In retirement from being a full time teacher, principal and educator, I live a little in two worlds.

On the one hand I connect with our Education Department as a person asked from time to time, to contribute to system initiatives and projects. It is a role I enjoy.

On the other, I retain membership in retirement with our Teacher’s Union and have contact quite regularly with those involved in the teaching field. On a third front, I am a casual lecturer/tutor/marker connecting with our Charles Darwin University’s School of Education. Finally I write a weekly column titled ‘Gray Matter … An Educational Reflection’ for the free community newspaper, the Suns’ circulating in Darwin, Palmerston and the Litchfield areas of the Northern Territory. Recently I have been invited onto the NT Board of Studies as an observer.

In these roles I have an appreciation of systems ambition and teacher response. I am convinced that the issue of happiness or unhappiness in roles is due largely to those in the field not understanding system imperatives and the system not understanding the issues that focus and concentrate teacher effort in our schools and classrooms. That divide needs bridging.

Teachers and principals need to tell it the way it is with and to our department.

The department needs for school operatives to know that its initiatives are often government directives over which they have little control or moderating influence.

Everyone needs to know that the function of education at schools and system level sits these days in the shadow of structure and the scaffolding build around the edifice of education.

All of this makes for impacting on attitudes, emotions and satisfactions.