VULNERABILITY: And the courage to be honest

Losing a teaching licence in New Zealand was one of several crises that forced Chris Valli to confront difficult truths about himself. Following a period of professional and personal upheaval, some of it self-inflicted, he came to see vulnerability not as weakness, but as an act of courage and honesty.

In this conversation, Chris reflects on poor decisions, consequences, accountability, and where an honest examination of one's own story can lead. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Vulnerability is often considered a weakness, but for others, particularly when it comes to men, it's now being considered as a characteristic of somebody who is courageous. Chris Valley is a journalist and now an author. However, in the middle, he was a primary school teacher, a secondary school teacher, and a man with a lot to learn. He's going to share a lot of his learnings today, and the many twists and turns will surprise, educate, and certainly leave many of you feeling just as courageous.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Excellently.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

I should actually say Kiora, shouldn't I?

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Oh, a lot of Irish Catholics are working to be sure, to be sure, I think we'll be good to go.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Indeed, that's right. Now, Chris, it's great to have you on the show. There are a number of issues that really come up when we're thinking about your book, number one, and congratulations on that. A fantastic book, and we'll talk about that in just a moment. But also the experiences that you've gone through, uh, from journalist to teacher in a primary school setting to a secondary school teacher, to being booted out of the education sector and then writing about it. And all of that is wrapped up in courage, it's wrapped up in vulnerability, but it's also wrapped up in what all of that means for males today. So you've got quite an extraordinary story there. Let's start with your book because that's the ultimate now of that experience that you've had, and or a number of experiences. So let's get started with your book. Why did you start writing?

SPEAKER_00 2:01

Um it was off the back of the headline. So in March 2025, I was at my daughter's um tennis game, and I received a message on Messenger, um, and it was a link that I wasn't really familiar with because I thought it's an odd sort of story. Why would someone send that to me? And as I actually opened the link and saw the headline, the headline read, aggressive teacher who bullied students, struck off. Um, and that teacher was me. So March 25 was uh a weird old time in terms of um opening up a whole can of worms in terms of what I'd gone through. And I sat with that headline for the best part of a few weeks, numerous conversations with the employer, uh with my partner, with former teaching colleagues, and I decided to actually tell my story, own my truths, um, provide my context, and so there's no irony lost it. I'd been working at the time as a as a community journalist for the local newspaper. I was the um the sole journalist there, and had been telling other people's stories for the best part of four years, and had never really told my own story, and decided the time was right to do that in terms of the honesty, the context, and I guess they had the courage to do it. But the headline read aggressive teacher, and I wanted to really put that to bed in terms of those truths. Um and so the book became cathartic. Um, it became a healing process in the space of six weeks. I wrote nearly 30,000 words, so um, and the book was called Put the Phone Away.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Put the Phone Away. It wasn't uh the title that you were thinking of, was it? Based on what actually happened in the classroom at the time. And I'm sure that people uh listening would want to know exactly what happened. But one of the big highlights here is exactly what you've said: aggressive teacher, and words cut and cut teeth. And the interpretation of words is really critical here, isn't it? Because that's really what you're looking at as well in unpacking your experiences and you know, interpretation of courage, interpretation of vulnerability. But let's stick with the aggressive teacher first. What actually happened for you to get booted out of the New Zealand education sector?

SPEAKER_00 4:23

Um, the transition from primary to secondary um was a beast, uh, and a beast because my marriage was at its lowest ep. My marriage was breaking up in the middle of 219. Um we had spent 18 months previously with the the ex-wife's in-laws while we built. I mean, 18 months with the in-laws was horrible. Lost my independence, uh, lost my voice, just lost the sense of you know who I was and contributing to the big picture in terms of the relationship and shared interests. So what had happened was I transitioned from primary to secondary. Um that's a pretty complex story in itself. Um I was um I was a local guy for the union, the the local union representative here uh in Marlborough uh for NZDI, which is the New Zealand Educational Institute. Uh we had a strike day, um, we'd gone back to the pub for a couple of shanties, and a colleague turned to me and said, Um, uh, how did you meet your wife? This is when I was at primary in the primary context. And the colleague said you how did you meet your wife? I said, I've always been a bit of a tits man, to be fair. Uh and that comment uh went back to the principal without my knowing. Um the space of a month, six weeks, there was documentation around my code of conduct or professional etiquette. A guy that really cared for colleagues, the guy that would hug uh hug colleagues when I knew that they were doing it tough, um, a guy that really cared. So off the back of that, um I was involved with musical theatre at the time, I think 218, 2019, doing numerous shows, Mama Mia, Annie, Phantom of the Opera, and got immersed in all things musical theatre and wanted to get into secondary teaching. So I transitioned into that in August 2019. Um, and I just had a a mixture of thoughts around that because I was keen and excited, but also, you know, I had no experience. How do you how do you engage secondary kids? How do you how do you know what their assessment is? You know, do you do you focus on the relationship? Do you go straight to the curriculum? Um but long story short, um I turned up to school pretty day. Uh I turned up to school one day and felt confused by the lack of cell phone management or behavior management with those that were on their cell phones. The school at the time um had a policy that was fairly inconsistent. I think some teachers would hold a tow tray out the front of the class door and kids would put their phones in that tray. But not a lot did that. And the day that I turned up, um, two, three weeks into it, um, I was pretty tired, I was pretty knackered. And I had a really defined student who wouldn't put their cell phone away. Um, asked you a numerous times. I got pretty heated with that conversation. I knew that it was starting to escalate, and um physically took that cell phone off the student. Um, knew straight away that I'd uh done something, you know, um pretty wrong. Apologised to the class, rang that student's parent, um, spoke with the principal, had a debrief. Um and it was around this time when towards the end of 2019 my registration was up for renewal. So uh that incident got documented, and as part of my registration, that incident, because it was documented, went to the teachers' council to go with my registration. Around that time, I transitioned from another school. I'd gone from the school I was teaching at to be the head of drama at Boys College. Um, and we all know what happened in 2020 in terms of the pandemic, teaching a practical subject. But it was around that time that I had a uh an email, late February 2020. An email came from the New Zealand Teachers Council to say that I was under investigation uh based on that incident um because I broke the code of conduct um and I had a legal obligation to inform my employee employer that I was under investigation. Uh I chose not to do that through naivety. In February 2020, um I was trying to start again. Um we had just built a house.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Take it just sorry, just to clarify there, the code of conduct was a around the evening where you sat around and had shandies. This is an around the phone incident, which was in 218.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

So the 218 thing at primary school that became a sexual misconduct case, and a board of trustees um got a lawyer. My head of faculty, who was a deputy principal, became my support person, so it became a conflict of interest. Uh it was to be clear.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Sorry, just to be clear, you're saying that you had a private conversation in a public space about your personal life with someone who happened to work in the same industry as you, and that incident became a workplace incident. How on earth did that happen in the first instance?

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Oh, that's something that has sat with me for the past seven, eight years. I I think it was a sense of, you know, we don't want this guy on staff. Um, there was a sense of bullying, there was a sense of, I don't know, I think looking back, the principal lacked confrontation, lacked honest conversations, lacked people skills. And the colleague that knocked on me, ironically, I had dropped an older kid who was a kid at the school, off to school. They lived around uh the house from me, two, three blocks away, so I'd be dropping you know the kid off to school. But the lack of honesty, yeah, the lack of transparency around, you know, if there was an issue, they should have raised it. And ironically, you know, I made that comment at a pub. So under the term sexual misconduct, and I'll learn that very quickly, I've got a union person involved. If someone finds what you say is um offensive or uncomfortable, then under the the wider definition of that sexual misconduct vernacular, then yeah, you um you become a case study, obviously. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

So essentially what you're saying is someone was offended in a public space who was a work colleague, a female, and that resulted in you having to ultimately walk away from primary school teaching, move into secondary, and then ultimately have a reputation that was sitting there because you were under investigation for this sexual misconduct, albeit that it had nothing to do with the workplace. And that followed you to the secondary school. Now we know that, as you said, a transition to a secondary school is quite challenging, and you mentioned some of those reasons. Uh very, very challenging for secondary school teachers to pick up, particularly when kids first start in year seven with different assessments and things that have taken place, and you've got a whole you know group of individuals you've never met before. You've done all of that, plus carry the baggage in. So we get back to that word aggressive that was headlined in the media, and you being a media person, you would know what the play-on words is all about. What was it like to be told by peers that had read that article that you were seen as an aggressive person?

SPEAKER_00 11:38

That's a that's a great question. Um I live in a small community here uh in the top of the South Island, and that small community sometimes you feel like everyone knows your business. Um the peers that I had, and and to provide that context again the headline came out in March 25. Yeah, March 25. I signed an undertaking not to teach, discretionary leave, in July 2021. So I had to sign that undertaking not to teach two years after the incident, and by then I was into my second year at my new school, starting to get my mojo back, starting to feel like, yeah, I I understand secondary teaching now. And understanding teenagers and and what makes them tick. And so the support around the headline was really positive. The local guy, the principal, he was the PE teacher at the time at the school that I taught at, and he saw how isolated I was as the head of drama. You know, a guy that did a dozen musical theatre shows, and next thing you know, I've got pedagogy around the arts, level one, level two, level three, NCEA, which is the um national qualification here. Uh they were supportive. Um I had half a dozen that came to me uh around home here, you know, for a cup of tea and a bit of yarn. Um but people have their own perceptions. And the guy that was the musical theatre guy and then the journalist, uh that was horrific. There was some pretty toxic chat. And um my biggest concern at the time was was my ex-wife who's quite a private person. Uh they've got a they're a private family. You know, some of those some of those conversations were pretty pretty off the mark. And um in many ways that's why the book was written to tell those truths. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

So uh you raise a very important point here. There's an attack on an individual, and I'll say it again, we've said it a few times, but I have to say it again. A public space off out of the workplace with work colleagues, and a personal comment made to a colleague winds up as a workplace issue.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

The primary school teaching that I was doing, um, I think that comment was in 218, and then the next year that person who that colleague who made that comment, she became my syndicate leader the following year, and I was put into the junior syndicate teaching year four. And it was about this time I thought I can't I can't do this anymore, I have to leave. So I've got no knowledge, Cheryl, if that information from that primary school went to secondary. I've got no idea whatsoever. In the investigation affidavits that I'd seen, um that wasn't documented. It was almost like it became quiet. And so, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

What what doesn't really make sense is this personal attack, whether you whether it be right, wrong, or indifferent. So let's be clear there. There are families that are affected by this. You mentioned your wife, and quite rightly concerned with her and her extended family by extension, and being a very private family. So one incident affecting one person affects many. And when we're educators and our role is to uphold civil liberties, what does that make you feel?

SPEAKER_00 15:07

Let down by the process, like down, uh let down by the lack of honesty. And honesty is an interesting word off the back of what I've gone through in advocating, and we'll talk about that later, but ultimately when you think you know someone, uh a colleague who Yeah, I mean a few years later after I became that journalist, I went back to the school to cover a story on some curriculum that they were doing, and that was bloody awkward. You know, I I put on a face, you know, as a local journalist thinking she put me through hell. And off the back of that book released Cheryl recently, um, I reached out to what's called the Marlborough Book Festival and that colleague or former colleague is on that committee and I put my hand up to say I'd love to speak and um they said they had many authors speaking. So I think my story has become confusing for a lot of people because they'd heard so much. Uh I've carried this since 219. And so to answer your question. Um I don't know, I've read a lot since, you know, Brene Brown around vulnerability and everything around Mal Robins and the whole let them theory. It's about energy, and I think what I've gone through, it's about recognizing that that colleague at the time, I don't know what she was going through. But you've got our due diligence to have a conversation that is human and the ability to sit down and have those conversations.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

So yeah. We're going in many different directions here, and this is exactly what vulnerability is about, isn't it? And it's also about unpacking a number of experiences that build up, and it's difficult to actually pinpoint where it begins and also where closure actually happens. And you're certainly not there yet from what you're saying, the vulnerabilities are still there. However, you've got the strength to talk about this, and so this leads to the language again, and that word vulnerability, some people would think that it was a deficit, particularly with males, but you're using it differently. You're talking about courage here by speaking out and dare I say, still making sense of what has happened to you.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Thank you, and and you know, I'll try and provide again, I'll stop using that word context, but you know, we were told, as Dunedin boys grown up, you know, 10 minutes from Carrollsprook, home of Vitargo rugby, early 90s, late 80s, to to get on the piss, you know, to have this bravado and this banter that was masculine, um, to be stoic, to be staunch. And I brought into that, you know. We lived in any university town, and the more that I did theatre, the more that I escaped being a teacher and the management that came with that in terms of how consuming that was. And as I mean till recent times, and I've met some wonderful people, Sir John Kirwin, who's a former all black, and his advocacy around mental health. Um, Doug Avery, a local farmer, who's written a story around the resilient farmer and what it means to be a local farmer in the mental health industry or the mental health field. These people have have sort of planted the seed around it is our greatest strength, and vulnerability is a Latin word, and it translates to open wound, comes from the word vulnerable, and when you have the courage to be accountable, to own your story, and to share that story, it almost gives others permission, and there's something very humbling about that. And I've got to come back to that story that uh the other story, so many stories. I was that like a journalist, and I was that journalist telling other people's stories for four years, and I'm writing education stories and I'm writing opinion pieces. I look back on that time before the headline came out after the investigation, it was a cry for help. I'm writing all these stories and all these opinion pieces saying that was me. I was that teacher, I needed support. And so, yeah, um, I I spoke to my partner recently, she's been wonderful, been with her for four years, and a year ago after the headline came out, I said, Well, what is my what is my message? And so I thought it was screen time, I thought it was about cell phones and smartphones and the impact on the human condition. But it's about honesty, it's about courage and it's about vulnerability, and so um I'm really excited this weekend. I'm off to Auckland for a keynote to to address that, to stand on stage and take a deep breath. And it's no longer my story. I truly believe that. I I feel like my story is now hopefully someone's permission to have the courage to share their own headspace and to um to ultimately to be a better definition of what they are and and to be uh wholehearted when it comes to acknowledging what it means in terms of being being human.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

It's it's almost as though when you look at it from that context, vulnerability ultimately through courage is strength. And so you're bringing in honesty here. If you're not vulnerable, you've got a bravado. And that bado can lead to half-truths or or not speaking honestly, or just hiding behind, as you said, masculinity or an assumption of your a way you have to behave as you're growing up. But putting masculinities and sex and gender aside, vulnerability through you and courage, you're really saying there is nothing to fear in speaking the truth. Would that be your key message?

SPEAKER_00 20:56

Yeah, it is. And the irony behind that is that I was never honest with my wife. Um I came here to Blenheim in 2013 to teach. Uh, I got a position here um after we'd spent a couple of years in Christchurch. My ex-wife is from Blenheim. Um when we moved in to provide what what you just asked to her in-laws um we just didn't have time together. Uh we had a daughter that was three, four years of age, and and that was mum's focus, and I I chose musical theatre. Um I was unfaithful in my marriage. And my biggest regret is the hurt that I caused my ex-wife. You talk about honesty. Um I I gave her signs, if you like. I remember w we sat on the couch one night in in a in her parents' lounge room and she'd put uh she'd put my daughter to bed. And um we were watching the news or something. She came out and she sat on the couch and she um I I went to grab her hand or to hold her hand and she pulled away. And that really sat with me and has sat with me since around those love languages. And around that time I reached out to her and said, Look, I can't do this anymore. I can't live with your parents. Can we can we go renting? You know, can we come up with another option? But for her, it was about saving money for the house, you know. And um I even sat down with her at the park one day and I says, I can't do this. I said, You have to make a choice, and I felt like I wasn't listened to. So the girl that's talking about honesty now was never honest back then. And so when you go through that process of walking the walk and talking the talk, honesty is uh honesty is uncomfortable because sometimes that hurts people. And when you're honest, you start to get a sense of that alignment if you're on that same page and how you have those uncomfortable conversations around honesty to find solutions. So I sit here now really proud of not being unfaithful, but proud of the word honesty because it's about actioning, it's about my current partner when she drops an opinion or a different perspective. I don't tend to listen to judge or give an opinion anymore. I tend to listen to understand, and and that's a work on. When you listen to understand, you start to go, that's not about me anymore. I'm 49, you start to go, I'm not that guy that I don't know, like in theatre and teaching was the bravado. We put on this face. Why can't we be vulnerable at work? Why can't we say, I'm struggling, can you help me? You know?

SPEAKER_01 23:46

It's fascinating. You say it's not about you, it is about you. And we've had again this, you know, we start we came in talking about or planning to talk about your book, and it's gone so much deeper. And when you just said then listening to what? What did you say again? Listening to learn, listening to understand, right? So that's that's the work that I come from, first principles. And you know, and it really does resonate with the work that you do in media as well, because we read something, but do we fully understand it, or we do we just accept it as knowledge and the truth? So back to your, you know, this word aggression as to how you were described. Given your you know what you've shared with us now, if it was dishonest male, dishonest husband, if that was the headline, it would be very different to this aggressive teacher. So even in spite of this knowledge that we get in the media, and then having to work through, as you've just said, understanding. We have to be so careful with the words that we choose, not just in print, but when we're when we're speaking out loud to others. How have you changed in that respect?

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Um I've got a lot of time to think. Um when you sit in your own company, when you go for a walk, when you're on the mountain bike, when you're in the pool trying to work on your well-being, or what we call over here from a moldy lens, the whole tafadi tapa, which is a moldy holistic model on well-being, you know, mental, physical, spiritual. I've lost a lot of people the past few years that I grew up with cancer, mother neuron disease, multiple sclerosis. I'm 49. The word aggressive for me, I really I really ignored that word. I've learned since that anger is a part of emotion. And at the time I didn't have the ability to control that emotion or to have the emotional intelligence to take a breath. To step back and go, I need time away from the classroom. I need to work on my relationship. I think for me I'm just really proud. I'm proud of uh that word now because aggression shows that I didn't have the toolbox. Now I do. It's a work on. And I've got a goal to be the face of vulnerability. I want to be that male version of Brene Brown. You know, I met Sir John Kewin, as I said to you earlier a few weeks ago, and I asked him at the uh talk he was at, and I said to him, What's the biggest misconception around males growing up? And he says that we're told that vulnerability is a weakness. Uh a lot of men um are wearing a mask. I think we're all wearing a mask. And when you take off that mask, you start to go, I know who I am. And that comes from putting your hand up. And you only do that. I remember growing up, you know, you'd go to the pub and often you have a few quiets, and next thing you know, you start to spill your guts after a few shanties. We don't need that anymore. We just need to create, and it's such a commonly used used phrase, but safe space. I I can only talk in my experience, but in recent months off the back of the book and the networking that I've I've had, I've got blokes that are reaching out to me wanting to wanting to talk. And yeah, yeah, that's powerful.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

It's extremely, it is, it's extremely powerful. And one of the key points here is that men are still looking for someone who has gone through that experience. Women do the same. Children certainly do. So this brings us back, just to wrap things up, back into schools because of this need for vulnerability and courage. Certainly, there needs to be boundaries. And you've made very clear there were no boundaries in the conversation in that pub incident uh regarding your ex-wife and that teacher that you had the conversation with. Same would apply with students and with families. You're a family, but you're also an educator. There must be boundaries. What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_00 28:09

Oh, hands down, I I think you know, we're we're giving teachers classrooms, families, dynamics. We need extra training around professional development of autism. We need professional development around literacy that is now complex and kids' uh ability to stay focused in class. You know, how do how do we target that? How do we cater for that? It's complex. And it's that old cliche that it takes a community. And that community is about starts at home, goes to school. And those conversations at secondary school, I think they're lapsing at times, especially from year nine, year ten, those junior years at secondary level. It's almost like parents aren't parenting anymore. We're too busy. We've got to be accountable, we've got to put a hand up and say, you know what, what are you doing for my kid? Show me your individual education plan. How are you targeting my kid's deficit? You know, we need that multiple intelligence approach to as educators, the whole Howard Gardner approach around you know, linguistic and artistic and mathematical and kinesthetic. Because not all boys want to be sitting down at a desk with a laptop. You know, and so it's about understanding the brain, the development, the cognitive. And when we start to unpack that and we understand that, that's when we go, oh, okay, here's the plan, let's action that. And often that that's the results that come through. So I saw that in my short time as a teacher of drama. Um, you know, kids having to collaborate, be critical thinkers, be problem solvers. Um, and also having an opinion. There's something around the modern day with Bed Online that if you give your opinion, it's almost like people hate you because of your of your opinion, or they'll be keyboard warriors. It's just an opinion. If it's informed, great. If it's misinformed, you can kind of understand the frustration.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

With this vulnerability and courage, there's also that opportunity for autonomy. And I think that's a conversation that you can certainly share as well. And so, Chris, just to wrap up, one of the big issues there you just said was around educators requiring professional development. But ultimately it's families that raise children. So do you see a real deficit, as I do, in the financial support for families to get the necessary education that we keep pushing into the school sector?

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Yeah, I do, and that's a complex answer. But what I would say is that since the introduction of smartphones, parents aren't co-constructing anymore. You know, the ability to ask effective questions.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

And this is a great starting point to many more conversations and to getting you where you want to be, and that's the male version of Brandy Brown. So thanks so much for joining us today on the Cheryl Lacey Show where curiosity meets courage. And you are certainly one courageous gentleman. So thank you for coming along.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Thanks for the opportunity, and um, yeah, couldn't be more motivated about what lies ahead.