health
A job that changed me: I was teaching in a juvenile detention centre when a repeat offender’s poetry moved me to tears
On my first day, I was terrified. But I quickly came to realise these young people weren’t irredeemably bad
TL;DR
- The author transitioned from a 25-year career in sports reporting and production to teaching after his media company failed.
- He retrained as a high school teacher and began working at the Parkville Youth Justice Precinct, a maximum-security facility.
- His initial days were filled with fear and exposure to aggressive behavior and violence from students.
- A pivotal moment occurred when a student named Jimmy, who struggled with literacy, expressed a desire to learn to read after the author shared reading with his daughter.
- Jimmy later showed significant progress in his reading skills, demonstrating the positive impact of the author's teaching.
- The author realized the young people at the precinct were not inherently bad, but often shaped by difficult childhoods.
- After two years at Parkville, he moved to Saints College, an alternative school, and deeply values his teaching career, finding it more fulfilling than his previous profession.