Celebrating Australian Teachers: Anthony Barresi

It has been an unusual year for Victorian schools and 100 Story Building as we have all looked for new and innovative ways to work with students.

Through this period, we have been amazed by the resilience and commitment of teachers, who have used it to experiment with creative new ways to continue their students’ education.

One such teacher is Anthony Barresi, the Head of English at Catholic Regional College, St Albans, a small multicultural school in Melbourne’s west. Every year, we support young writers at the secondary school to write and submit stories to Australian Catholic University’s Shared Stories program. 

Anthony did not allow the challenges of remote schooling to hold his students back. With the backing of the school principal, he set up all the technical infrastructure necessary to ensure that the Year 9 and 10 students participating in the program this year got all the support they needed, including mentoring with the 100 Story Building creative facilitator Ben McKenzie. 

Which is why, we are celebrating the start of on-site learning at schools (finally!) by speaking to Anthony on the challenges and opportunities of schooling in the times of COVID. 

Tell us about yourself.

I am a country boy from Ballarat. I studied English and History at La Trobe University, and then studied to become a qualified English teacher at the Australian Catholic University. 

I joined CRC St Albans as a Learning Service officer, then became a full-time teacher 5 years ago. I am now the Head of English at the school. 

Can you describe CRC St Albans to our readers?

CRC St Albans is a highly multicultural Year 7-10 school. Nearly 80 to 90 percent of our students are from EAL backgrounds. A high proportion of our student body are also of refugee backgrounds, mainly from South Sudan and Syria. Either their parents or they themselves arrived in Australia as refugees. Language is a key issue for such families. 

All the same, our students come from loving family backgrounds, and we promote children from all different backgrounds to mix with each other and understand each other. As a faith-based school, we deliver strong pastoral care to our students. 

How have your students coped with remote school? 

Remote school has certainly forced our students to be more independent. They couldn’t lean on us teachers quite as much for motivation or spoon feeding. They have had to drive their own learning, and that has been a great learning experience for them, especially as they move to Year 11. 

However, student anxiety has also risen, and mental health has suffered. At school, students had a schedule to follow, rooms to go to, time tables to follow. At home, things can seem chaotic. Then, they miss the interactions with each other. They do meet online but it isn’t the same. For many of our students, their teachers are the only adults they can go to outside their families, and that has been lost to them too. 

What has been the biggest challenge for you as a teacher?

Remote learning has definitely been a big journey for both teachers and students. It was brought in at the end of term 1 with barely any notice. We had to transform how we delivered our teaching and how we interacted, not just with our students but also with each other. 

We set things up using Google Classrooms, and it has had its successes and failures. Often our students don’t want to appear on videos. Trying to make a connection with them on screen has been a challenge. The hardest bit has been giving Johnny who is struggling, the attention he needs. It was easier to keep an eye out in physical classrooms. It is a lot harder remotely. 

Have there been any opportunities hidden in the challenge? 

Redesigning the curriculum for remote schooling has forced us teachers to really think hard about how we deliver our content: how we design, differentiate and scaffold the teaching to maximise the learning for the students. 

We have had to become designers and not just deliverers of the curriculum.  

Let’s consider a simple task such as asking students to write a paragraph about the book they are reading. In a classroom setting, we would have written and modelled for them, demonstrated what that looks like. Now we have to redesign our teaching to explain what a proper paragraph looks like using google docs. We have to harness the opportunities it presents such as watching a student write live, view edit histories, give direct and ongoing feedback. That is something we couldn’t do in classrooms. 

What impact has remote learning had on teachers’ wellbeing? 

What really hit me with remote learning is how social our profession is. As a teacher, I am always surrounded by people and noise, and I never realised how much that energises me. Transitioning from that to just my laptop and myself has been a massive change. 

At school, there was enforced lunch and break. In the absence of that enforced structure, many teachers are going without breaks and often working till late. This is taking a toll on our wellbeing. 

How can creativity support students and staff at a time like this? 

There is something about creative writing that transports students to a different and new place, which is great for them. It relieves them of the monotony of their immediate environment. 

We have been lucky to continue with the Shared Stories program, and have our students interact with a writer like Ben [the 100 Story Building facilitator supporting the students]. It has been a positive experience for our students and they have been very engaged, writing their stories on top of their school work. We are happy to have been able to offer it to them as a place to express their creativity. 

What do you think you will take from this experience? 

I think I have learnt a lot about what I love about being in a classroom with students. Give me a rowdy classroom and that engagement anyday. As a teacher, I’ve also had to improve my instruction. I have had to learn how to make my instruction super clear with much less talking. I have become a better instructor, and all teachers have felt that. 

The thing we will all take away from this situation is the learning that we are more adaptable and flexible than we think. When thrown into a situation, we just get on with the job! 

We thank Anthony and the thousands of Australian teachers for their commitment to their students and their learning.  

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