Aug. 10, 2022

Helping great teachers grow and ending the coward punch

Mike Broadstock learns about the work that the Pat Cronin Foundation does in schools to help end the coward punch with Pat's father, Matt Cronin, and Natalie Moutafis speaks with Haileybury master teacher Clare Mackie about the Teaching Excellence Program at the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership.

Timestamps for this episode's content:

Mike Broadstock talks with Matt Cronin about the Pat Cronin Foundation: 0:30

Natalie Moutafis discusses the Teacher Excellence Program with Clare Mackie about the Teaching Excellence Program: 20:21

Links to what we discussed:

Pat Cronin Foundation  

Be Wise app 

Teaching Excellence Program at the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership 

Clare Mackie’s Teachers Talk Texts podcast 

Haileybury  

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Transcript

Note: isPodcast is produced for listening and is designed to be heard. We encourage you to listen to the audio, as it includes emotion and emphasis that’s not on the page. While every care is taken, our transcripts may contain errors.   

Shane Green: 

Hi everyone. And welcome back to isPodcast, ISV’s show for schools and the wider community. I'm Shane Green. On today's episode Natalie Moutafis speaks with Haileybury master teacher, Clare Mackie about the Teaching Excellence Program at the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership. And Mike Broadstock finds out about the work that Pat Cronin Foundation does in schools to help end the coward punch, talking with Pat's father, Matt Cronin.  

Matt and Robin Cronin established the Pat Cronin Foundation after their son, Pat, was killed by an unprovoked single coward punch without warning while he was out with his friends. The foundation now delivers presentations in schools, community groups, and sporting clubs with the aim of empowering young Australians to handle conflict, look after their mates and make wise decisions, and to end the crowd punch for good. Matt Cronin joined Mike to talk about the foundation's work and how we can all help our kids keep safe. 

Michael Broadstock: 

Welcome to isPodcast, Matt. 

Matt Cronin: 

Yeah. Thanks for having me, Mike. 

Michael Broadstock: 

So Matt, please tell us Pat's story and why it drove you to create the foundation. 

Matt Cronin: 

Yeah, look, it goes back to a very fateful day in April 2016. We'd had a really good day in our family, only a couple of days before when both Pat and Lucas, Pat's brother, were named to play senior football together for the very first time for the Lower Plenty Football Club. So on Saturday, April the 16th, the boys went out to play a game of footy together, senior football together. Very first time. And it was a great day for the family. 

Unfortunately, the boys got beaten by 90 points, which wasn't such a great result in terms of the footy team, but they were just so excited about the fact that they're playing senior football together and not just playing as brothers, but teammates and mates moving forward. That night, when the boys got home, they went about their usual after-match routines. And then Lucas just offered to Pat. He said, “Pat, hey, do you want a lift somewhere?” And Pat said no. And then Pat said to Lucas, “Do you want a lift somewhere?” And he said, “No, I'm okay.” And then Pat said, “Okay, see ya.” And we watched him walk out the door and he never came home. 

So, our lives were thrown into turmoil from that day. Later that night, Pat went to a local cafe eatery in Diamond Creek. So not far from where we live here in Eltham. And it was the place that families would be happy to take their children, but it was a licenced venue. It wasn't a pub. It wasn't a nightclub. It was the sort of place where they'd have live music on a Saturday night and it was a pretty casual place to go to. So we were pretty comfortable with the fact that Pat was going out to somewhere like that so close to home. But a fight happened at the venue and Pat wasn't caught up in the fight, but one of his friends was. And at one point, his friend was being attacked, so Pat went to his assistance to pull him away from trouble. 

And when he did so he was coward punched. Punched from behind with no chance of being able to defend himself. He didn't get knocked out. He didn't hit the ground. And Pat was walking and talking almost immediately after being punched from behind. But you could see that he'd been hit. There was no cut. There was no bruises. There was nothing obvious from the exterior that this was a problem. So Pat walked back to his friend's place, which wasn't too far from the venue. He and his mates, a few of them had been punched during the fight. And Pat went about...he was ready to go to bed. Two hours later, he woke up complaining of feeling sick and he had a seizure and he never regained consciousness. 

Michael Broadstock: 

And so what drove you to create that foundation from there? I mean, a lot of people might not, but you wanted to do something. 

Matt Cronin: 

Yeah, we did. Look, we've always been community minded people, whether it's been from the time that we had kids, even perhaps even before we had kids. We know we were involved in work, social clubs and things like that. But when the kids came along, we were involved in the kinder and then they went to primary school and Auskick, you name it. Wherever the kids were involved, we were involved. And after we made the agonising decision to turn Pat's life support off two days later, the next day we opened our doors at home and we had couple of hundred people probably come just to literally put their arms around us. And it was a conversation on our back verandah where someone, a good friend of mine, Steve who's involved in the foundation now, Steve O'Malley, Steve said, “Mate, we have to do something about this.” He was involved in the White Ribbon Foundation, which you may have heard of, violence against women. And he said, “There's just nothing out there that seems to address this issue for men.” So that was when the seeds of the foundation were formed. And our intention, I guess, with the foundation is to honour Pat with what we do, but we also just want to make sure that no other family has to go through the pain and suffering that we've had to go through either. 

Michael Broadstock: 

Thanks for telling us that story. Now you go out to schools and you deliver the Be Wise presentations to them. What do you and your ambassadors tell students? 

Matt Cronin: 

Look, I guess in the first instance, we share Pat's story. We had a video or a documentary recorded only a matter of months after Pat passed away. When we set up the foundation, I wanted to record something and I really didn't know what the message was going to be, but... Well, I was just thinking seriously, a 60 second film clip, something that we could put on a website or put on a social media. Then we got introduced to a fellow by the name of Reuben Street and Reuben, he's an independent filmmaker. And Reuben listened to our story and he just thought that there was something more to be shared. So we recorded a series of interviews in August of 2016, and that's pretty central to the presentation that we deliver to the kids. And it's raw, it's hard hitting. 

We only used 10 minutes of the documentary in the presentations, but when we first presented that to students, we just didn't quite understand the reception that we would get, the reaction. And here we are almost six years later, and we get the same reaction even today as we did six years ago when it was recorded. And I think it's because people look at Pat and they just think that it could have been them. They've been at a party, they'd been out and they've seen someone throw a punch. And I think all of a sudden, the story becomes real because they can easily put themselves in the shoes of where Pat was that night, going to help a friend, and for no reason whatsoever, to be punched from behind with no ability to defend himself. 

I think people can connect with that story. We do share that. Pat's story is very central to what we talk about. But ultimately, what we're trying to achieve is to empower our young people to make wise decisions. We want to give them strategies that if they are confronted with situations like Pat was that night, what can they do? How can they avoid this thing happening again? And ultimately, we are quite deliberate in calling it a coward punch. It's not a king hit, it's not a one punch, it's a coward punch. And we really want to put a negative connotation on that. So, I'll take my hat off to Danny Green and his stop the coward punch campaign because Danny is... I guess in some ways, he very much popularised the phrase “coward punch”, and we want to continue that because no one wants to be called a coward. 

Michael Broadstock: 

No. When you do your Be Wise presentations, are you trying to reach people who are at risk of violence or those who might be drawn to it or both? 

Matt Cronin: 

Look, it's a bit of both. And this might sound strange coming from someone as Pat's dad. We're trying to actually bring an optimistic voice to this. I don't want to be a fearmonger. Yes, there is violence out there and it's still happening today, but I'm firmly of the belief that let's say 98 per cent of people are good people. And I want to reach out to those 98 per cent, not just the two per cent offenders. So we do address both sides of it. And I would say the majority of our audiences, again, yeah, 95 to 98 per cent are probably never going to throw a cowed punch, but we need to make sure that they feel comfortable in their environment. We've got to teach them strategies, as I say, our Be Wise strategies, if you like to say, Well, what can they do if someone's coming at them? How can they de-escalate the situation if you like? 

But at the same time, absolutely we address the offender. So we do share Pat's story as a victim's story, but we also address the consequences of these sorts of acts. The fact that the moment that the person throws that punch, in fact, they've lost all power at that point. They might think they're in a powerful position by throwing a punch, but once that punch is thrown, they're totally out of control what happens next. The person they hit, they don't know whether they're going to hit them in the temple like Pat was hit. And it fractured his skull. 

That's what that punch did. It didn't knock him out. He didn't hit the ground like you see some of these sickening attacks on the news, but the fact is it did as much, if not more damage, because Pat never recovered from it. So we talk about consequences, about not just to the victim, but also to the offender. So what are the outcomes? So we talk about the fact that Pat's killer was jailed. He's still in jail today. He's not going to be in jail for much longer, which is another issue altogether, but there's consequences for him for the rest of his life. And people need to understand that. 

Michael Broadstock: 

It seems like they don't have the tools themselves, the offenders that is, to deal with the confrontation themselves. They seem to go from one to 11. 

Matt Cronin: 

Yeah. Agree. And some of the analogies that we use is that, I'll give my age away, I'm about to turn 58 on Friday. And I grew up at an age where you didn't wear seat belts. Seat belts weren't compulsory, but they bought them in in the 70s and look what they did to the road toll. Drink, drive, bloody idiot. That campaign, has it eliminated drink driving? No it hasn't, but it's significantly reduced it. And I just think of the kids of today, that they wouldn't get in a car without the car beeping at them to tell them to put seat belts on. Or their friends, if they're out and about, I do believe in young people, and if they see one of their friends about to jump in a car after they've had a few drinks, kids are grabbing the keys off them. And that says to me, that gives me the optimism to say that what if we can teach the kids the right strategies to deal with how to manage conflict better, then that's got to be a good thing for all of us. 

Michael Broadstock: 

Yeah. Do students ever get in touch with you to tell you how the presentation changed them or affected them? 

Matt Cronin: 

Yeah. Yeah. Look, we have. We get stories all the time. We do get feedback after each presentation that we do, we send a survey. In fact, we send a survey, pre the presentation and post the presentation. And what we are seeing already is trends with those surveys of how attitudes are changing just from one presentation that lasts 45 minutes to an hour. But we've got to embed the learning. I was a maths student nerd, if you like, at school, physics and chemistry and pure and applied maths back in the day. But how did I get to know that stuff? I had to train, I had to be taught, and I had to remember those things. So it's only through teaching and learning those things that you can have those skill sets. And our belief is that violence is a learned behaviour. 

So if violence is a learned behaviour, then being anti-violent is also a learned behaviour. So we've got to teach the kids, give them the strategies. And then our 45 minute to an hour Be Wise presentation is fantastic, but how else can we then embed that? So we've got a few extra tools that we've got soon to be released. We've got some e-learning modules that we will be encouraging all of our schools who take on a Be Wise's presentation, we'll be encouraging schools to take up those e-learning modules. And this is a self-paced e-learning packages that each student can just go through at their own pace, with learning experiences along the way. And that just helps to embed it. We've got a Be Wise app. So we've introduced our own app just before Christmas last year. 

And the app is a way for our story to stay in the pockets of young Australians. So we use some technology in there such as if you walk up the steps of the MCG, you'll get a little message sent to you. And we know the kids check their mobile phones every five seconds. So they'll pick up the phone, they'll see a little message there. And it just says, “Hey, Mike. Looks like you're heading out to the MCG. Have a great time. Look after your friends and look after yourself.” Pretty simple little tap on the shoulder. 

Now maybe, just maybe, that little tap on the shoulder might stick with the person for the rest of the night. We've also geofenced all the nightclub areas. So I know for our student population, they're not going out to nightclubs or maybe the older kids might be, but the younger ones not, but they are going to sporting venues. They have seen violence at sporting venues. They're going out to parties and things like that. So with these little taps on the shoulder, just a little reminder without being in their face, it just might say, yeah, I remember that story about that kid called Pat Cronin and the consequences of what can happen if you do the wrong thing. 

Michael Broadstock: 

A lot of anti-bullying programs commonly refer to not being a bystander to violence and sticking up for your mates and so on, but Pat was sadly killed just doing that. How do we help our kids resolve confrontations without being hurt? 

Matt Cronin: 

Yeah. And look, it's tough, and Robin and I, Pat's mum, we struggle with this one every day because Pat did exactly what we told him to do. If one of your friends is in trouble, go and help them. So the bystander thing is absolutely important, but we importantly... That night, and we talk about this a lot, is that Pat had a choice. He could have gone in and thrown a punch at the person who was attacking his friend, or he could have gone in and grabbed his friend like he did and dragged him away. The person who killed Pat had exactly the same choice, and yet he chose to throw a coward punch. And that's the bit that we really are struggling with, to be honest. But what we then think is maybe we couldn't have changed the person who threw that punch, but perhaps we might have been able to change one of his friends. 

And if one of his friends had of seen that. So we talk about scenarios. Let's say, you've got a couple of students who are at a party. You've got the, let's call it the wise behaviour, the bystander in this case, but they see one of their friends about to get involved in a fight. Well, what can they do to then stop that fight? So, it might be something like a distraction. It might be just a case of just bumping their friend. Don't bump the other person, but bump the friend. So in football terms, and Pat loved playing footy, but he wasn't just a footballer, he was a really smart kid. He had a scholarship at university and everything. But in footy terms, we might talk about putting a block on or a shepherd, the little one percenters that coaches talk about. 

That's the thing that bystanders can do. But we also talk about the fact that if you're in a situation and it feels toxic, get out of there. Just don't be there. We know people now after the event who were at the Windy Mile venue that night when Pat was killed, and they said that they walked in and they said it felt uneasy. So they actually left. So really, sometimes you just got to trust your gut. And we tell that to the kids. If they go to a party, they're walking down the street and they sense trouble, and this is equally as important for boys and girls, right? 

So, the girls, when we talk to our mixed audiences, we often talk about the fact that their radars are up a lot more than what the boys are. So they're probably in tune more with situations that might get out of hand pretty quickly. So it's a great opportunity for the girls to maybe lead the boy that they're with by the elbow and just cross the other side of the road or turn around and go the other way or just get the heck out there. 

Michael Broadstock: 

Yeah. My parents used to tell me if I was ever in a situation at a party where I wasn't comfortable or wasn't feeling safe, just give them a call, no questions asked. They'd come pick me up. Even when I was older. What things can parents do to help their kids keep safe when they're going out? Especially when alcohol and other drugs become a factor. 

Matt Cronin: 

Yeah. Look, I think it's all of these things that we've been talking about, Mike. Talk to your kids about this. If they're looking for some tips on how to deal with their children, go to our website, patcroninfoundation.org.au. Just Google search Pat Cronin Foundation, it'll come up. We've got some tips on there for parents to discuss with their kids. How do you raise these things? The other thing I'll say for parents is encourage the school, whether it's the school that the kids attend or the footy club or the netball club or the basketball club, encourage them to contact the foundation and organise a presentation. 

Matt Cronin: 

Our mission is that we want to end the coward punch and we can't do it on our own. We need everyone's help to do that. So, our little bit that we are trying to do is making ourselves available. We've got a team of wonderful presenters who will go out to schools and clubs and get a message out there, share these stories so that kids can learn from this and take away some strategies that they'll be able to implement for the rest of their lives. 

Michael Broadstock: 

Is it having an effect or is there a long way to go? The foundation's work that is. 

Matt Cronin: 

Look, I think there is a long way to go, but it is having an effect, no doubt. When we get feedback from a teacher the day after our presentation to say that the behaviour in the schoolyard the next day was different, that's incredible to me. And I think this is where Pat's story, as I say, it's six years since he died, but it's having as equal and effect today as it did six years ago. And sadly, it's a timeless story that we are going to have to live with for every last day of our existence. But as Pat's dad and Pat's mum, the thing that we can do is that we can honour Pat by sharing his story. 

He wasn't a troublemaker. He was just the boy next door. And if we can share a story about Pat and people listen and change behaviours, like drink drive, like seat belts, then I'm optimistic that we can make a difference. And we are making a difference and I know that fights have stopped because of people sharing Pat's story. The hard one for us is how do we measure the punch that never gets thrown? But I'm a firm believer that we can change. Yeah, no doubt. 

Michael Broadstock: 

Well, thanks very much for joining us, Matt, and sharing Pat's story. We really appreciate you being with us. We'll put links to your website and to your apps and so on in the show description. Thanks again. 

Matt Cronin: 

Thanks Mike. Appreciate it. 

Shane Green: 

Just over a year ago, the Victorian Government established a new body, the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership, with the aim of delivering advanced professional learning for high performing teachers in government, Catholic and Independent schools. Over the last year, academics, educators, and representatives from all three education sectors have developed a new program, the Teaching Excellence Program, to meet that goal. Master teachers, experts in their field, were hand-picked to curate and facilitate the learning experience. Natalie Moutafis spoke to one of the experts from the Independent sector, leading Haileybury English teacher Clare Mackie, about how the Teaching Excellence Program is extending our best and brightest educators. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Hi Clare, thanks for joining us on isPodcast today. How are you? 

Clare Mackie: 

I'm very well, Natalie. It's so nice to chat to you today. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

So we've got you here today because we're talking about the Teaching Excellence Program, which is run through the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership, and you are one of the master teachers. Can you tell me a little bit more about your role as a master teacher? 

Clare Mackie: 

Indeed, indeed. It's a very impressive sounding role, I think. I always say I work within the teaching Excellence Program in the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership. But effectively, despite the name being Master Teacher, I would say it's almost a little bit of a misnomer. I'm an English teacher, so the definitions of words are something I enjoy. Really, I would say the role is about facilitating coaching, guiding, questioning for our participants. At a base level, we set up the educational and professional learning opportunities for the participants in the program. So there are 250 participants this year. We're looking for 500 next year, so the program will double. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Wow. 

Clare Mackie: 

Yeah, it's huge. And in English we have, I want to say around, I should know exactly, this is terrible, but I think we have around 60 participants. So I work alongside another Master Teacher of English, Johanna Simmons, and we plan together the learning experiences for our English participants within the English disciplines. 

So that's probably the base level part of our remit. We reach out to leaders in English education in a number of different fields and we organise for them to facilitate master classes with us, which are intended to be provocative, challenging learning experiences. And they're intended to be provocative, so rather than coming along to a PD and learning about something and getting some handouts and going back into your classroom immediately, what we're really looking for our participants to do is for them to be a bit challenged, maybe experience a sense of disequilibrium in regards to their practice and really reflect meaningfully on what they're doing in the classroom in order to improve. 

I think that's what really sets the TEP apart from my perspective. That's not all that we do. We also do school visits. So part of the program is going out into schools and seeing teachers in their native environment all over Victoria. So I was lucky enough to travel up to Cohuna, which is about 45 minutes northwest of Echuca right up on the boarder near Moama, to visit, we have a couple of participants at a school up there. Our teachers have flown out to Mildura, all sorts of things all over Victoria. So we also get an opportunity to get an idea of what the landscape of education is across the whole state of Victoria, which is really, really exciting. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

And that's across all the sectors as well, which you point out. So it's not just Independent, it's Catholic and it's also government? 

Clare Mackie: 

And government. So from my perspective, I've always worked in Independent. I was lucky enough to be hired at the school that I myself went to as a graduate. That situation where the job comes up when you're finishing your teaching degree and you throw your hat in the ring. And they took a chance on me and then I've stayed in the Independent sector for over a decade. So my understanding of the Catholic and the government sectors was really quite limited coming in. And I've now had a chance to be in classrooms all over Victoria, virtually or physically. And I get to call that my job, which is a bit exciting. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

It's pretty amazing, really, isn't it? 

Clare Mackie: 

It is. It really, really is. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

And so I should point out, you are an English Master teacher, but I think there's eight disciplines that it covers? So arts, HPE, humanities. 

Clare Mackie: 

Yeah. So there's eight different disciplines. And so if teachers are looking to participate in the program or work as a Master Teacher in the program, you nominate the discipline that you, I guess, would- 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Specialise in... 

Clare Mackie: 

Yeah, that you'd consider. I mean, I'm an English and humanities teacher. But over the years, I've tended to specialise more in English, and so that's where I'd say my expertise is. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Okay. So we've got applications are currently open for teachers to apply for next year. They close at the end of August. So what would you say to someone who might be going, “Oh yeah, this might be something I'm interested in. Might not be. I don't know if I'm good enough,” or what's the thought process, do you think? 

Clare Mackie: 

Yeah. Great question. If I'm in a case study, when I heard first heard about the program last year, it was in the design stages and I've finished my master's, I've been teaching for about a decade, I'm a head of department. You wouldn't necessarily need to be to do the program to be in a position of leadership, but I'd say that I've got to a point in my career where I'm feeling quite confident about my skills in English. I don't know everything by any means. And I was unsure about, am I the person that this program is looking for? And I think the fact that I was a little bit tentative about it is almost the reason why I was the right fit for the program. So I think the participants we have in the program and the master teachers that we have all come from a real point of humility and vulnerability about their practice. 

It's a place where we share, we challenge each other. We open ourselves up to critical scrutiny. That's a big part of the process and the learning process. So if you're sitting and listening to this and you're thinking, “That sounds really amazing, I'd love to be part of it, but I just don't know if I am quite good enough or I am a discipline expert yet,” I would say, please apply because I think when you're in that mode of your career, that's the point where the program can be really impactful because it really helps you take that next step in your discipline knowledge. So you've got enough knowledge that you have expertise, you're maybe the person that people come to with questions, but this program really helps you bed down some of those skills, expand others, and be really challenged across all facets of, in our case, English discipline education, but across whatever discipline you choose to specialise in. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Okay. And we should point out that you don't have to be 10 or 15 years- 

Clare Mackie: 

No, that's true. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

... into your career. I think the minimum's three years, so three years are still a fairly short period of time having- 

Clare Mackie: 

We have some fantastic participants who are in the first five years of their career. I'm just astounded by them. That's really true. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Yeah. So don't be put off by the fact that some teachers are going to have this wealth of experience and knowledge. That's not what it's about. 

Clare Mackie: 

No, it's beautiful. We have teachers who are 20 plus years working in collaborative inquiry groups with teachers who are in the first five years of their career, and they're both positioned as equals in that, because that's the way the program works. It's not about what status you are or how many years of teaching you've had, it's really about your mindset and coming in with a really open and interested and curious mindset about this amazing job that we get to do. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

So stepping back, so I'm a teacher that's interested. How does it benefit the school? So the school I'm working in, what's the benefit for them if I participate in the TEP? 

Clare Mackie: 

That's a really good question. I think, first and foremost, the connections and the networking made in a cross sectoral fashion, I'd have to say that is one of the things that's really stood out. We're only really six months into the course, in the first iteration of it. We also have teachers say, “I found my people. Oh, I found the other people,” who maybe aren't in your school, but the ones who just love education and love teaching and love chatting about the reading wars or whatever it is. They're really finding a sense of connection, and we're finding teachers are connecting in a cross-sectoral fashion too. So we tend to silo, I think, in Victorian education. I don't think that's an unfair thing to say. I will probably know more Independent teachers across English teaching in Melbourne than I do government or Catholic. But because of the way our program is set up, because it is cross-sectoral, teachers are able to learn more about what's happening in other sectors and gain insights and best practice from the initiatives. 

Because there's incredible initiatives happening across all three sectors, we just don't tend to have the opportunity to share that. So that would be the first thing. I think the second thing is because of the importance of the program, because of the support of the program, we are able to get in the most incredible speakers, and the learning that we are doing. We had Stan Grant as a keynote speaker. We've had John Hattie come in in conversation with our CEO, Marcia Devlin. From an English perspective, we can go to all of the universities all over Australia. We can look internationally to have people coming to share and collaborate with us. And the scope of that is quite outside what an individual school is perhaps able to do. So from the school's perspective, a teacher coming into the program is being exposed to the most incredible array of ideas that they can then bring back to their school and bring back to their leadership and share with them. 

I just think the value of that is so important. It does take some time commitment, but in the same way that a school maybe might support a teacher in completing some postgraduate study, I think the learning that even I have had as a Master Teacher, I'm not even a participant in this program, I'm in the setting up of this program, has been really instrumental in my perspective as an educator even in six months. But the time invested is well worth it. Because I think in education, time is money. Isn't it, really? Our days are blocked around physical time in the classroom, all those things. There's that fantastic Dylan Williams story. I don't know if you've heard it, but he talks of a wood cutter in the forest and he's chopping down trees and there's just so many trees. All you can see. He has to chop them all down and someone walks past and says to him, “What are you doing?” 

And he says, “I've got to chop all these trees down. There's so many trees. I've got to chop them down.” And the person walking past notices that the axe of the wood cutter is blunt. And he said to him, “Why don't you just stop and sharpen your axe and you'll chop your trees down faster?” and the wood cutter's like, “No, I don't have time. I don't have time. I've got to keep going.” I think analogously, that is teaching. Sometimes it's really hard to stop cutting down the trees and sharpening our axe because it takes time out of, and away from, yes, from our students, maybe from our schools, but the impact you have when you return with a sharpened axe is just incredible. So that would be my message to any principals or- 

Natalie Moutafis: 

It's a great analogy. 

Clare Mackie: 

It's so good. Come and chat to me about why it's good to sharpen your axe. Yeah, I couldn't advocate more for it. 

Natalie Moutafis: 

Fantastic. 

Shane Green: 

isPodcast is brought to you by Independent Schools Victoria. It's produced and recorded by Duncan MacLean and presented by Michael Broadstock, Natalie Moutafis, and me, Shane Green. Our podcast theme was composed and performed by Duncan. And there are transcripts of our show with links to what we've discussed at podcast.iseducation.com.au 

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