I gained access to the ECU for the aforementioned curtin university course after completing the same course at Curtin University of Technology in January 2006. This article is intended to draw the reader’s attention to some very serious concerns about my teaching practice in ED 543 and, in particular, the course of my Curtin curators, namely Mr. Robert Dixon and his wife, Miss Catherine Dixon, who work in the education department at Curtin. They have shown serious misconduct, unprofessionalism and concern for me as a fully paid international student studying at Curtin for a teaching degree.
To get a Curtin teaching diploma, you need to get 175 credits under the theoretical sections and 25 credits for two practical tasks in your main and additional area of study. I completed all parts of the theory with considerable success, but struggled to complete my practical parts, despite a decade of successful teaching experience in my home country.
In November 2004, I completed my first practical internship at Vannero High School as part of my high school diploma. At the time, my manager was Mr. Robert Dixon. During practice I made serious mistakes in my work. I must say that although I majored in SOSE (Society and Environment), my supervisor, Mr. Robert Dixon, came to evaluate my two music lessons at this school. Towards the end of practice, that is, on the last day, he came to one of my SOSE classes and lost because of incompetence and my lack of practice in my main field of study.
The first mistake was that I felt that the supervisor, Mr. Robert Dixon, had come to evaluate my music lessons, knowing that I had to specialize in SOSE. I asked him before practice if he wanted me to teach music lessons, and he accepted the excuse. After watching the first music lesson, he expressed his desire to see another music lesson, after considering some suggestions that he had kindly agreed to give. He had to stop and say that he was not interested in seeing me teach music, knowing full well that I specialize in SOSE (society and the environment) and that music is not even my secondary. The lack of a manager should be noted.
When I was taking stock with my supervisor in his office after the first practice program, Mr. Robert Dixon very sarcastically told me that for international students from Asian countries in Australia who seek to teach, it is very unusual. It wasn’t encouraged. He also mockingly said I could complain about him if I was angry about his behavior. But even though the school was not too happy with my work at SOSE, I saw no chance of success in the profession. That’s why I didn’t address at the time in the hope of the best for the future.
I had to repeat the practice and pay the full cost for the same $975. My next lab was at Kent Street High School. This time, Curtin’s supervisor was none other than Mrs. Catherine Dixon, the wife of Mr. Robert Dixon, my first manager.
Interestingly, this time the reports of the school and supervisors were twice as high. The school rated me as competent and suggested that I be an asset to the fraternity of teachers, while the leader felt otherwise. This time, however, I have not only excelled in teaching basic and secondary areas of learning, namely SOSE and English, but have also excelled in music (where I teach and English literature for ten years). However, the supervisor, Ms. Dixon (a partner of former head Robert Dixon in legal marriage), was not impressed with my work, despite having received several letters from school staff regarding my work.
This time I decided that I would not stand for justice. I appealed my findings, spoke to the complaints officers and the Curtin Student Guild, and wrote endless letters desperately exposing Miss Dixon’s bias. However, the department refused to address my allegations of collusion between the two leaders, stating that they were false and unfounded, which I think is very unusual.
Curtin’s education department doesn’t notice a few aspects because it doesn’t support my profession. I’ll explain them in more detail.
The first thing to worry about is a breach of Mrs Dixon’s privacy, who told street teachers in Kent that I was doing an exercise that was very unethical and very disturbing. Despite my many appeals, the Department of Education and the Dean, Mr. Graham Dellar, have made no attempt to find out the truth in this regard.
It is known that Ms. Dixon came to my SOSE class on September 15, 2005, after which she spoke with the school staff. Later that morning, my docent, Mr. Harry Shepherd, came to visit me and asked me a question that scared me. He asked, “Albinos, how many exercises have you done before?”
I didn’t know how to answer that question. When I was first sent to school on Kent Street, my course coordinator, Richard Courtney, advised me not to tell the school on Kent Street that I was repeating my first lab work. He said any form of adverse pre-knowledge makes the school biased towards the pupil, especially if the school knows that the pupil has failed an earlier enrollment. He also repeated that no one in the department had told the school about my difficult past and that I should attend this laboratory as if I were doing it for the first time. According to the instructions I told the school that I had completed all the theoretical parts and I only needed to go through the lab, and did the same if I missed the lab for personal reasons.
Said and done, I was really shocked when my assistant professor asked me this question. It was then that I learned that the manager, Mrs. Dixon, had told me that I was running a retraining laboratory on Kent Street. The timing was perfect. That morning, the boss visited her at the school. The staff on Kent Street definitely short-sightedly understand that I didn’t do recycling labs and they wouldn’t have dreamed of it. The programme principal always insists that Mrs Dixon does not tell the school on Kent Street that I was taking a refresher course.
Despite the above-mentioned incident, the program director still excludes the possibility of collusion between a husband/wife vetting team working in the same building in Curtin, which, in my opinion, is similar to you trying to get everyone on the garden track. .
First, by sending a group of supervisors consisting of men and women to enter a foreign student who stands out not only with skin color and accent, but also with qualifications in various fields, the university does not give anyone a sense of justice. What more collusion can you expect more than a marriage? It’s really wishful thinking – don’t expect any collusion between two adults literally sharing in the same bed. Given that I’m just one of the few international students studying in the education department, would that be amazing?
Let’s not lose sight of another interesting fact about my informal internship on Kent Street. My practice on Kent Street ended on September 23, 2005. That day, September 23, I signed a report on school practice in the presence of my teaching assistants and was very happy that the lab was finished and the school passed me by. I wasn’t in contact with Ms. Dixon at the time because she didn’t give me verbal feedback or summing up after observing my second class, which is very strange because every supervisor tends to interview a student undergoing an internship after observing a course based on my experience as former supervisors and then principals of Edith Cowan University. If that day the student is busy, the leaders usually schedule a meeting to talk to the student in person the next day or at some point during the lab work to give oral feedback and clarify some of the things that were observed in the class and may be misunderstood.
At Edith Cowan University, I have leaders who not only call me on my cell phone, but also email me on weekdays during the lab. In doing so, managers show interest in their students, especially during busy periods of practical work at school, and try to work with students to succeed. I attached emails from my subsequent superiors to demonstrate the same.