Chapter 3: Studying to Become a Teacher in a Rural Area: The Obstacles That Get in The Way

Dear Whoever You May Be,

Hi, I’m Michelle. I’m 31 and I’m a preservice teacher. I’m also bisexual and in a long-term relationship with a woman. My road to becoming a teacher was, to borrow a cliché, a long and winding one. I started off in the relatively small city of Newcastle where I was born and grew up, lived in Sydney and England before leading me to where I am now, as a fourth year student at the small Albury-Wodonga campus of Charles Stuart University.

I got through 1 year of university straight after high school before dropping out to see more of the world. This was great until I wanted a career I could care about and teaching once again appealed to me. Being bisexual I’m very used to the jokes about keeping my options open but a degree that allowed me to be qualified in primary school and high school was incredibly appealing. Of course, there was a downside: it was at Charles Stuart University in the rural city of Albury, a place I’d never been. Cities are big and allow you to be anonymous, this was the smallest town I’d ever thought about moving to and if I couldn’t cope in Newcastle how would I cope there?