MG, I was half-way through a teacher training year. I'm trying to decide whether this is for me, if I want to finish just the course. I've taken a leave of absence atm: I just couldn't cope with some of the stuff I was learning, and that really affected my ability to do the course. A crappy placement tutor didn't help either.

My problems stem from I had a bad teenage experience. I learnt on week 2 of my course, at Uni, in a lecture theatre, that I come under headings for being emotionally abused and emotionally neglected as a teenager. I also learnt, a few weeks later, at the school in a small seminar, that I displayed all the characteristic traits of someone suffering from abuse/neglect that should be noticed by teachers and acted upon. That was without the teachers knowing my background, which they did know about half of what was going on. Many lectures have been on the fact teachers are supposed to do something - and something nice - if they notice you are having a problem.

I don't know what the laws are in Australia about teachers having any care for their students' wellbeing, but in the UK I have learnt that teachers HAVE to get involved. It really hurt that they didn't and that no-one cared (and yes, I checked the laws were in place when I was at school too: they came in a couple of years before this happened to me so the teachers should have been, by law, freshly trained on this). In fact that sent me into such a spiral of depression I was unable to cope with anything that was going on - not a good thing when you're supposed to be learning how to teach.

My advice for you is that if you wanted to do secondary teaching, get some counselling about it NOW and don't be afraid to scream for help if you find it's bothering you when you start your re-training.

Having said all of that, I just LOVED standing up in front of a class and just teaching - it was fantastic! I loved the teaching, just not being confronted with my teen years again.