Meet Jason Paris: Where Passion Meets Purpose in Education
I enjoy being part of the HALT community because it is ultimately about surrounding myself with inspiring educators. By engaging with other Highly Accomplished teachers and hearing about what they are doing in the classroom, it gives me ideas on how to take alternate approaches or evolve how I currently teach. To that end, this prevents me from feeling stale in my pedagogy and approach to the profession. By using the standards as a guide, you can work backwards to think about areas to upskill in areas most relevant to you.
While I have no formal leadership role at the college, because I teach across multiple departments (in the past two years alone I have taught Economics, Global Studies, Business Studies, Sociology, Senior English and junior HASS and Music) it has given me the chance to collaborate with many colleagues. Within the College I participate in both PL and First Nations' Education Committees and have run PL on both Wellbeing and Teaching & Learning topics. Further, I have been able to be a sounding board for our two newer HALTs and another staff member going through the application process, and had many conversations with colleagues interested in starting the process. This has given me the chance to repay the great support I received as I undertook my portfolio with the help of the College. I have also attained my HALT Assessor qualification, and been able to mentor a staff member from another school through the process. I have also been a main organiser of HALT Sharespace the past two years, hosting in 2024 and presenting in our upcoming 2025 Sharespace. It has also given me the chance to talk with UC Masters students who were completing a capstone unit about the HALT program as part of their coursework.
Jason Paris- Highly Accomplished Teacher and HALT Assessor- Daramalan College