It happens
in schools sometimes. Decisions get made from high up.
Year 7
White, Year 7 Red, Year 7 Blue, Year 7 Gold and Year 7 Green were all meant to get their year level camp
in 1979, my first year of high school. Someone decided that for that year it
wasn’t happening. The camp had happened for as long as people in the school
could remember and it was reinstated in 1980. All the way up to my final year
of school, there was a Year 7 camp. Just not in our year.
It has filtered
down some 33 years afterwards that my homeroom teacher in that year, Mr.
Thompson wasn’t happy about the decision. He didn’t show his disappointment to
his students. I’ve worked in schools and can tell you that he was utterly
professional about the whole thing.
Mr Charles
Thompson (we called him Chuck) was a great teacher. If you are of a certain
age, you will understand that he could pass as the twin of Gabe Cotter, the
star of the hit 1970’s TV series about a teacher in the Bronx, Welcome Back Cotter. He had the afro’,
the flares. He was in his second year out of teachers college. Our classroom
door was always the first open. There was Chuck at his desk each morning with
his cup of coffee, doing corrections. A group of us would just stand around his
desk and talk about nothing in particular. He was great to be around. We could
joke with him and when the bell went he would teach using quizzes, stories –
Chuck made learning fun.
I remember
that camp so clearly, cooking damper in hot coals, walking through the
Dandenong ranges and stopping for a swim at the Monbulk pool, sleeping in tents
Chuck had got a hold of. As time went on and I became an adult, I appreciated
the effort and commitment Chuck had shown to us.
‘Effort and
Commitment’ was the theme of a presentation I was asked to give at a school I
run the Time & Space programs for
– Yea High School. They have a special assembly each semester and award the
students who have shown, you guessed it, effort and commitment in some aspect
of school life. Pennants are given out to the students in the Yea Shire Hall
and their parents and grandparents are invited to the celebration.
I told the
gathering about Chuck and was delighted to pass on that in the two years I have
been working for Yea High School; it has been evident that there are teachers
like Chuck in their staff community.
There’s
Phil Wischer, the art teacher. I’ve got to know Phil and on the day of the
presentation, he brought in a painting he had done. It is inspired by Wilson’s Promontory
– a mountain and seascape. The picture has a rope ladder falling from the sky
and in near invisible writing, he has written a verse of Coleridge’s The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. I said
to the students – how cool is it that your art teacher is an artist? Phil is
coordinating the school musical production as well. I understand his main
motivation is that he wants the kids to experience that feeling of being part
of something bigger than them – that’s what Phil remembers about the times when
he was a student in his school productions.
Then
there’s Nicole Gillingham. We run the Time
& Space evenings in the building she teaches in at Yea High School.
Without fail, every time I go in to set up after school has finished, Nicole is
there tutoring a student in maths. One-on-one, carefully explaining the problem
and I know as I walk past, that she will explain it again and again, in different
ways until the student understands. She is so patient. When I have visited the
school during the day, I have seen her at a little makeshift desk outside the
staffroom, helping a student during lunchtime.
Sandy Reddan
the ‘food-tech’ teacher always arrives before the Time & Space nights with a basket of muffins (always two
flavours), scones and jam and Cream and even some Anzac biscuits – all freshly
baked. Sandy simply doesn’t have to do this but she does. One morning after I
arrived back in Melbourne late the night before from the 90 minute drive from
Yea High School, my wife saw a carton of eggs on our kitchen bench.
“Where did
you get those”, she asked?
“Oh Sandy
told me her chickens were going crazy and she had stacks of eggs left over, so
she gave these to me”. We had some for breakfast – those eggs seemed to have so
much more flavour than the ones you get from the supermarket.
Yea High
School deceptively contains a humble set of buildings. There are champions of ‘effort
and commitment’ inside those walls, inspiring the kids.
I asked the
students and the mums and dads and grandparents to close their eyes and take
thirty seconds to consider the person, the teacher who made a difference in
their life.
So here’s
an invitation to you to do that now. Look away from this story... close your
eyes for 30 seconds and try to picture that teacher whose shoulders you stand
on because of their effort and commitment.
Could you
picture them? Great, I’ve got a suggested action for you in just a moment.
With
respect to Chuck - I’ve actually written about him before – and when I did, I
made the suggestion to reach out to that teacher (if they were still around)
and simply say ‘thanks’. I wrote Chuck a letter. As it came to pass, I did a
session at my old school for the staff late last year. Chuck was in the
audience and I told the story of his effort and commitment for 7 Green in 1979.
Chuck was beaming. A colleague of his recently told me he was really chuffed.
It took me over 30 years to say thank you.
So you
guessed it. If you know your teacher is still around. Drop them a line. You
might be the person who makes every ‘effort and commitment’ act your teacher
gave, across a career, seem completely worthwhile.
If the teacher
is not around anymore, in the next 24 hours – tell someone important to you why your teacher inspired you.