Jules John

Some thoughts and musings from April through July

So we’re now sitting in the second half of 2026, and a lot is happening in the world writ large, and my singular node amidst this frenetic chaos buzzes onwards.

On Writing

I feel like I am beginning to establish both a trajectory and a sense of transparency to this project, and I also feel a natural progression towards what it is, and what it is not. 

One benefit of having this little ‘writing project’ feather in my cap is that I can now yap away to other writers in my circle, and bond over the ‘pain-aspect’ to writing. Despite me often waxing poetic about the truth and beauty of writing, and of course there is much to be said about the truth and beauty of writing, I also find there is a good deal of pain to it. It’s a constant battle with yourself on many levels, and even if you aren’t really sharing your output with others (i.e., journalling), there’s no escape from being somewhat confronted by your own thoughts, values, and biases. For some there is more confrontation than for others (this depends on how honest you are with yourself), but for most, I think, writing is a noble journey of beauty, truth, and self discovery.

In the end though, and ironically it’s hard to put this in words, there is this excellent feeling you get when typing out prose that is cohesive and poignant and in alignment with who you are and what you want to say. So, there is joy to be found in the process, but perhaps it is only because it is also, frankly, painful. Here we can come to see the true fruits of our commitment to the written word.

I have certainly ‘slacked off’ and ‘skipped’ a few posts in my writing practice this year, but to that I really do say good riddance! I don’t want to take this as a failure, but rather as a somewhat liberating realisation that I didn’t need to hit that arbitrary goal (of writing exactly one blogpost every month), and that, hopefully, the true accomplishment lies in the actual value I get out of (and produce with) my writing practice. 

The core value of this shtick here is about writing for the love of it, and engaging with ideas that deepen my sense of connection to the world. Therefore, I shouldn’t be beholden to the naivety of my prior self – even if that is only my ‘six-months-ago self’!

So, maybe it’ll be that a written piece once every three months is more to my tempo? 

Time will tell!

Iran

One node in this erratic system of ours.

As this piece sits on my laptop, the war in Iran ticks on; day by day. And despite a ‘ceasefire’ being enacted (and now broken), the shitshow brought to you by team Donald’s USA continues to murder innocent men, women, and children. Even on the first day of June, ballistics are being spat back and forth by the Iranian and American regimes. Throughout June this has only continued. And whilst I carry on my life in comfort, ordinary Iranians face tragedy, fear, and death every day. 

In spite of Iran being many thousands of kilometres away, let us not forget how de facto connected we are to our global community. From granular moments in our lives, like purchasing decisions at the grocery counter, to involvement in macro systems, such as democratic participation in nation states; there are a myriad of ways that feed into and form the narrative, and the fate, of everyday citizens in countries across the world.

For my small part, and I know it truly is small, I want to create and sell an anti-imperialist zine to hopefully raise money for either a charity or a mutual aid campaign. I have started to (loosely) collaborate with a close Iranian colleague and friend of mine to help with some fact-checking and linguistic input. Essentially, it will be a cross-cultural exchange focussing on dialogue around chess and backgammon. The game and history of chess is something I’ve been interested in for a while, so I thought to delve into the exciting connections it has with Iranian culture. I want this to both spread cultural awareness, and hopefully contribute monetarily to the ongoing situation in Iran.

So, whilst my productivity does tend to wax and wane, please do watch this space! I’m excited to get some ideas onto the page and hopefully make a small positive impact with this. 

Collective Action in Teaching 

As it does tend to go, and in complete contrast to the general state of the world, I have had a few notable feelings of lightness of late. As it also tends to go, this kind of feeling almost fully depends on how deep into the teaching term I am; however, I do think the truth behind some of this positivity can be explained within a collective action framework, and I wanna dig into that!

Although seemingly minor, there have been two changes to my workload over the last three months:

• I have attended less than one hour of meetings each week.
• I have not been required to provide written comments to parents on our online portal. (Assignments are still graded, and feedback is still given directly to students.)

These two changes were formed as part of an Australian Education Union led industrial campaign to negotiate better pay and conditions for Victorian teachers, and were accompanied by about a dozen other commitments that union members took to rally for change. Some were exceptionally detailed (such as a commitment to walk off site if any labour politician was onsite at our schools), but the main action that we took was a state wide strike whereby tens of thousands of teachers and ES staff showed up.

The action was one part protest, but also explicitly one part public acknowledgement that teachers are going above and beyond what feels fair, given our current pay and conditions. 

In short, I worked a bit less this last term to send a message and enact change, but I really felt that these small changes have had a measurable effect on my work-life balance.

In a somewhat ironic turn of events, teachers and ES staff won an in-principle agreement with the department of education earlier in the month of June, which actually caused the industrial protest, and hence the reductions to my workload, to be called off. What we won was clearly a significant pay rise, but the deal didn’t really have much in the way of improved conditions. Things like the aforementioned reduction to meeting times or reduced reporting requirements weren’t part of the deal. And the majority of teaching staff in Victoria made their opinion clear; work conditions matter just as much, and if not more than monetary compensation – even in this economy! 

Now for the record, I did vote yes as a way of thinking ‘realistically’ about what we could possibly get passed during this election cycle in Victoria, however, (and this is paraphrased from what I wrote before the deal got shelved) I also never thought that the slated pay rise would act as a long term solution to teacher burnout. To truly enact change, we need to go further than improvements to teaching and ES staff pay and conditions (which would be a huge win), because ultimately we need much more funding across the board for public schools in Australia. (I mean, we literally run out of printing money every term – money is tight in public schools.) It’s not impossible to think that public schools can be adequately funded in Australia, and the more advocacy and awareness we get, the more likely this reality becomes.

Until then, the AEU has returned to the negotiations table in Victoria, and that might see more temporary ‘strike relief’ to our busy teacher workloads. It will also surely make for another interesting term ahead as we unite to improve the pay and conditions for the teachers that set the stage for our young people’s education – who are of course our biggest, most impactful, and most hopeful investment for our shared future.

Expect to hear more about this from me. 🙂 

Peace and love.

-J