Career goes with a bang

By Casey Neill
MONTROSE Primary School’s Ann Collins had an unconventional start to her 40-year teaching career.
“I was actually a laboratory technician at a high school,” she said.
“But it was a period of time when they were really, really short of science teachers so I was given a full teaching load.”
Ms Collins will never forget her first class.
“I had to teach astronomy, what was called the Big Bang Theory, in the first lesson I had these Year 10 students,” she said.
The 64-year-old didn’t think she’d still be around four decades later.
“I probably thought ‘that’s way too old to be still teaching’,” she said.
The Education Department recently recognised Ms Collins for her service to teaching.
She said it was a nice feeling to think her work was appreciated and acknowledged.
“When I thought back I thought ‘how have I survived that long?’,” she said.
“I think the challenges and variety. I’ve done lots of different things.”
Ms Collins aspired to become a teacher or a laboratory technician when she completed school and initially chose the latter.
She worked in medical research in the city for six years and turned to teaching for employment in the suburbs after she got married.
Continuing in secondary school classrooms didn’t appeal so she completed primary school teacher training in 1975.
“Aspects of the science teaching were interesting, but I thought primary teaching was more my scene,” she said.
Ms Collins served in classroom, physical education, art and library teacher positions at various schools before arriving at Montrose Primary School in 1994.
She has worked part time since 2000, focussing on reading recovery training and currently shares a Grade 3 class.
“Being in the grade has its rewards in that you’ve got more of an overall influence on the children,” she said.
“You can sort of get to know them and try to get them to work to their potential.”
“But then doing one to one in reading recovery was very good because you really got down to the nitty gritty.”
She said she couldn’t pinpoint a favourite role.
“I think you set a challenge and different roles have got different perspectives that you take on,” she said.
Ms Collins said mixing things up and creating new goals was a key to her longevity.
“I still think I’ve got stacks to learn and it keeps you young in a way,” she said. “although I’m sure the kids think I’m ancient.”
But she said classrooms today weren’t that different from those 40 years ago.
“You’ve got your children and you’ve still got your books and your blackboard,” she said.
“It’s sort of going with change but at the same time keeping those basic values of helping children.”
This is likely to be Ms Collins’s final year in the classroom.
“But you never know,” she said.