How I fell into teaching

I like to say that I ‘fell’ into teaching, because I feel like I knew I wanted to work with children, but I thought it was going to be in the realm of child protection. Then I did a quick bit of research on that and realised rather quickly that it wasn’t for me. Hats off to the people who do, and keep our young ones safe.

I actually fell into teaching while living abroad in Italy. My friends were heading to London to do the UK thing but I just wasn’t interested in that. Too many Aussies. So, having Italian cousins and already knowing that I loved the culture, I thought ‘why not go and do the live+work overseas thing’ in Italy!

I was a full time, live-in nanny for an American / Italian family, with three bilingual boys. They were 2, 7 and 9 years old. Boy did I learn A LOT about children in the year I spent with them. And boy did I learn it fast! Between school drop off and pick up I attended Italian classes and slowly learnt the language. It took me at least two years, living there full time for me to feel somewhat comfortable speaking Italian. I lived there for 5 years and even up to the week before I left, I still planned what I would say on a phone call!

While living with this family I heard of an Aussie couple in my same suburb! This was amazing because I lived in an outer suburb of Bologna, called Monte San Pietro and it really was a small town of its own. I managed to track them down and a beautiful friendship begun. They owned a Business English School in town and offered me a job right away! After finishing up with the family, I completed a TEFL (Teach English as a Foreign Language) Certificate in Florence. I got the fast train to Florence every week (I know I know, how horrible!) to study the one month course. Fun fact, the fast train travels up to 350km/hour. But not when there’s a blizzard in Bologna and over 1 metre of snow it doesn’t!

Qualified to teach English as a foreign language, I begun teaching adults English in their workplace. I remember giving a lesson on slang. It was quite funny to hear an Italian pronunciation of wassup and whaddayadoin?

Then, a friend of a friend of a friend who knew somebody (cos that’s how it works in Italy) got me a job in a real school teaching English to primary school children! It was kind of a bit sudden but I jumped at the chance. Never mind the 50 minute drive. In the dark both ways in winter too! So I found myself at a small school in a small town called Sant’Agata Bolognese. And just around the corner was the Lamborghini factory! (With no test lap at the factory, we would often see, and hear, Lamborghini’s flying past the school!)

I was very far from anyone who spoke any English and I was teaching children from 3 years of age in the nido, (the childcare centre on the bottom level. Nido translates as ‘birds nest’, how sweet!) up to children in fifth grade, the last year of primary school, in the top two levels. Let me remind you that I had not completed a degree at this stage! I had gone overseas for the experience! And here I was a full blown teacher in an Italian primary school, floundering my way through lessons, writing reports, allocating grades, doing parent interviews. Yikes.

I remember my first lesson, I was petrified! I had something scribbled in a notebook, but of course, that’s not what actually happened.

I stumbled through two years, not knowing if I was even teaching them the right things. I wasn’t even given a curriculum! I was given a student workbook and I based my whole year off that one book. Of course, as time went on, I branched out and found my groove (kind of) and became slightly more confident in what I was doing.

I remember the playground was bare concrete. And it was small. There were 5 classes of children in the one area and in the middle of winter playground duty was not my favourite time of day, let me tell you! We would pile on jackets, gloves, scarves, beanies, even snow boots for a mere half hour outside! Then we’d come back in and take it all off again. Lots of time in winter was spent dressing and undressing. School went from 8am to 4:30pm.

So there I was, teaching English to 3, 4 and 5 year olds in the nido and classes 1-5 in the primary school, AND adults. I realised that this was what I was meant to do. The kid thing, not the teaching adults. I don’t mind teaching adults, but my heart lies in supporting the development of little humans.

I returned to Australia after 5 years and applied for a Bachelor of Education in Brisbane. I threw myself into uni and readjusted to life back in this beautiful country. Straight out of uni, I approached a school in Brisbane that has a prominent Italian department. They teach Italian from Prep to Year 6, they had exchange students (with accompanying parent) visit their school and attend lessons, they even sent teachers on professional development to their sister schools in Italy. As a fresh graduate, I had something that no other graduate did at the time - the Italian aspect! Unfortunately before I could apply for that trip to Italy all expenses paid by Ed Qld, travel shut down and well, you know what happened there.

So there’s my story on how I fell into teaching. Even though I didn’t grow up wanting to be a teacher, I truly believe I have found my calling.