Age, 78
Based in Sydney, Australia
Teacher and Writer

I wish to share with you my life journey; describe its obstacles, its occasional wrong turnings, its little triumphs, and maybe somewhere along these lines, discover the reasons it continues towards some higher ground.  Somehow, when you know you have not finished with things, you do not feel as old.

Obstacles will keep appearing in my narrative.  I thought I might focus on them because they are often things we find hard to forget, and memories of each small victory keep us moving forward.
First, the challenging world I was born into.

Childhood in the 1930s and 40s was not easy. As I was a child of the Great Depression, my parents were so poor that they covered me with their carpets in the winter nights. In the year of my birth, 1933, Hitler came to power in Germany and Roosevelt assumed office in the United States. During all these amazing events, I was in the world; somewhere.

For a great deal of that early life, there were no television sets, no jet aeroplanes, no computers, no mobile phones (except primitive army versions used in war), no refrigerators (only “ice chests”), no toilets to flush, no hot and cold water taps in your house, no satellites (except for the moon), no shops open on Saturday or Sunday afternoons, no gambling facilities outside sporting venues, no Internet websites or cyber places such as YouTube or Facebook, and no atomic bombs.  In my early days you saw overseas events only in cinemas, in films that were flown over vast oceans eventually to arrive in Australia. It was such a different world. And to break away from this poverty and become a professional person, seemed an extravagant aim in such an unsupportive world. This was followed by the second, even more powerful challenge: teacher training.

To my surprise, because my final school examination did not give me university matriculation, I suddenly found myself with a teacher’s scholarship in a country teachers’ college at Bathurst. When the school year began, I was told to report to the nearest primary school for two weeks before the College year began. My first task as a teacher was to weed the Headmaster’s garden at North Newtown Primary School.

The College was half a day’s travel from Sydney, beyond the Blue Mountains. I was among the college’s first-ever 130 students. I was 18 and this was my first time away from my home in Sydney. In those post-war years, teachers were desperately needed, and so there I was, committed to two years of study and three years of compulsory teaching, with a £200 bond to pay if I failed. In our primary field, we had to be generalists, which meant we had to study and pass English, mathematics, science, educational psychology, history, geography, art, craft, music, and physical education. The scholarship included board, food and teacher education. We had to sign an agreement to teach anywhere in New South Wales. Those two years changed my life and there I found friends with whom I’m still in contact today. In March 2011, our group had its 60th reunion. 60 years ago I completed my three years of training and became a qualified primary school teacher.

This brings me to my third challenge: teaching.

We, the next teaching generation of the 1950s, had come through a war, in which we, the “kids”, were asked to be men and women, because the real grown-ups were away fighting the enemy. We watched our beaches impaled with steel spikes and barbed wire to prevent invasion. We saw our railway stations deprived of their names to confuse the enemy. We knew blackouts, and searchlights, and planes towing practice targets, and gunfire off the coast lighting the sky, and submarines in our Harbour, and rationing, and shortages, and American soldiers with stockings for our ladies, and long months of waiting for news of our departed loved ones.

My teaching is a long part of a life journey, as I am still an active member of the New South Wales Teachers Federation, and still qualified to teach infants, primary, secondary and tertiary students. First, let me say that perfection is an elusive dream in teaching. Each classroom is a cauldron of pressures and uncertainties that are rarely completely discovered. Ideas and wisdom are elusive things that you cannot forcibly inject into people. You have to walk with your students with their consent, share the journey, and learn together with a spirit of hope and patience.

As a teacher you sometimes fail, but at times, you succeed. Both kinds of events can make you keep going. I am still a teacher because I love teaching; I can never forget the light in a child’s eyes when she reads her first word for you, or when he gets that sum right for the first time, or when the chubby boy comes second last instead of last in that race. All these are the basis of the love of teaching.

In 1989, while lecturing at Wollongong, I was awarded a PhD scholarship to research the history of Educational Theatre. With one year to go with my doctoral studies, I retired from teaching and planned to concentrate on my thesis. Then disaster struck. Both my parents were afflicted with fatal illnesses. At the same time, I was appointed to teach at Arthur Phillip High School in Parramatta where an emergency situation arose because of the loss of a senior teacher for HSC classes. Given these circumstances, I felt that the best thing to do was to give up the doctorate. After completing teaching at Arthur Phillip in 2004, I decided to ‘retire’ yet again, at 71 years of age. During the eight years at that school, I coached the senior cricketers and junior soccer teams towards their first-ever zone championships, made several films, and was awarded a Certificate of Appreciation by the Department of Education and Training, and an Outstanding Teaching prize by the Parents and Citizens.

Now to my last challenge: writing.

After so many years spent teaching, I finally found the time to write and I am in love with this adventure. Since my retirement, I have published five books. Including an earlier academic book, I now have five books in the National Library.

So here I am in year 2011. On the morrow of the day of writing, I will turn 78. Whither I goest, I barely “knowest”; but I will keep on writing till the fingers freeze over. As you can see from my story, my dreams have not always come true. But I’m proud of the fact that they have kept me going, and I’m not even finished yet.

In 1950, my last year at school was a minor disaster. I was a star at cricket and was selected to play in the Combined Sydney High School’s team against such players as Richie Benaud and other Australian players. Regardless of my cricket stardom, I was a wimp at study. It took me ten struggling years to get into university. And once I got in, I studied there for 26 years and spent 21 years teaching in universities.

Cricket also re-entered my life, but this time at the right place and time. I was chosen to play in a Combined Australian Universities team, and represented Combined Newcastle for several years. We played against South Australia, Western Australia, the Cricket Club of India and Combined Sydney. Later I played in the Combined Northern New South Wales team and we played Combined Southern New South Wales. For competing at these levels, I was awarded a Cricket Blue from two universities – Newcastle University and The University of New South Wales.

But what can I say about the present?  What have I learnt that is worth sharing with younger readers – the guiding stars of tomorrow?

I am pretty sure of one thing: you are not truly educated until you discover the vastness of your ignorance. I have been taught by wonderful teachers, especially in four universities and the Film and Television School, who were inspiring individuals with one clearly distinguishable quality: humility.  And yet I still have so much to learn.

When I was in San Francisco playing cricket all those years ago, I bought a fridge magnet that I still look at. It says:

And now it’s time for my final words.

With the support of all the distinguished young people I now find around me, I feel that I have yet to reach my use-by date. For me, teaching is and has been a breath of time travel.  With it, I can enter the doors of tomorrow through my genes in my children, through whatever I create, and through my teaching. This is a wondrous comfort!

So much of my still existing verve and love of life are linked to the examples I have seen from Sacha, and the wonderful young family gathered around him. Thank you Sacha for the inspiration. You and your friends are one of the most important reasons I am writing today.

Once upon another time, the crooked little man found himself on a journey to the right side of things. He had grown so tired of the wrong side, where even kindness was suspected of being a shady deal that he was determined to investigate the other place, just to see if things there could be different.

The journey was not easy. The hills of self-doubt were especially steep and once over them, he was discouraged to find that the horizon seemed to be walking away from him. Still he strode boldly on, in his crooked little way, until suddenly, he came upon the wreckage of yesterday lying at his feet.

This troubled him considerably. He felt that he should try to do something about it. So he picked up the misshapen wreckage, prodded it here and shuffled it there, in a desperate attempt to restore its beauty. But it was all of no use. The debris kept crumbling uncontrollably and slipping through his fingers, to scatter itself in disarray once more upon the ground.

He looked at the mess for a while, gave a sigh, stepped over the broken pieces and went on with his journey. The rubble was so sharp and ugly that he determined not to look back.
The crooked little man’s crooked little legs gradually began to grow tired. He swung his crooked little arms bravely, creating as he went a crooked little breeze. His crooked little head leaned tiredly forward, and out came a crooked little thought: ‘What a long journey this is! How much further can it be?’

The road went on. And on. The journey lingered. Eventually the crooked little man was surprised to come upon three fellow travellers, apparently resting on a rather ancient bridge. He stopped walking and one by one they spoke to him.

The first to speak was a beautiful lady, clothed in radiant gold. She offered him a potion of dreams which, she said, would soften his journey and make travel time pass like the whims of the morning.

The second was a very old man, clothed in white samite with a matching beard. His eyes were sharp and his voice was even sharper. His offering was listening powder, which taken at the break of day would enable the crooked little man to hear the voice of the wind and thus receive directions leading unerringly to his destination.

The third traveller was a little boy, dressed simply and wearing a brilliant smile. In his hand was a map drawn on a single page. Politely and gently he held out that hand to the crooked little man.

It was a time for decisions. The crooked little man looked from one stranger to the other and then to the other, and then back again. He thought once. He thought twice. He thought three times and chose the map.

Suddenly the strangers disappeared in a puff of wisdom. All that remained was the map.
The crooked little man studied it carefully. Surprise seized his body and shook him so much that he found himself straightening and growing very much taller. The map told him that the bridge he was standing on was the beginning of the right side of things. What a beautiful place this suddenly seemed to be!

When you teach your son,
you teach your son's son.
    The Talmud

Doctus doce.
Having been taught
I go forth and teach
In my school on Every Street.
I do not define
The infinity in which I work
Or impose upon it
The constriction of words.
But in the magic
Of each teaching day
As I fly on high with my fledglings
Through strident storms of ignorance
So far beyond the down draughts of despair,
I feel on my face
The winds
Which will buffet the dwellers in tomorrow
And I land on the steps
Of their houses,
Which I cannot enter
Except in my dreams
And through my teaching.

September 19, 1997.