'I've been a teacher for 20 years. Here's why I'm not returning in 2025.'

When I started my teaching career in 2004, devices didn't exist, teachers didn't have emails (or laptops!) and staff meetings were informative and short.

We discussed: the logistics around upcoming performances or events, the well-being of students, and learning activities that had been enjoyed and/or led to success.

Now, we primarily discuss data. And I'm sick of it.

Data is destroying education.

In schools, data refers to (but is not limited to):

- individual and whole-school assessment and overall grades

- individual and whole school NAPLAN results and their comparison to other schools

- assessment data from state-run and school-based programs

- quantitative surveys of students, teachers and families

There's a teacher shortage and every year, more and more of us are leaving the profession. Yes, the reasons for this vary with difficult to manage classrooms ranking at the top. But for me, it's the data.

I'm not leaving because I don't love educating. It's largely because I cannot get on board with the ever-increasing focus on data. The vast majority of learning activities are grounded in measurable, comparable results in figures. We don't read and discuss poetry for pleasure or so we can make a lovely poem for a family member; we do this briefly and then focus on teaching students the criteria of the rubric for the poetry assessment, so we can grade them on their final poem/s.

Students aren't taught to write stories so they can take them to their "buddies" to read or turn them into a picture book as a gift – these are only used at the end of the unit of work, to 'finish it off' while the teacher grades the assessment. The reason kids think they write stories is so they can improve their NAPLAN mark. Because, it is.

Watch: The one task this teacher refuses to do. Post continues after video.

And we don't teach them how to kick a footy so they can play it on the oval with their friends – we teach them so we can assess their level of expertise, to collate into their report grade.

This isn't a reflection on the teachers. I'm confident you wouldn't find many teachers who prefer to teach to a test than for the love of their learning area. This is a reflection on those at the top.

In government and private Education Departments across the country, former educators and policy makers are analysing data. They're discussing how to improve the data for greater enrolments, greater NAPLAN results for the state and greater international testing results (the OECD PISA tests for 15 year olds) for the country. And while they are looking at the current research in Education, their focus is on how this research can improve … the data.

In government schools, we've somehow gone from "hands on learning" to government created death-by-PowerPoint. We've gone from the goal of 'lighting the fire' of life-long learning to 'filling the cup' of knowledge.

And it's in the name of data: we need to make sure kids can remember as much content as possible for school, state and national testing, fulfil the criteria of assessment rubrics and acquire enough skills through all of this, to catapult us higher in OECD testing by the time they're 15.

Life-long learning and future wellbeing are not the goal because you can't assess those easily with data. You can't report those on MySchool or add them to your Annual School Plan, or ongoing Teacher Plans. So everything is driven by data that CAN be measured, in an ongoing basis:

• What percentage of students can you shift into the higher bands of NAPLAN to improve the school's overall median, to be reported in the state and local news?

• What percentage of students can you move from C to B grades by the end of Term 3, so the report cards show greater growth?

• What competitions can students win, so we can report these in our Prospectus?

And the data-driven focus hasn't just taken over academic subjects. It's infiltrated the subjects kids enjoy most:

"Sporty" kids are being told they're a "C" grade student in PE because they didn't exceed the minimum assessment rubric requirements, including a multiple choice test.

A mini-Monet is being told they're failing because they can't submit a 500 word reflection about why they chose to create their masterpiece.

Listen: The Teachers Are Traumatised. Post continues after podcast.

Why are subjects like PE and Art assessing written work at all? Data. The theory goes that in order to ensure kids can perform proficiently in NAPLAN writing, reading, grammar and spelling tests, they need to be practising these skills in every subject. This isn't a choice driven by what's best for students. It's what's best for data.

And why are students in Year 2 across the country being asked to BYO devices to school in ever increasing amounts? Data. If they can practise NAPLAN style testing on devices in Year 1, they'll be able to perform better in NAPLAN testing which is now almost exclusively conducted on devices (with the exception of the writing test, for Year 3 students).

And what does this mean for students on a day-to-day basis? There's less time for fun. Less time for being outside, reading, writing, crafting, drawing or playing games for pleasure. There's less time for developing social skills, friendships and creativity. Less time for going outside just to PLAY in Primary Schools or work on passion projects, in Secondary Schools.

We don't just read for reading's sake. We read to fill in our Premier's Reading Challenge recording sheet, so we can get a medal, and the school can report how many students completed the challenge.

We don't just write a story or an argument; we follow a very strict structure and fill in the blanks to enhance our school's NAPLAN writing marks.

When you ask an adult what they remember about school, it isn't the data. Not their grades, their reading level at the end of Year 1, their NAPLAN Mathematics results in Year 3, 5, 7 and 9 and percentage of improvement between those years.

They remember that time they got in trouble for playing in the rain; how lonely they felt when they ended up in a class without their friends; the bullies; getting in trouble for talking; the smell of the toilets and not being allowed to join a sporting team, club or activity because it was over capacity…

They remember the excursions, the joy of 'Free Time', the love of the playground or oval, the Bake Sales, dress up days, the choir, dance, and being in the soccer team…

But no one remembers the data.

Imagine if all that money, time and energy spent on data collection, data analysis and data presentations went into making schools engaging places of belonging and life-long learning for those who attend. Imagine that …

That's a school I'd like to work in and for my son to attend.

Feature Image: Getty.