With that in mind, the latest series of popular podcast Teachers Supporting Teachers is delving into why it might be a life-changing and soul enriching experience for beginning teachers to not only consider a placement in a rural, remote or regional location, but also look at teaching long-term, far from the hustle and bustle of suburban life.

The podcast, hosted by Edith Cowan University (ECU) ITE experts Professor Narelle Lemon and Marnie Harris, aims to provide a platform for meaningful discussions and insights that support pre-service and current teachers navigating diverse educational landscapes.  

Teachers Supporting Teachers emerged in 2019 as an informative discussion between four principals and a senior teacher aimed at pre-service and established teachers who were navigating the pandemic, and having to suddenly teach from their kitchen table.

It has morphed and evolved into a broadly encompassing nine series of podcasts, covering everything from first-hand accounts of teaching overseas to interviewing a range of education experts to mini-wellbeing practical exercises – short, sharp episodes of 5-10 minutes – for teachers feeling nervous prior to heading into the classroom.

Harris says for the latest series, a range of experienced and not-so-experienced guests linked to rural, remote and regional settings, make for an enlightening and often humorous listen.

“We’ve got a graduate teacher who went on professional experience in a remote location and is now working there,” she says.

“We have a pre-service teacher in their final year who’s done an international placement over in New Zealand and another here in WA in Northam (100kms north east of Perth).”

“…Series 9 is for pre-service teachers who are thinking of going, but are not quite sure, that have questions they want answered, and new graduates who are thinking of going regional, rural and remote and want to hear more.”

With insights from Kimberley region principals, Lemon says the podcast is also aimed at school leaders in rural, remote and regional settings who are eager to learn more about how to attract beginning teachers to their schools, and perhaps more importantly, keep them there for longer than a few years.

“So principals who are thinking about, ‘we’ve got teacher shortages, we really want people to come to these locations, but what can we do to support them when they’re there?’” Lemon explains.

“Our principals really give some just amazing advice and ideas about what they do to support pre-service teachers to not only help them to thrive on their professional experience, but stay afterwards, because they’ve just made that experience so amazing, and the support that they provide.”

Lemon says there are a host of reasons why teachers aren’t heading beyond big city or town boundaries.

“But one of the things that I think features is that fear, or not being sure what you’re going to experience, so it’s just easier to say no, or to not consider it.

“So the podcast really has that feature of being able to talk through those different intricacies of what it’s like when you’re there and ... Manny and I were just so appreciative of how the principals holistically think about future colleagues and fellow colleagues, whether they’re teachers graduated or pre-service teachers, and how they consider them as a part of the community.”

The principals, she says, talk about what belonging looks like and the things that they do, professionally, to help new-to-the-area teachers settle and adjust.

“...but also personally, finding out what their hobbies are, and then pairing them with people in the community to do a random knock on the door and say ‘Hey, I heard you love fishing, we’re going fishing in a couple of hours - do you want to come and join us?'

“And so thinking through, ‘what does it mean to be connected, to contribute to feel a sense of belonging?’, because if you feel that, then that comes to you in in your work, and how you work with young people and colleagues and the community.”

Through in-depth interviews and reflective discussions, the podcast explores the multifaceted nature of teaching in regional, rural and remote Australia. 

While it is not raised in the podcast, Harris says a lack of income support and having to spend time away from part time jobs are a big hurdle for pre-service teachers considering placements in rural, regional and remote areas.

“They can’t work while they’re unprofessionally experienced when they go there, so funding for going there, but also finding accommodation, it’s really tricky,” she says.

“Those who do find a way go, when they get there, they have the most amazing experience and the money that they have to pay is worth the experience, but a lot of them are missing those opportunities because they don’t have the funding or the accommodation to go to take it up.”

Harris hopes the university accord with regards to paid placements might soon help.

In terms of equipping ITE students for their roles post-graduation, regardless of their location, one can’t help but ask what the top priorities of Harris and Lemon might be?

“That’s a juicy question,” Lemon says, laughing.

“There are three things that are incredibly important. The first is reflective practice and that skill where you’re always reflecting, reflexive, you’re having conversations with colleagues and others,” she says.

“I think another aspect is that you’re learning and you’re always learning - so that means you’re extending yourself with your pedagogy, with curriculum understanding, forming communities in the classroom, those sorts of things that you’re always learning about yourself, how you enact those, what’s new? What’s working?

“And I think the third is building a wellbeing literacy, so how do you talk about your wellbeing for yourself? How do you care for yourself in order to care for your students?”

Lemon says she and her colleagues are doing ‘a massive amount’ in terms of ‘how do we talk about wellbeing? ‘What is wellbeing?’ ‘What does self care look like?’

“And I think initial teacher education and as a pre-service teacher, establishing that and knowing how to talk about that, and how you build your self-care toolbox, and ongoing work with that, while studying to be a teacher, and then taking that out to the profession, is incredibly important.”

Harris concurs, and says this is especially significant for teachers in rural, remote and regional Australia, where new teachers are away from their support network and are relying on wellbeing strategies in order to support themselves first and foremost, when they’re out there.

“A big part of my role is to prepare pre-service teachers before they go on placement. So when they’re going regional and remote, for me, it’s a lot about developing that cultural awareness and cultural appreciation.

“They learn a lot while they’re there, but I think if we can develop that a little bit before they go, then they’re not sort of going out there with next to no knowledge, which a lot of them don’t have...”