The Story of Miss Matters

Today, I'm going to tell you a wonderful story. Sit down, make yourself comfortable, grab that glass of wine on the table and relax - this one has a happy ending.

This is the story of the marvellous Miss Matters.

During my second year of university, while trying to make sense of a MATH106 tutorial, I had the fortune and good sense to sit down next to one Miss Susanna Matters, a fellow pre-service teacher struggling in a maths course with a heavily accented lecturer. We instantly bonded in our shared lack of enthusiasm for uni level mathematics and (pointless) education lectures.

Little did I know, 4 years later, Miss Matters would become somewhat of a household name.

(Well truth be known I did know, Susie is one of those people you know is destined for greatness).

Susanna is founder and CEO of her own charity, Goods for Girls, that aims to facilitate the education of young women in rural Kenya through the provision and self-manufacture of reusable sanitary products.

Oh yeah - and she's also one of the most incredible teachers I've ever had the pleasure of working with.

So back in 2010, when I first had the pleasure of meeting Miss Matters, she was a face of Girl Guides Australia and a UN Youth Ambassador (much to my jealousy, as an MUN nerd), often jetting off on the weekend to speak at conferences or attend meetings, and running the local Girl Guides troupe in her spare time. I joined her on a volunteer basis, learning the ropes and getting to work with a wonderful group of young girls - all experience for teaching, I thought at the time.

I was really lucky that she didn't seem to mind my disturbing sense of humour and weirdness at that time, and we began to support each other through a rocky 3 years of an undergraduate education degree (including a few dodgy master teachers and incorrect degree advice).

Somehow, through many shared all nighters with supportive text messages, complicated coffee orders and mind numbing 8am lectures, we got through - and both were targeted by the DEC. 

Just so good looking.

However, in late 2011, Miss Matters went on a teaching holiday to Muhaka - a village in rural Kenya. She spent a few weeks over there teaching local high school students and seeing an amazing part of the world. 

When she came back, there was a light in her eyes - a fiery passion that had been ignited out of frustration and empathy that could not be extinguished. 

Miss Matters sat with me in T2 with 27 million amazing photos that we poured over, amongst cups of Madagascan Vanilla and bites of crusty, warm Roast beef sandwiches (our staple diet at uni). She explained that she had noticed that many of the girls were missing significant amounts of school, and after speaking to one of the teachers, she discovered that this was due to these girls having their periods, and being made to feel unclean and unable to use anything to control their flow. Miss Matters immediately went to the closest city and bought the girls enough sanitary pads to last them quite a while.

As she spoke to me, the light in her eyes burned brighter as she began to explain her vision.

She wanted to create a charity that not only provided a permanent solution for this problem through the girls creating their own reusable sanitary pads, but encouraged girls to stay in educational environments and seek opportunities for higher education.

Miss Matters on her first trip to Muhaka, Kenya

It wasn't easy. For the next year, Miss Matters struggled with the legalities of starting a charity, establishing a Board to run the organisation, a massive time difference and finding individuals willing to work for free, all while completing a full time university degree and working part time. 

Slowly, Goods for Girls became a reality. Miss Matters continued to travel to and from Kenya, establishing the charity base both there and in Australia, all while waiting for that fateful phone call that would finally tell her she had a teaching job in a girl's school in Sydney.

What a journey it has been for her.

In 2014, Miss Matters was named one of The Australian Women's Weekly's Women of the Future, gaining a scholarship, which she has used to support the construction of toilet blocks in Muhaka village. This year, Goods for Girls turns 2 - a massive achievement for the marvellous Miss Matters and her team.

Image from: http://www.goodsforgirls.org

Even though she is managing a class of beautiful Year 4 girls, an international charity and her own personal life, Miss Matters always makes time for 'old lady sandwiches' and iced tea Saturdays - our whinging and support time. I'm called upon every January to create something arty for her classroom walls, and we sit drinking tea and staring at her very slow laminator as it churns through endless displays.

So what is the implication of this story for us as teachers?

Miss Matters is an advocate of Global Education - it is an ideal that she attempts to weave so artfully through all her pedagogy, encouraging and fostering a global mindset within her students.

It is a philosophical mindset I share, and attempt to integrate into my own pedagogy (although it is easier for me, as my class is slightly more culturally diverse than hers!). I aim to encourage a student's sense of place in the world and a critical view of that world; to foster creativity in constructing solutions to problems and the development of an empathy and understanding for cultures other than their home culture.

Our students have access to the world at their fingertips, but still need to be guided in their exploration of it. Miss Matters and I both attempt to develop student empathy and understanding by sharing our own experiences of global culture...what's your strategy?

To learn more about Susanna and Goods for Girls, visit: http://www.goodsforgirls.org 
or the Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/goodsforgirls. 
Both are updated regularly with news from Australia and Kenya!

The Power of Collegial Support

Friday is a great time to look back on a week and really reflect both on your professional practice and personal life. Today, I'm looking back on a mixture of both.

My school is not the toughest school in the world, but it is far from the easiest. We have kids from a range of cultural backgrounds, a range of socio-economic backgrounds and a range of educational backgrounds. We have kids that want for nothing, and kids that have nothing. 

But some days, it is not the kids that keep me coming back to work.

It is my amazing, supportive, hilarious and caring colleagues.

The people I work with are like our kids - we come from a whole range of places, have a whole range of life experiences and have a whole lot of different teaching philosophies. 
But, unlike our kids, our staff get on like a house on fire.

There is not a day where laughter cannot be heard from the staffroom, whether it be at the expense of ourselves or our kids. There is not a day where you cannot find a shoulder to cry on, or someone to give you a hug when you feel you're at your wit's end.

The power of collegiality is very evident at our school. We are a team, a force to be reckoned with, an army, if you will - armed with formative assessment tools up the wahzoo, and a wicked sense of humour that whizzes straight over our kids heads, but will have each other laughing so hard we need to do a wiggly wee dance.

Maybe its the emotional nature of our profession - one in which we are so involved in the lives of our students that their pain is our own -  and it is this shared experience which brings our staff together so closely. 

Perhaps its our pedagogical standpoint - that we all share similar goals and views on current educational theory - that allows us to team up so easily and work collaboratively.

Possibly, its our Exec team - our experienced teacher mentors who are ready to share knowledge, support our crazy ideas and help us develop professionally and personally. (A special thank you execs for supporting me in this blogtastic venture).

Or perhaps its just that we're really really ridiculously good looking.

If you don't get the reference, then get out of my office, like right now!

Either way - as teachers, its absolutely vital that we recognise the power of collegial support in our professional lives. 

Think about it - have you recognised the incredible influence of the support of your colleagues this week?

It is these colleagues - the ones we sit brain dead with on a Monday morning,  simultaneously trying to finish off that Notebook file while stopping each other from drowning in our coffee - that help us keep it together.

It is these colleagues - the ones we sit with around the staffroom table on a Friday afternoon sharing war stories from the week - that help keep us sane.

It is these colleagues - the ones we sit on the couch with on the weekend eating scones and drinking copious amounts of tea - that keep us doing what we do best: educating little monsters wonderful children.

So colleagues - I raise my tea mug very full wine glass to you. Thank you for being the ones who keep me, me.