On August 9, guests at the Parkes Shire Library enjoyed an incredible talk full of insight and humour from former teacher and talented author Gabbie Stroud.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Gabbie, the author of the moving memoir "Teacher", immediately warmed with her audience, giving an impassioned talk covering everything from her life as a teacher, her consequential "burnout", her writing journey from non-fiction to fiction and her fabulous new book "The Things That Matter Most".
The whole audience particularly resonated with the conflict between what she knew she needed to spend time on for her students and what the system told her she needed to spend her time on, and the toll this took on her mental health.
This led to an incredibly moving discussion about the importance of changing the language around burnout to describing it as "demoralisation", to move the emphasis away from the individual and back to the system causing harm.
Throughout the night, Gabbie's passion for teachers and the incredible feats they produce every day was clear, even thanking them for their time at her talk as she knew a "teacher's time is precious".
Gabbie read a special excerpt from her new novel and talked about drawing upon that "what if" feeling teachers have.
That constant feeling that something bad can happen at any time that they want to protect their students from.
The feeling that they have for some students that they "don't get to go home with them to check if they're safe" and the frustration with the phrase "it takes a village to raise a child".
Gabbie's new book "The Things That Matter Most" is available now and you can check out more about her on her website https://gabbiestroud.com/.
Keep an eye out on the Parkes Shire Library Facebook page for their next great event.
READ ALSO:
