“My friend, who is a primary teacher, said I’d be a great teacher, and it had always been within my wheelhouse.”

Watson says she was prepared for classrooms interrupted by laptops, games, cellphones and teacher strikes, but despite having two kids in her household, was not always prepared for what teaching teenagers involved.

“There were heaps of strange incidents. I had students who came to my Associate Teacher and reported two girls kissing in the toilets – not because they were against it, but because it was an unhygienic place to kiss,” she says.

“I also had one boy in English who, whenever I asked him to do work, said ‘I’ll get back to you in five to seven business days’. He would just repeat it. So in my last week I mocked up an invoice for him saying ‘I expect two pieces of writing from you’. I gave dates and the invoice, and told him ‘you’ve had five to seven days to provide’.

“It didn’t work … I wish I’d put $100 payable on it so when he came back to me requesting payment I could say ‘I’ll get back to you in five to seven business days’ and leave it there.

“Some kids, you’ll try everything and it won’t work and you think, what’s the barrier here?”

For 23-year-old music and science teacher Frances Chow, watching her students become competent enough to perform at the KBB Music Festival in Parnell was one of the best moments in 2025. It was a highlight in what Chow describes as a “pretty exhausting” year at times.

Teaching, the graduates say, combines public speaking with managing other people’s children, discipline, administration, memorising hundreds of names, working through lunch breaks and thinking on one’s feet.

Chow spent this year racing to lectures in Auckland City, dashing into the countryside for rock climbing and kayaking weekends, working at an after-school music tutoring job at Dilworth School, helping out at Mt Albert Grammar School, cycling across the Super City in all weathers and applying for – and landing – a job at Christchurch Girls’ High School where she will teach chemistry and science, and will help with extracurricular music and outdoor education.

Chow found herself working at the extremely traditional Auckland Grammar School (roll: 2700), and adjusting to seven 40-minute periods a day rather than the typical five 50 to 60-minute classes adopted by most high schools.

Because of the shortage of time – made shorter when the boys dawdled into class – Chow didn’t always have time to introduce her newly taught skills – creating connections, running model lessons with “Do Now” warm-up activities, priming and “Exit Cards” in which students must recap the lesson to show what they have learned before leaving.

“A lot of what we’d been taught about pedagogy I just couldn’t apply.”

Having an interesting back story helped her connect better with students at the all-girls St Mary’s College in Ponsonby, Chow says. After all, not every teacher is a Catholic, Malaysian-Chinese rockclimber/kayaker/semi-professional violin player from the Naki who only graduated high school in 2020.

Her most rewarding experience was helping students go from struggling with performance anxiety to – in one impressive case – forming a band called Eden and the Saints who blew Chow’s socks off at a mid-year performance for their class.

In West Auckland, trainee teacher Lewis Creed, 24, observed that he was part of the same generation as many of his students, a fact that often came up in conversation when he arrived at class wearing a Charli XCX Brat T-shirt.

A self-described nerd and known for his loud T-shirts, the history and digital tech teacher is emerging from 10 intense months on a scholarship programme which had him racing across Auckland between Henderson, Avondale and Grafton. His programme included two intensive practicums as well as weeks observing at Waitakere College (roll: 2000) and Avondale College, one of New Zealand’s largest and most diverse schools, with a roll of nearly 3000.

Racing into central Auckland to help publish the university’s student magazine Craccum added many hours to weeks busy with 8am and 3.30pm meetings.

“As soon as the bell rings I would head into town most days of the week to meet with people … I spent a hell of a lot of time on a bus this year,” Creed says.

Still, publishing a magazine meant Creed found he could speak from experience when teaching digital technologies, and went from being a callow observer down the back of the class to leading from the front. It wasn’t long before he not only survived, but thrived.

“When I was [teaching] web design, I really slowed down and unpacked how each principle can be seen in websites – and the world in general – and colour-coded the principles,” he says. “At the end, my associate teacher remarked to me that the students retained so much because of how I’d structured it that he would bring in my approach next year.”

Not every day in the classroom was a success, though, and Creed acknowledges that giving students internet access can have some downsides.

“Years 9 and 10, the younger kids, when they’re off task it’s really obvious. They’ll be blatantly playing a game in front of you [on laptops]. Year 13s are a lot more subtle. They’ll be ‘taking notes’ on their computers but if you walk around class you’ll see they’re often working on another class’ assignment, shopping or watching Netflix with subtitles.”

A major new issue in Kiwi classrooms is the impact of generative AI, Creed says.

“Now so many kids are reading AI summaries as their research, some don’t know what Wikipedia is any more. There was a really surreal moment [when] I was asking if they’re allowed to use Wikipedia – which was banned in my day – and my Associate Teacher said ‘that’s fine, they just can’t use AI’. So it’s a new frontier, it’s new challenges because the kids often aren’t developed enough to have the critical thinking skills to fact-check what AI tells them.”

Up north, art teacher Sean Gray, 41, spent the year driving Northland’s backroads between Kawakawa and the tiny rural schools of Okaihau College (283 secondary students) and Tauraroa Area School (237 secondary students).

He’d often drive 30 minutes to make 8am meetings at Okaikau and 80 minutes to Maungakaramea. One day involved a 12.5-hour class trip to Auckland, which got him home at 9pm. He rented a room near Tauraroa Area School for a portion of the year, meaning he often didn’t get to see his wife.

He describes himself as “not like a stereotypical teacher” considering his long hair, tattoos and the fact he’s the singer of a death metal band called Skumlord.

Gray recalls his practicum observer telling him, “you’re not going to be everyone’s cup of tea”. Gray, however, concluded “if I had an art teacher that wasn’t a little bit quirky, I’d be concerned”.

Before a stint as a teacher aide convinced him to teach full time, Gray worked as a commercial printer, tattoo artist and roofer.

“I decided I wanted to help people … I thought a year out of my life as a teacher, training, isn’t too bad. Then I fell in love with it,” he says.

“With teaching, you’re actually helping them get somewhere. I’ve never felt like that before – I’m making a difference in someone’s life.”

As he searches for a job during the peak recruitment months of October and November, Gray hopes he will stand out as part of a special new breed.

“We had this high-functioning autistic girl with anxiety problems prone to three-hour meltdowns,” he says. “Art was her special place whenever she was close to meltdowns. I used to go over and crack jokes and try cheer her up – make fun of myself, joke with her, and she’d just laugh with me.

“The other kids were distancing from her because she’s in the learning support unit. Then she started sitting with other people and being social. It was beautiful to see the acceptance. My art classes became a safe space where she could come and be herself.

“You’re not just a teacher, you’re a social worker and a psychologist, all these different hats. Teachers should role-model empathy. You can’t expect kindness in your class if you’re not kind. Getting someone to manage their emotions, it’s better than any teaching.”

‘Don’t burn yourself out’

Watson described the year as “a juggling act” considering she had two children in her household as well as the hundreds in her classrooms.

“After-school activities all seem to start at 3.30pm when you have to be at school till 4.30pm sometimes.”

Watson says her fellow teachers have developed ways to protect themselves against thankless aspects of the job.

“All the teachers leaving before me when I stayed late for marking said ‘don’t burn yourself out, go home in good time’. They were conscious of new teacher behaviour in which new teachers work hard all day then go home to work into the evening.

“I’ve been incredibly lucky – my partner is hugely supportive of what I do. He’s been helping us stay afloat just on his salary.”

Watson, like Creed, found herself in some very digitised classrooms in which students, excited about the school dance, would often be looking at ball dresses and jewellery rather than doing work.

Still, Watson was pleased to see students craving some good-old-fashioned human aspects that tech can’t take away.

“At Whangārei Girls’ High, my Associate Teacher would read aloud to the class. Reading aloud is a skill you otherwise lose … that experience of being read to, for students, is so wholesome and calming. It’s wonderful that that’s still going on in school.”

She was also impressed to discover the majority of New Zealand secondary schools are using a school management system called KAMAR, which records behavioural notes that can be shared with families and faculty, something essential considering research shows New Zealand students are among the worst-behaved in the OECD.

“The focus is on building relationships and calling home rather than so much in-school punishment,” she says.

Watson wants her future students to benefit from poetry, literature and creative writing competitions.

“It’s been fantastic. Introducing students to new concepts, poetry, then watching what they do with it is so rewarding and special,” she says.

“Initially I found some students didn’t want to engage. They were like ‘who are you? You’re this weird person who’s come into my class’. I move around the class a lot and some students would be like ‘what are you doing, get away, I don’t know you’ but I had a couple of really good wins.

“For me, to have become that teacher you can show your creative writing to and get feedback on has been incredible.”

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