As academia increasingly comes under attack in the United States, The War on Tenure steps in to demystify what professors do and to explain the importance of tenure for their work. Deepa Das Acevedo takes readers on a backstage tour of tenure-stream academia to reveal hidden dynamics and obstacles. She challenges the common belief that tenure is only important for the protection of academic freedom. Instead, she argues that the security and autonomy provided by tenure are also essential to the performance of work that students, administrators, parents, politicians, and taxpayers value. Going further, Das Acevedo shows that tenure exists on a spectrum of comparable employment contracts and she debunks the notion that tenure warps the incentives of professors. Ultimately, The War on Tenure demonstrates that the job security tenure provides is not nearly as unusual, undesirable, or unwarranted as critics claim.

Chapter 12 tackles the first of several myths regarding tenure’s effects on individual faculty incentives, namely, that tenure promotes undesirable iconoclasm. The chapter uses available research linking tenure with intellectual and pedagogical risk-taking as well as industry knowledge regarding how newly tenured professors actually behave to show that the “post-tenure renegade” is more assumption than fact.

Chapter 11 introduces and explains the concept of “auto-depreciation”: a phenomenon that forces academics to acquire skills not valued in the general labor market and to lose skills that are valued. It argues that auto-depreciation reduces the exit options available at all stages of an academic career and that it is linked to the rise of Quit Lit and academic coaching services.

Chapter 13 addresses a second myth regarding tenure’s effects on individual faculty incentives, namely, that tenure facilitates predatory behavior. The chapter focuses on sexual misconduct and draws on available research regarding its prevalence inside and outside academia – as well as inside and outside the United States – to show that severe power disparities, rather than tenure itself, are most likely responsible for high misconduct rates in academia.

Chapter 4 argues that, in most cases, pursuing academia means jeopardizing your own future financial well-being as well as that of your family. It discusses implicit and explicit costs, the mistaken but long-lived “six-year standard” for PhD completion, and the time value of money, all en route to dismantling the myth that academia provides financial stability to its flagship workers: tenure-stream professors.

The formative years of life provide the most important elements to equip children with the capacity to learn. Therefore, underpinnings for art pedagogy for Australian First Nations early childhood education should ensure that educators and teachers may contribute environmental foundations for children’s learning while ensuring that children have effective resources to prepare them for an ever-changing world. The challenge is balancing the expectations of the home with the expectations of teaching and learning in early childhood educational settings.

In this chapter we extend that discussion by considering classroom management in relation to creating engaging and motivating learning environments. Engagement and motivation are essential to young people’s success in various educational contexts, including early years, primary and secondary settings, and they can only occur in positive teaching and learning environments. Establishing and fostering such environments through effective classroom management is a source of concern for many preservice teachers, and this will continue to be the case as teachers progress throughout their career. This chapter provides an overview of various proactive strategies that serve to promote positive teaching and learning environments along with strategies for responding to student disengagement or off-task behaviour. Positive student–teacher relationships will also be described as an essential component for engaging and motivating students’ learning.

High-quality teachers and teaching are essential for quality educational outcomes, and ultimately Australia’s economic and social wellbeing. This is recognised globally and has resulted in the development, implementation and enforcement of teacher standards to improve teacher quality and teacher professionalisation. The Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership and the Initial Teacher Education Program Standards were developed to enhance and regulate teacher preparation and the quality of graduates. The standards are used by state and territory regulators to describe minimum levels of competence for teacher registration in Australia. Initial teacher education (ITE) programs now have specified entry requirements, including levels of academic achievement and dispositional attributes. However, the focus on preservice education to improve teacher quality is one-sided, overlooking the inservice issues that impact teacher quality, such as teacher shortages, pay and employment conditions.

This chapter will add a further layer of understanding from what you have read in Chapter 7 (diversity, inclusion, and social justice) and Chapters 8 and 9 (classroom management and creating positive learning environments). However, this chapter will focus on one particular group of learners: those who have lived through complex trauma. The reason why an entire chapter is dedicated to this one group is a growing understanding that we need a different way of thinking, believing, planning and acting if we are to be successful in improving the educational and life outcomes for these children and young people. We also know that a trauma-informed approach to educating and supporting these young learners can enhance the personal and professional well-being of the adults working hard to deliver education programs, which is vital.

This chapter recommends an approach to teaching art in the early years that begins with an underpinning layer of post-structuralist theory. Post-structuralist theories help to examine and question some heartfelt beliefs about art in the early years. There are a number of different theories for teaching the arts with young children. Mostly, it is the role of the teacher that is the focus for examination and analysis. Educators can use theory about discourse and the construction of ideas, thoughts and practices to challenge taken-for-granted beliefs and consciously decide on ways they can support children’s arts learning and their wellbeing.

In this book, we provide a positive, futures-oriented approach to assist you to build on your knowledge, skills, strengths and abilities so that you are prepared for teaching in the current era and able to embrace the many rewards associated with working in the educational sphere. Cognisant of the standardised and high-stakes accountability contexts within which teachers now work, the book will assist in preparing you to understand, and to begin to address, the mandatory accreditation requirements for teaching in Australia. From the outset, you will also be encouraged to develop and reflect on your own personal and professional philosophies of teaching. This chapter introduces some of the literature, research and practices that will help students learn about and reflect on teaching and the teaching profession. It also introduces relevant information about Australia’s school communities and school structures so students can best understand the complex and diverse nature of the work involved in teaching children across the full learning spectrum from early years to senior secondary.

Digital technologies influence every facet of our lives – education, health, leisure activities, finances and jobs. You may have heard terms for digital technologies, such as information technology and information and communication technology (ICT). In this chapter, we use digital technology and ICT interchangeably. In the first section, titled ‘Digital technologies and you’, we explore pre-service teachers’ personal and educational experiences with digital technologies and investigate attitudes towards digital technologies in education. A historical overview of technology and associated challenges is presented. The second section, ‘Digital technology in education’, explores the current situation in early childhood, primary and secondary school contexts. It offers some insights into theoretical frameworks, curriculum implications, pedagogical implications and practical considerations for contemporary classrooms. The third section, ‘Using digital technologies in class’, provides numerous suggestions and practical information on how digital technologies can be used for teaching and learning in the classroom.