Mrs Side is not just the Head of Media Studies at Pakuranga College, or our beloved Teacher in Charge of The Pakage. In fact, Mrs Side has quite an interesting story to tell, much like many teachers you will come across at this school.
Mrs Side grew up around here, in East Auckland. She went to Mellons Bay Primary School and Macleans College; to her, East Auckland has always felt like home. In high school, she always enjoyed language-rich subjects, like Classics, History, English, and Geography. However, she loved Biology in particular, being a person who appreciates science as well as the arts. Mrs Side has always enjoyed learning, and finds it fascinating to see where we come from – not only in the historical sense, but also the scientific and biological sense. Her curiosity and passion for learning are a huge part of her career now as a teacher of Media Studies and English.
As a student, Mrs Side never really had a ‘plan’. Her advice to students would be to find something that you’re interested in and have a passion for, and go from there. Sometimes, you have to figure out what you don’t want to do before you figure out what you do want to do. She explained to me that “we become caught up in this idea of what we want to be when we grow up, but I think we never really do grow up.”
During University, Mrs Side went on to study a Bachelor of Communications, majoring in Journalism. She found the subject interesting, and really enjoyed writing. Yet once she completed her degree, there weren’t many opportunities available in news reporting – so she went down some unconventional career paths!
Soon after graduation, she saw a job ad for a new private investigation company. It was an exciting opportunity, but she soon realised that it wasn’t so much private investigating, but tracking down people who didn’t want to be found with research skills, acting, and getting information out of people. She found that many of the expectations of the job were somewhat unethical, and left the job after around six months. Despite this, Mrs Side reminisces on the company as being a cool space with lots of passionate young people, although not the type of career she wanted.
After leaving the company, a neighbour offered her a job working in accounts. At first, she didn’t think that the job would suit her, as Mrs Side had never been one for maths and accounting. Yet in this job she found a place for her passion, and realised she was more skilled at it than she thought. A lot of the job involved people skills, explaining accounts to people, and de-escalating when situations got tough. Some clients were often very angry about owing more than they thought they should, but Mrs Side learnt how to handle these events gracefully.
Soon after she finished her job in accounting, a position at the Times newspaper opened up. Having done her internship there, she had an ‘in’ with the company, and got the job. Mrs Side took care of multiple rounds, opening her up to the vibrant communities of East Auckland. Whilst in charge of the Arts round, she was able to see lots of different shows; while doing the Fire round, she got to know the local fire crew. But it was while she was doing the Education round that she found her true passion. This part of her job involved going into different skills, and communicating with a variety of young people. Mrs Side didn’t think that teaching was for her at first – after all, when her mother was a primary school teacher, she saw how draining the job could be. Yet Mrs Side found something vibrant in the atmosphere of the high school environment, and after four years of working for the Times, she left to pursue her post-graduate diploma in English.
Teaching was a big shift from her previous jobs – it involved doing something new and different. However, Mrs Side realised that in all of the jobs she had worked in before, what she enjoyed most was communicating with and guiding young people. For her post-graduate studies, she was pushed out of her comfort zone, and even had to do some drama! She and her classmates did a synchronised swimming performance in the Mt Albert fountain – without any water.
Eventually, Mrs Side found herself doing her first practicum here, at Pakuranga College. She loved the welcoming environment, and all the school had to offer. When the time came to apply for teaching jobs, Pakuranga College was her dream school – but the job market was competitive. Pakuranga College initially didn’t have a position for Mrs Side, but just as she was about to accept a job to work at another school, she was offered a role at our school.
Mrs Side taught at Pakuranga College for four years, during which she got engaged, bought a house, and got married. She left teaching to be a stay-at-home-mum for five years, but came back teaching part-time in 2019. “Every year that I’ve come back teaching has been chaotic,” Mrs Side told me, “First, there was Covid in 2020, then the years of lockdowns that followed.” Even so, she is passionate in her role now working as the Head of Media Studies and an English teacher, here at Pakuranga College.
Presented by The Pakage Chairperson, Cerys Gibby
