RETIREMENT plans have replaced lessons and textbooks as a career spanning almost four decades comes to an end for former Rosewood teacher, Karen Douglas.
Before students at St Brigid’s Catholic Primary School were under her tutorage, she taught at the Queensland Museum in Toowoomba and a school in Canberra.
Moving came naturally, as a military kid she attended 13 different schools before graduating Year 12.
Graduating didn’t slow things down or bring change.
Karen remained in education, completing a teaching degree and dedicating her life to it.
She’s taught at St Mary’s Catholic Primary School in Beaudesert and All Saints School Boonah, too.
When she graduated teacher’s college in 1986, she was 30-years-old.
Those days she was considered a ‘late bloomer’.
Today’s world is different, the pressure to know ‘what you want to be’ the moment you graduate high school is no longer there.
Karen’s interest in teaching began as a family day care mother and time spent as a teacher aide at a small Catholic school near her home in Canberra.
It was a time when teachers had to make their own subject resources.
“There were no computers and websites to download content from, no power point either,” she said.
“You’d sit up at night and on weekends, cutting, colouring and contacting lesson resources.
“There wasn’t even a laminator or photocopier.”
She drew on her experiences as a child to guide how she treated students in her care.
“I had a Grade 5 teacher who gave [a child] a whack on the back of their legs with a cane for every spelling word they got wrong,” she said of a less than pleasant experience.
“I learned to spell perfectly to avoid that happening.
“I still remember this lad who’d go home every Friday with cuts to his legs and bleeding because he had some learning issue and just couldn’t learn to spell.
“We’d be sitting there willing and praying that he’d get the words right.”
A few decades ago, teachers had more control over the curriculum and how students were taught.
“The curriculum wasn’t so crowded and controlled as it is today, or perhaps as advanced as it is today, it was your basic curriculum,” she said.
“If a child brought in a bird’s nest, there was the expectation you stopped and did a science lesson.
“The same when they brought in snow, we did snow and snowflake art.”
Another change is the content of lunch boxes.
“A large percentage of students attend before and after school care because most families have two working parents,” she said.
“In the past, most families were able to survive with one parent working and there wasn’t the takeaway food.
“Nowadays, there is no lunch box nutrition, even though we are more informed.
“When I started teaching it was more about home cooked meals and there was a sandwich and a piece of fruit.
“There weren’t all these little packets of chips and snacks, and processed food.”
Some things stay the same though, teachers have an enormous influence on children at a time when they’re making core memories.
Karen has spent a lifetime in the profession because she enjoys connecting and helping students learn and grow.
