With partners:
Teacher Snapshot 1
TEACHER: We had a Year 12 boy in that situation [parents with visa problems] and his parents have disappeared. We don’t know whether they’ve disappeared here or whether they’ve disappeared back to Turkey… The boy’s still here… living on his own… and he’s also got a part-time job. But he largely relies on the kindness of friends. And he’s been through Year 12 this year. And his parents got sent – or disappeared – six months ago, half way through Year 12. They’ve gone. Whether they disappeared here or whether they’ve gone back to Turkey, I don’t know. I suspect that they’re still here and that’s only through conversations I’ve had with him in Turkish.
Teacher Snapshot 2
The role of the teacher varies culturally, creating differing parent expectations. Some parents, for example, want teachers to discipline children under their care.
TEACHER: Sometimes they’ll say, “I deal with him at home, he’s different at home. You deal with him at school. If he’s doing the wrong thing at school then you fix him and if my daughter’s doing the wrong thing she doesn’t matter anyway because she’s only a girl.”… The parents don’t understand how you can’t have absolute authority here...