Sue and Glenn Roff

A marriage of hearts and minds

As Australia's schools continue to reel from the impacts of COVID-19, two highly experienced educators are reflecting positively on what it may mean for our teachers. And after many decades partnering with students, families and their communities, Sue and Glenn Roff have done their homework.

"People have become discombobulated, and it's making them think about their values and what is really important to them," says Glenn, a UNE alumnus and former Catholic School Principal and Regional Director. "I don't think things will be the same again, but in a healthy way. People will be more appreciative of things they have taken for granted, and that includes teachers."

Sue agrees. "Up until now, so many different programs have been imposed on schools, on top of the three Rs, to the point where the curriculum has become overcrowded and teachers overwhelmed," she says. "Maybe educational decision-makers will listen a little more to teachers about what they can and should manage in the school setting."

There is much that Sue and Glenn agree upon. Theirs is a marriage of hearts and minds that had its beginnings almost 50 years ago, when the couple met at a Wright College cabaret at UNE. Glenn, the college president, was studying for a Bachelor of Arts, and had asked a friend to organise a blind date from Armidale Teacher's College to accompany him. It proved a fine match. He and Sue have been together ever since.

"One of the things that impressed me was that Glenn was a good communicator; he was so easy to talk to," Sue remembers. "He was lovely company that night."

Upon graduation, the pair spent a time working in Sydney schools - Glenn had by then added a Diploma in Agricultural Economics from UNE to his credentials - and the couple were married  in Armidale. Their first son, born in 1973, proved a novel addition to life at St Albert's College, where Sue and Glenn were living and working as tutors.

"The students would 'goo' and 'gaa' over Jake, and pick him up," says Glenn. "It was a beautiful, supportive environment, which was good for the students and good for us."

In the busy years that followed, Glenn completed a Diploma of Education and Masters in Curriculum Studies at UNE, the pair had two more children in quick succession and embarked on educational careers that would take them all over NSW, Queensland and Victoria, in State and Marist schools. Glenn's first principal appointment, in Victoria in 1975, made him possibly the first lay principal in a Catholic school in Australia. He also became Director of Catholic Education in Cairns and Deputy Director of Catholic Education in Canberra, while Sue held down deputy principal roles.

Looking back, Glenn remembers his time at UNE "exceptionally fondly". While meeting Sue was a hard act to top, he was honoured with two blues - in cricket and rugby. "I loved college and really got stuck into life," he says. "It was one of the shaping experiences of my life. You were always out playing sport, so it was a very healthy environment from a physical and social point of view.

"Academically, the Dip Ed and Diploma in Ag Economics were particularly useful, but it was the Masters that connected it all. I'd been out and worked as a principal and consultant in Catholic education by then, and the Masters helped me to make sense of what I was practising intuitively. I later returned to the Centre for Curriculum Studies, in the 1980s, to tutor."

After a long teaching career in secondary schools, Sue became a funeral director and worked most recently as a marriage and funeral celebrant. But the yearn to teach again, albeit in a voluntary capacity, saw she and Glenn leave semi-retirement last March to spend a year at a Marist Asia Foundation school in Ranong, Thailand, where almost 60% of students are from Myanmar.

"These are effectively migrant students with few opportunities, especially the girls," Glenn says. "It was a very fulfilling experience for us and an absolute pleasure finishing our teaching careers actually teaching, back where we started. The respect for teachers and the gratitude students have for learning just blew us away."

The experience has provided a unique lens through which Sue and Glenn can view recent events. "I think the lockdown will give all people a renewed appreciation of how demanding and intense teaching is," Glenn says. "With a lot of goodwill, parents have tried to do some teaching at home and have found that very difficult, because teaching is a vocation, a calling. It's not a job, and you don't teach hours, you teach students. Anyone who is teaching as a job is in the wrong job."

Often, the feedback for teachers is not immediate. "You don't do it for the rewards; you teach for the love of the vocation and joy in the craft of teaching and learning, and the pleasure of helping kids, but the rewards do come further down the track," Sue says. "They come when a former student stops you in the street and says that they remember you teaching them something that they really struggled with; that you helped them to 'get it' for the first time. That's the best compliment that anybody can pay you."

The couple say they feel blessed in their preparation for teaching in Armidale, their marriage and their vocation. They are now enjoying retirement, but have happily stepped in to help home-school some of their nine grandchildren during the COVID-19 lockdown.