Helen McMahon — a profile of a career educator
With hundreds of students refusing to go to class and a news helicopter hovering overhead, Helen McMahon was challenged to the limits of her quarter-of-a-century’s worth of teaching experience.
Who would have thought a beanie could have caused so much controversy?
In 2002, Helen was in her third year as principal at Leumeah High School in the southern suburbs of Sydney. Her two novice deputies had only been in the role for three weeks when a significant portion of the student body revolted over the school’s uniform policy. Helen regards the incidents that followed as the most confronting of her teaching career.
“I was speaking on assembly about how I did not want beanies to be worn to school. For one reason or another a section of the students took umbrage to this and by that night Leumeah was on the national news.”
A salient group of students had informed their parents about the principal’s comments, who then, led by an infamous parent in the school district, bypassed the school and contacted Channel Nine. The following morning the subject of whether or not beanies were appropriate to wear to school was the hot topic on Sydney morning radio with a prominent Sydney shock jock blasting Helen, going as far as implying that she did not have the student’s best interests at heart.
Fourteen years on Helen still can’t believe how such a non-event managed to become national news, “In the early 2000s no school allowed beanies and even now most schools don’t.” she explains.
When pushed on how she dealt with the issue Helen explains how she felt she misread the situation in her school.
“It was about acting fast so within 48 hours we had introduced an official school beanie… sometimes (when making decisions) in a school it is about compromise and in this particular case it was for the benefit of the school.”
Helen asks me to wait as she walks down stairs. She returns a few minutes later with a wine bottle. “I gave this to my staff at that year’s Christmas party.” pointing to the dusty label with a festive beanie on it, a jovial smile now slapped across her face. Helen champions the idea that a teacher has to be thick-skinned however, she is clearly still able to see the lighter side of things.
Born Helen Beattie at Singleton, New South Wales in 1954, she was the eldest of four to Rex and Una. Helen’s family moved around numerous times in her youth as her father, also a teacher, was appointed to different schools around the state. After finishing high school, Helen attended the University of Wollongong, initially studying a journalism degree before eventually studying teaching.
Helen’s first teaching position was a three week causal role in the small, regional town of Kandos. This kickstarted an ongoing 36-year career that has seen her teach in public schools including James Busby High School, James Meehan High School, Bankstown Girls High School and Leumeah High School where she was the principal.
While her father was a teacher, Helen says that she had always tried to be like her mother of whom she describes as her best friend.
After her father passed away, her mother moved to the Illawarra’s northern suburbs to be closer to Helen. These years where some of the best for Helen before her mother started to develop Alzheimer’s disease forcing her into a nursing home. In the years that followed Helen felt a sense of guilt for not seeing her mother enough.
“I felt that we had been robbed of a life together, as two older people… A big regret is that I should have taken leave in the early stages of her disease so we could have enjoyed more of our life together.”
Watching her beloved mother succumb to Alzheimer’s disease is the hardest thing Helen has ever experienced. Helen describes her as an extraordinary woman who she aspires to emulate.
Helen admits she didn’t go into teaching with any driving ambition to change education, “It wasn’t for any altruistic motives, it was just a matter of what am I going to do with the rest of my life and this (teaching) looked like something I would be able to manage.”
Somewhere along the way this neutral attitude towards her career changed with her spending a majority of her career in some of Sydney’s most disadvantaged public schools. I ask Helen if this had occurred by chance and she expresses how she felt that by teaching at those schools she had more to contribute and that her efforts would be more valued by the kids.
“There is a saying in education that sometimes the most advantaged kids could be taught by anybody. In the main they will just need someone to guide them, whereas I felt I could make a real difference in the lives of children that did not have those sort of advantages.”
Helen tells me how this year she is the English teacher of a boy with learning difficulties and despite this he is doing well in her class. At a Keira High School parent-teacher interview earlier in the year she spoke to the boy’s mother, “she told me, my God my boy loves you, he is thriving in English and it’s extraordinary.” Helen says that it is little moments like this which she is most proud of.
During her time at James Meehan she met Maurie Mulheron, as she recalls it was at the coffee urn in the English faculty staff room, he would go on to be her partner of almost three decades. Maurie, who was a teacher at the time, would go on to be a principal before taking up his current role as President of the New South Wales Teachers Federation, a union which represents over 70,000 public educators. Maurie shares Helen’s passion for public education, “Public education should be a reflection of society with students and staff that reflect our ethnic and cultural identity.” which he says with Helen nodding in the background.
The two have an abundance of teaching experience and they are now able to thoughtfully consider how teaching has changed since they began back in the 1970s. Both believe that the profession is no longer held in the high regard which it once was.
Something that hasn’t changed is the percentage gap between female teachers and principals in New South Wales secondary schools. In 2012, 56% of teachers were female and only 38% of principals were female. I ask Helen, who was a principal at Leumeah for a decade, if she thinks the percentage of female principals will ever reflect the percentage of female teachers.
“No I don’t. It can be hard for women, especially when you take childbirth into consideration. Let’s be honest, the pay isn’t extraordinary for the amount of stress, work and hours that a principal has to commit.”
A principals will earn up to $150k per year which Helen believes is not enough for someone that can be in control of around 80 staff and over 1000 students, “If you were in charge of 80 people in most other professions you would expect a lot more than that.” she says.
I ask Maurie if the Teachers Federation has anything in place to help women push for leadership positions in public education, “The federation back in 1975 put on a full time women’s officer and since then the federation has tried to make the issue of women in teaching an important one.” He is heartened by the number of young women that are active within the federation but recognises there is still a long way to go with a majority of leadership positions within the union being held by men.
Maurie believes one of the biggest obstacles to women moving into leadership positions is a promotion system which tends to favour men as it it looks more at one’s ability to run the school almost as a business, rather than their teaching experience and ability. He believes that it is a flawed system, with Helen as a prime example, her experience of teaching in schools with a similar socio-economic stature to Leumeah made her the ideal candidate for the principalship.
As we near the end of our conversation, Helen gets up to zap her coffee in the microwave, which gives me the opportunity to give a compliment on her quaint collection of coffee cups. I ask what she plans to do in her retirement which she admits could come within the next two years.
“Teaching has kept me young. When I retire I would love to have the opportunity to teach English to newly arrived refugees. I would also like to volunteer in education programs for the betterment of Indigenous youth.”
She points to her back garden, the ocean visible through the trees, “I love gardening, I still have a lot to offer.”
You can also listen to my interview with Helen McMahon below.
Originally published at dylaneloiarvela.wordpress.com on June 3, 2016.
