equity-First Students as Partners Podcast.
Student Stories in Higher Education.
00:00:01 POPPY
You're listening to Voices from the Classroom, the podcast that bridges the gap between students and educators.
I'm Poppy.
00:00:07 PIERS
And I'm Piers.
00:00:08 POPPY
And we're your hosts for today's episodes. Thanks for being here.
Today we're joined by Joel Newstead, a Bachelor of Education (Primary) student who's passionate about raising awareness of the challenges of balancing study, work and caring responsibilities. He's here to talk about whyfull-time study expectations don't reflect the realities students face today, and why lecturers' understanding and flexibility are essential to student success.
[So, Joel, I think you've kind of answered the question I'm about to ask, but what do you wish your IecrUrers knew?]
00:00:40 POPPY
Welcome to this episode of Voices from the Classroom podcast.
Our mission is to amplify the lived experiences of students, especially those from equity cohorts, who face unique challenges and offer valuable insights into university life. We aim to spark conversations between students and educators to deepen the understanding of diverse realities shaping student engagement, motivation and success.
Please note that while this is a Students as Partners project supported by the Equity First team, the views sha red here are our own and based on personal experiences and stories from fellow students, not behalf on any institution or group.
Today we're joined by the wonderful Joel.
Can you start by telling us a bit about yourself and what you're studying?
00:01:23 JOEL
Yeah, sure. So as Poppy said, my name's Joel. I'm 28 years old. I've been studying for a few years now, part-time, but yes, studying a Bachelor of Primary Education.
00:01:35 POPPY
You and me both, Joel! This is very exciting because I've never had someone studying the same degree as me.
00:01:39 JOEL
Hand in hand here.
00:01:40 POPPY
We have a lot of media students and like science and medical students, which is what Jamie and Piers are doing. So it's very, I'm so excited. It's one of my own, one of us!
It's one of my own, so I'm very excited. So what year are you in now?
00:01:58 JOEL
So I'm equivalent to about one-quarter way through my third year.
00:02:02 POPPY
Yeah, how exciting. Quite a way into it, but still a bit to go, yeah? And what, have you always wanted to be a teacher or what sparked that for you?
00:02:12 JOEL
Yeah, I definitely wanted to be a teacher for a good while. I did spend a little bit of time in the army and that as well. But that was not for me in the end. So I, army and teaching were sort of both on par with each other. And I thought, I'll give army a try while I'm still young and can. And then, that obviously didn't pan out for me. So I went into teaching.
00:02:38 POPPY
Yeah, how amazing. Do you know what sort of year group you're wanting to go to or just happy to teach anything at the moment?
00:02:46 JOEL
I'm happy to teach...I actually am currently teaching.
00:02:48 POPPY
Oh, wow.
00:02:49 JOEL
Yeah, so I'm on permission to teach. Yeah, not fully qualified yet, but almost enough of the way through. Yeah, to start.
00:02:57 POPPY
What year level are you in?
00:02:58 JOEL
So I've got Year Fours this year. 00:03:00 POPPY
Oh, so cool.
00:03:00 JOEL
Yeah, it's a bit before the attitude, but the attitude's just starting to kick in. 00:03:05 POPPY
It's there a bit, and they're aware of what's going on in their surroundings.
00:03:08 JOEL
Yes, very much.
00:03:09 POPPY
Very aware of social media. It's before, about Year 6, where they've actually got their own social media accounts. That's where stuff gets scary.
00:03:16 JOEL
No, you'd be surprised already. We’ve...had a lot of cyber bullying stuff happen already in
Year Four. Yeah.
00:03:26 POPPY
10 years old?
00:03:27 JOEL
Yeah, or even younger. It was like Year Fours, our Year Four cohort is like aged 8 to 10.
00:03:33 POPPY
Yep.
00:03:34 JOEL
And yes, so it's, I will say it definitely has been more the girls than the boys on the social media. So with the boys, it's fights over soccer. It's like, yeah, that's easy.
But the girls has been a lot more social media based and that's, it definitely has been tricky to manage that because you got, obviously the kids who have the outcomes of it, but you got the parents sort of stepping in and that as well, which can get tricky sometimes for sure.
00:04:00 PIERS
You mentioned, so you're studying and you're also working at the school. Is there anything else going on in your time?
00:04:05 JOEL
Yeah, I'm also a part-time carer of my dad. So he had a stroke back in 2020.
00:04:12 PIERS
Oh no.
00:04:13 JOEL
And that's now resulted in him also having brain damage, Alzheimer's, dementia. He's now blind as well. So yeah, he can't do a whole lot for himself these days. So I normally split that with mum, but she's actually just broken her ankle too.
00:04:29 PIERS
Oh no.
00:04:31 JOEL
Yeah, went for surgery on, what was it, Wednesday night? So currently caring for both parents.
00:04:37 POPPY
Oh my God.
00:04:38 PIERS
That's really brave and noble of you to do. 00:04:42 POPPY
That's, do you live? Do you live with them or do you...?
00:04:45 JOEL
I do now, yeah. I had a bit of time away from home and then after dad's stroke, we sort of came back to...
00:04:52 POPPY
Easier to live there.
00:04:53 JOEL
Yeah, even now, like work is about a four-minute commute from home. So it's convenient as well for me, but yea h, it always helps mum and dad out as well.
00:05:04 POPPY
Yeah. So I'm wondering, Joel, how do you balance all of this? Like you've got study, work, caring, a life outside of that too. How do you go with managing that and balancing that?
00:05:17 JOEL
With great difficulty. Yeah. I mean, work alone is a lot. As you know, being in education, it's not a career that you can kind of half ***.
00:05:32 POPPY
Yeah. It's your life.
00:05:34 JOEL
Yeah, absolutely. It's something I probably didn't grasp as well until I was actually in the
army. Your job does become your way of life. How you approach your job as well becomes your way of life. And teaching is one of the most intensive jobs that is around. And I don't think people who haven't worked in education realise that. The amount of questions you get asked a day, like I've seen teachers on TikToks do like a counter thing for how many questions they're asked. By 10 o'clock, they've already been asked like over 200 questions.
Your decision-making as well. You're making over, I think it's over around 2000 decisions a day. Where most people in jobs are making like a couple 100, but like one minute, like you're like, “oh, is this work appropriate for this kid? Are they going to be able to do this? Do I move them up? Do I move them down? This person's not performing great in this area. I might have to move them around into another spot”.
And like, there's so many things that happen throughout a day of teaching. It is so mentally taxing. And you'll find most teachers, as soon as the kids leave the classroom at the end of the day, they just collapse in a chair.
00:06:52 POPPY
Yeah.
00:06:54 JOEL
And then, yeah, to then go home and have to do care for Dad. 00:06:58 POPPY
Yeah.
00:06:59 JOEL
And now Mum for the next couple of months as well. Yeah. Like with that, there's appointments, there's sorting medications out, there's assisting to go to the bathroom and cleaning.
00:07:10 POPPY
Yeah, personal care.
00:07:12 JOEL
Yeah, We have started getting some people through NDIS and that in to help with a bit of that. Like it's still only...sort of gets so much.
00:07:23 POPPY
Yeah. And still you've got that stuff, the middle of the night and just out of business hours and all that sort of stuff.
00:07:29 JOEL
I mean, Dad's diabetic as well. I mean, I am too.
00:07:31 POPPY
But she's around the clock care. 00:07:33 JOEL
Yeah. And again, because he's blind and that as well. Like he can't, he can't manage it.
Like it's us managing it for him.
00:07:40 POPPY
Yeah.
00:07:41 JOEL
And yeah, obviously there's a study on top of that as well. 00:07:45 POPPY
Yeah.
00:07:46 JOEL
So it's all that throughout a day of teaching and coming home to that situation as well. And then yeah, still having to find the time to do assignments and do readings and that too.
00:07:57 PIERS
You're studying online, I presume? 00:08:00 JOEL
No, so in person for the most part. So I teach four days a week, study one day a week. So
just, obviously finished Trimester 2. Actually didn't do too bad this time around, which I'm happy with. Got a couple of distinctions, which is nice.
00:08:18 POPPY
It's amazing.
00:08:20 JOEL
Yeah, sitting pretty there at the moment, but I will absolutely say it has not been that way the whole way through.
00:08:26 POPPY
Yeah.
00:08:27 JOEL
Like 2021, so it's a bit after Dad's stroke and that. I actually got pretty close to being kicked out at uni.
00:08:34 POPPY
Yeah.
00:08:37 JOEL
I sat in, like I'd failed a couple units. Just, yeah, I mean, as being in my early 20s, like I'd still figuring life and that out, like in my own right. And then having all that other stuff on it, did get too much for a bit. And yeah, I just, I didn't reach out for help or anything like that and just tried to shoulder it all. Yeah, failed spectacularly.
00:09:04 POPPY
It's really hard to know where to get it to, which is why we're here, because there are so many support services, just a lot of people don't know how to access them, which is the hardest bit.
00:09:14 JOEL
Yeah, it wasn't until, I might have been getting the year wrong, actually, I reckon it was maybe 2022, but yeah, still. Yeah, I had to sit in front of the academic board and that, and yeah, sort of plead my case why they should keep me in. It was, through them where they recommended actually seeing like a counselor and that as well, which I have done quite a few times since. And that definitely has helped a lot.
Like it hasn't helped everything, don't get me wrong. But yeah, it definitely has helped a lot. And then yeah, just trying to organise stuff a bit better is, yeah, really helped out with that too.
00:09:49 POPPY
New ways to manage things.
00:09:50 JOEL
Yeah, absolutely. As I said, like it's only been the last few yea rs where I've used that calendar every day. I would be lost without my calenda r.
00:10:00 POPPY
So when we talk about your university workload, how many units are you doing per trimester at the moment?
00:10:06 JOEL
About two a trimester at the moment.
00:10:08 POPPY
Yeah.
00:10:10 JOEL
Which, yeah, look, it doesn't sound like a lot to most people, but it's, again, when you factor in work, when you factor in your social life and that, it still doesn't leave a lot of hours.
00:10:20 POPPY
No, yeah. Even if you weren't doing university, it would still be tricky with everything you're managing.
00:10:27 JOEL
Yeah.
00:10:27 POPPY
How do you think your unit workload expectations affect your ability to succeed? Like when we look at the fact that you're meant to be doing a certain amount of hours per unit and a certain amount of hours per assignment. How do you think that affects you succeeding?
00:10:46 JOEL
I think it's pretty well in the negative, if I'm being really honest.
00:10:50 POPPY
Yeah.
00:10:52 JOEL
Like with the education degree at least, like as you know, I'm working as a teacher. I will say
a lot of what we do at uni does not prepare you for teaching.
00:11:02 POPPY
Yeah.
00:11:04 JOEL
I'm paired up with a learning specialist in my role. So she teaches on the day I'm not there. And then one or two days we sort of team-teach. But like I actually asked her a couple of weeks ago, like, “how many times have you had to do like academic writing since you've been teaching?” So, to give you a bit of context, Learning Specialist is like the highest point you can get before you get into the principal class. So it's a bit above a leading teacher. So they help deliver like the curriculum content to the rest of the staff. And I said, like, “how many times have you done academic writing in your teaching career?” She's like, “I reckon twice”.
So that's in about fourteen years of teaching. So, and one of them was like very largely just delivering the new VIC curriculum 2.0.
00:11:59 POPPY
Yeah.
00:12:01 JOEL
And that's been one of the two times that she, in fourteen years, has done like over 2000 words in a piece, so I...the size of the essays and the assignments, I just, it's not realistic to what we go through as teachers.
00:12:13 POPPY
Yeah.
00:12:14 JOEL
Very rarely do you have to do that size of academic writing. Even in teaching kids how to do essay writing and that, like you're not writing 2000 words plus. Like you're not. You're doing a couple worked examples on a board, like it would be maybe a paragraph or so.
And the kids are writing, like, so again, I've got Year Fours. They're writing, my higher ones are writing at about 3 pages, which would be equivalent to maybe like 3, 400 words.
Obviously, as they get a bit older, like it does increase, but it's still, even if I look back at my
year 12 VCE English, like we're not writing that much.
00:12:54 PIERS
No, it's like 1,200 words or something like that. 00:12:57 JOEL
3 essays in three hours. Like you're not writing a huge amount of words.
00:13:02 POPPY
Even as a primary school teacher, you're only ever teaching prep to six. No Year Six is going to be...
00:13:07 JOEL
You do get qualified for Year Seven and Eight. 00:13:10 POPPY
But even then, no Year Seven and Eight is going to be writing 2000 words of academic
writing. It's not feasible.
I'm interested if you can tell us a bit about how you went about permission to teach and how you got the job that you're working in.
00:13:26 JOEL
Oh, that's a story. Yeah, it wasn't easy. I applied for permission to teach. So first of all, the school has to endorse you for it. So the school I'm currently working at, I did placement at last year.
00:13:40 POPPY
Yeah, okay.
00:13:42 JOEL
So if they think you're doing a pretty decent job, they can put your name forward to nominate you for permission to teach. So you didn't have to apply through VIT, which, if you ask any teacher, not many of them will have positive things to say about VIT.
00:13:56 POPPY
Yeah.
00:13:56 JOEL
That's its own thing. It is separate to the education department, so we won't put that on there. But yeah, VIT is known to be the most difficult teaching organisation in Australia to get registered in.
00:14:09 POPPY
Yeah, wow.
00:14:10 JOEL
And I definitely experienced that. So, when it came to me, trying to get permission to teach, they looked at my transcript, then that I'd failed some units, and they're like, “yeah, no”. It's like, “you failed these units”. I'm like, “well, yeah, but I've gone back and passed them and passed them quite well, too”. And they're like, “yeah, but you've failed units”. It's like, “well yea h, but I've passed them since”.
Yeah, so applied at like the start of Janua ry, and they knocked me back the day before we
started term one.
00:14:41 PIERS
Oh my God.
00:14:41 JOEL
Yeah, so that threw the whole class like, into our class management into disarray because we had to get CRTs in and that as well because I couldn't obviously.
00:14:50 POPPY
So disruptive.
00:14:51 JOEL
Yep. So I fought with them over e-mail for about 3 months. Eventually got it, but they only gave it for six months. So it expired September 3rd.
00:15:05 POPPY
I had to go through that whole, in the middle of the school year too. 00:15:09 JOEL
At which point, my principal was like, “this is kind of stupid. Like, I'm not gonna advertise a position for one term”.
00:15:15 POPPY
No, like we're gonna keep it teacher, exactly right.
00:15:20 JOEL
When they have such a shortage of teachers. Yeah. And they're making it so difficult to actually get in the classroom.
00:15:27 POPPY
The class will end up with CRT teachers for the last term, which no, like CRT teachers are wonderful.
00:15:31 JOEL
Yeah, absolutely. But it's not, it's disruptive to the kids. Yea h.
00:15:35 POPPY
And no pa rents who want that either. They want someone that...
00:15:38 JOEL
The parents were not happy.
00:15:39 POPPY
Yea h.
00:15:39 JOEL
Parents were not happy. But like even since getting my permission to teach and being in the classroom consistently. Like we've seen so much growth in the kids' scores, in even just their social-emotional development, like you're saying, so much more development because it's just me and my learning specialist.
00:15:59 POPPY
Yeah. What do you wish your lecturers understood about home situations as well?
As an educator yourself, because I know it's a bit different when you're an educator or a future educator, you really think through lecturers' eyes sometimes. So I'm really curious to find out what do you think, what do you wish lecturers understood about home situations of students?
00:16:23 JOEL
Yeah, I mean, look, it is hard to pin down because everyone's home situation is different. Like the amount of people I've met through this degree, like they're all so diverse, so different. And everyone's needs are different as well. Which again, I think the assignment size is something that really needs to change. It's not anywhere close to what we do in the real job. So it's in no way preparing us for it. That alone, I think you came up with a statistic about how many hours a trimester?
00:17:06 POPPY
Yeah.
00:17:06 JOEL
It was like 150 hours per unit. So that's over a course of 1 semester. If you're doing 4 units, that's 600 hours.
00:17:14 POPPY
That's huge.
00:17:15 JOEL
Right? I did the math on this as well. If you factor in...Those study hours, your sleep hours, and the fact that in this day and age, you can't not work.
00:17:26 POPPY
While you study? Yeah, no, you can't. It's impossible.
00:17:29 JOEL
You need money, absolutely. Like the cost of living obviously is a huge thing in politics at the moment.
00:17:36 POPPY
Well, a lot of people having to work multiple jobs and that too. 00:17:39 JOEL
100%. Like even me doing four days a week, I'm still doing close to 50 hours.
00:17:43 POPPY
Yeah, it's huge.
00:17:45 JOEL
Like if we're being conservative, I think a lot of people would be, who are studying, would be doing around, you're above and beyond full-time.
00:17:58 POPPY
Yeah. Well, a full-time position is usually 38 to 40 hours. So you're like 10 plus over that, and you're not even a full-time position. You're 0.8 or something like that, I would assume.
00:18:07 JOEL
Yeah. So if you factor in those study hours, work hours and sleep hours, you're already in negatives.
00:18:16 POPPY
Yeah. Something's got to give. Like, and often it will be sleep, unfortunately, which should not be the case.
00:18:21 JOEL
No, you need sleep to function.
00:18:23 POPPY
I'm curious to know, how do you think educators could better support those juggling, caring responsibilities like yourself and work and everything going on in life?
00:18:35 JOEL
Yeah, I mean, the caring responsibilities, so that, again, that everyone's situation is so different. Like, I know...my old man, like he can't really do much for himself.
00:18:47 POPPY
Yeah.
00:18:48 JOEL
So he requires a lot of care, but like I've met other people at Deakin who are caring for people, but their needs aren't as intense or they're more. But I think my main thing is that assignment size and what the assignments actually entail. Rather than doing these 4,000
word essays, like, make that assignment something that's actually going to be relevant to what we're doing.
00:19:12 POPPY
Yeah.
00:19:12 JOEL
Make that assignment a reasonable size that is not going to require, like, an assignment shouldn't require 15 hours of work just for the assignment. It shouldn't.
00:19:21 POPPY
No.
00:19:22 JOEL
Like, again, if I have to, if I'm planning a whole week of lessons, I get 6 hours for that. 15 hours on an assignment compared to that 6 hours of planning.
00:19:33 PIERS
It's too much time.
00:19:34 JOEL
What's the point? I think that assignment size in particular is something that really has to change. What the assignments actually entail as well.
Yeah, I think the assignment size and the actual relevance, I think, like, I know I would feel much more like wanting to do it, if I know it's actually going to benefit me. Yeah.
00:19:54 POPPY
If you knew it was actually going to teach you skills that you're going to use. Yeah. 00:19:57 PIERS
Like being able to visualize what that'll actually do for you and how that will affect your
future.
00:20:02 JOEL
Yeah. 100%. And again, like my needs are different to other people's needs, but like that 150 hours in a trimester per unit, it's not doable. It's not doable. Like with the amount of readings that are like 30, 40 pages. And again, most of it is not relevant. It's not.
00:20:26 POPPY
So, Joel, I think you've kind of answered the question I'm going to ask. But what do you wish your lecturers knew?
00:20:34 JOEL
Most of the syllabus is just not relevant anymore. Like a few years ago, it absolutely was, but it's just not anymore.
00:20:41 POPPY
Yeah.
00:20:42 JOEL
I think they need, like my favorite unit I've done has been a very recent one. It was the first-year arts unit, because I started back in COVID.
00:20:51 POPPY
Oh, the drama. Yes, the drama, arts, dance. 00:20:55 JOEL
Yeah. I actually loved that unit too. I got2 distinctions and a high distinction out of those three. That is relevant.
It's like the teachers that are currently teaching in schools as well. And you can see that.
00:21:10 POPPY
And it was so hands on to like, we were creating, like we, we would like we were teaching whatever the assignment was that we'd created.
And every day when you showed up, you were not sitting in a classroom, you were learning a dance routine, you were doing drama, you were, you, you were learning how to teach art. Like I loved that unit too.
00:21:30 JOEL
And I'll tell you what, I've used that, yeah, like that is something that is relevant, yeah, this stuff on all these old theorists, this stuff on these 4000 word essays, like... again, by Year 7, Eight, like you're not doing more than 1000 words in an essay.
00:21:48 POPPY
Yeah.
00:21:49 JOEL
You're not. And to have to do that and do that, all that academic referencing, as a teacher, you don't reference crap. 00:21:56 JOEL
You don't. You don't need to. Like you're not profiting off it or anything like that.
00:22:01 PIERS
Yeah, absolutely.
00:22:05 JOEL
Like Twinkl, everyone uses. That gives you good stuff to...
00:22:10 POPPY
For reference, listeners, Twinkl is a, it's a website that you can get worksheets and really interactive things for your lessons.
00:22:19 JOEL
Yeah, definitely want to recommend like worksheets all the time, but.
00:22:23 POPPY
It's great for some things to accompany a lesson.
00:22:25 JOEL
Yes, absolutely. You always want that individual practice first, but like if I've got to go and do a small group with a few kids, and I have early finishers, and I'll have worksheets up at the front that they can go on to if they finish their work early. But even how to use those things like Twinkl is such a valuable thing. Even Canva, Canva's used all the time. All the time. Shout out Canva.
But like how do you use that stuff even? Like we use that all the time in teaching. How to use that stuff would be such good material for the lecturers to do.
00:23:03 POPPY
I want to say thank you, Joel. Thank you for sharing your perspective.
Your story has highlighted the need for lecturers to understand that not all students have equal time for support at home and for heavy expectations of full-time study that needs to be balanced against work, ca ring and financial realities as well.
I, for one, have found this episode really, really great and I'm sure the listeners have as well. So thank you so much for your time and your views, they've been really valuable.
00:23:34 PIERS
It's been a super engaging episode. Thanks for coming on.
00:23:36 JOEL
No, all sweet. Thanks for having me, guys.
00:23:38 POPPY
Thank you.
00:23:38 PIERS
Thanks.
Thank you for joining us for another episode of Voices from the Classroom. We hope Joel's story provides some valuable insights that could be potentially considered as part of your education provision.
If you found today's discussion engaging, don't forget to subscribe so you won't miss our next episode. We also welcome any suggestions and topics you'd like for us to delve into. Please share them with us through the link in the podcast notes.
Until next time, keep listening, keep learning, and keep connecting. These aren't just our stories, they're calls for empathy, understanding, and change.