A + B = ?

There's so much talk about education at the moment (there always has been and there always will be). What's the best school? How much is too much when it comes to 'quality' education? What is 'quality' education? Is the school obsessed with HSC results at the expense of developing my child? Will my kid's talents be lost in a huge school of 1500 pupils? Are teachers just in it for the holidays? Are teachers keeping themselves versed in new teaching trends? So many questions. So much discussion. A lot of frustration from parents who pay big bucks for big name independent schools and don't get what they dreamed of. Students dazed and confused. Teachers doing everything they can to keep up with demands from all angles.

A hell of a lot goes into a child's education. This isn't just the responsibility of teachers. Parents and family members have a huge role to play. It's not up to teachers to save a young man/woman from instability and insecurity (though they do everything they can). Education is more than just reading a poem, completing algebra homework and colouring in a map of South America (apologies to any geography teachers reading this - I know you give your kids more than colouring exercises!).

When it comes to selecting a school for your son or daughter's future, I feel the discipline policy of the school is paramount. You need to know your child will be in a safe learning environment and that matters of bullying etc. will be dealt with speedily. All schools say they will look after your kid's welfare through the mind and body (the education of the 'whole' person), all of them have mottos that run along the lines of 'creating a better future'... you need to know the discipline policy will be adhered to and teachers will follow up on problems not long after they surface. Whether you're spending over $20 000 a year on your child's education, or less than $10 000, it's the discipline policy that makes a difference. Who cares if there's a new rowing shed or basketball stadium or umpteen laptops or cool projectors? If Teddy's still smacking Marcus and causing his life to be miserable, no money into new infrastructure or technology is going to help.
                                                                   
This is my eighteenth year in full-time teaching, so I feel I can give an insider's POV here. I'm an English specialist, although I've taught History, Drama and General Studies (now defunct) over the years. I've taught in several secondary schools in Sydney and the Southern Highlands of NSW. Most were Catholic schools run by religious orders. The humour and energy of students, as well as the stimulation of literature, has kept me in the job for such a long time. I enjoy each day of my job. I feel lucky to be a teacher. You do feel like you can make a difference in the lives of young people. So many people in so many jobs feel they are insignificant.

This morning I read Where The Wild Things Are to all of Yr 12 (with appropriate voices) as some sort of parable - the message was tame your inner wild things (fear, doubt, insecurity etc). I also led three Yr 10 girls on a fifteen minute birding trip within school grounds. I tried to get reluctant students interested in print media with patience and thorough explanation. I deconstructed character relationships in Louis Nowra's Cosi. After lunch, a Yr 12 student told me I was a 'fun' teacher.

That one remark keeps you going.

LJ, May 8 2012.

POEM #11

Dreaming

An ABC radio interviewee
with an educated tongue
told us the universe
is expanding
and accelerating;
you thought you might
stay up tonight,
drink a few Stellas,
stare up at all that
grand confusion,
see if he's right
or prove him wrong.

LJ, May 3 2012.

INTERVIEW

I'm talking Australian birds and birding with Southern Highlander Michelle Hrlec at this address - http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wingello-village-life - click on Episode 6. My thanks to Michelle for her great questions and interest in my passion. Check it out if you're a bird fan.

LJ, Anzac Day 2012

UPDATE AT THE FAR END OF SUMMER

I sped past a truck on fire just after 7am today. Near Berrima. On the Hume Highway. Ablaze in the middle of mist and rain and grey, it was surreal. I called 000 for the second time in my life. The Illawarra Mercury, online, reported no one was injured.

I sent off my entry to the Voiceless Writing Prize a couple of weeks ago. Fingers crossed. I am proud of it. It's a song for my home town and for native animals and for family and a child's future amongst other things such as animal sentience, what we see as dominion, what we must do for animals, how people see animals etc. JM Coetzee is the chief judge of the Prize. Who knows what he'll be looking for... I recently read his acclaimed novel Disgrace, which was visceral, stark, economic in its language and throughly engaging; the behaviour of some of the characters disturbed and amazed me. I was left unsure of what Coetzee's message was.

Picking myself back up again after knock-backs from Cordite, The Judith Wright Poetry Prize and Abridged in Ireland.

Looking forward to hearing Anthony Lawrence (the Aussie poet I most admire) speak in Canberra next month about his chilling/bleak new collection The Welfare of My Enemy. This volume, which centres on missing persons, death, disturbed people, empty or unsettling Australian landscapes, really got to me. There wasn't much hope and light in there. Anyhow, an original, needed and uncompromising collection.

Impressed by these films new to DVD: Monsters, The Hunter, Drive, Warrior, Crazy Stupid Love.

The painting of Father Bob was the best thing in the Archibald.

Glad, thus far, that Bob Carr's back on the scene. He's erudite, articulate, focussed, a bushwalker, oceans defender, open to other cultures, concerned about inter-faith hostilities... what the ALP and Australia needs, basically. I recently heard writer/journo David Marr talking on 702 about what Australians now want from their male leaders: being blokey is no longer desired by most voters. The days of Hawkey and his beer, rough charm and larrikinism are done. From what I've read, Kevin was a success because he's nerdy, earnest, religious and conservative.

Geez, our coppers have been busy. Shootings and Taserings and car accidents. I felt for the Brazilian bloke who was shot with a Taser several times and killed for stealing biscuits in Kings Cross. Surely there was another way to have handled that.

And MKR is over. Beauty, I won't have to hear 'on the plate or 'plating up' or anything else to do with plates.

LJ, March 28 2012.

MUSIC (NOT) TO MY EARS

I couldn't think of much worse than seeing the musicals An Officer and a Gentleman and Legally Blonde. Good Lord. Why? Why? Why?

Here are some other films that desperately need musical interpretations: Rain Man, First Blood, Saving Private Ryan, My Left Foot, No Country For Old Men, Lorenzo's Oil, Avatar.

LJ, March 19 2012.

HUME DEATHS

Every day, I drive close to 200km along the Hume Highway, for work reasons; I teach English in south-west Sydney and live in the Southern Highlands. Every day, I shoot past flowers and a yellow heart with the name Sarah emblazoned on it. This memorial is by a southbound lane, between Mittagong and Berrima. Sarah Frazer, 23, died there last month. She was off to Wagga Wagga, to live and study. She and a 40 year old towie from Mittagong, Geoff Clark, were killed instantly when a wayward truck struck them. He was my age. The driver of the truck was from Marulan. He's just been charged with their deaths. Every day, I drive past the site at Menangle where another truck driver, this time the driver of a B-double, crushed 3 people in a northbound car. This happened in January. All these tragic, tragic deaths were avoidable. The majority of our truckies are focussed, disciplined and aware of their speeds and their consciousness. Some, are going too bloody fast and falling asleep at the wheel. Others have devices in their trucks which tamper with their truck's mechanics (the engine is tricked into believing it needs more fuel), so they can continually go faster than the permitted 100km/h. It's all about deadlines, pressure and money-making. This is a real problem. Our truckies have to slow down. More cops need to be policing this stretch of the Hume. And they appear to be. Every day, there is a highway patrol car at Menangle. Most days, there's another near Mittagong. Let's hope things change.

LJ, 15 March 2012.

A BODY OF WORK THAT WORKS?

Twenty poems, most of which are brand new, were popped in the post this morning and addressed to Blemish Books in Canberra. I'm hoping they are accepted for publication in the upcoming volume of Triptych Poets. For each edition of TP, the work of three poets is presented. I had to submit up to twenty-five poems or no more than forty pages of writing.

Now they're done and away, I can say I'm hugely proud of this collection of poems. They are varied in form/structure, look good on the page and tackle varying themes/issues/topics/things such as father-son relationships, the importance of family, layers to the Australian male, divergent people, fear of indigenous peoples, dawn and how we approach the day, our obsession with Ikea, Belanglo State Forest, the Strathfield Massacre of 1991, Barcelona, apostrophe misuse, dogs, echidnas, birds, nature's spells, the minutia we overlook, Newtown parties... Most of the poems are drawn from reality. There is some embellishment.

The poem focussing on the Strathfield Massacre, is written from an objective mindset, even though I was there at the time, standing on a train platform overlooking people running from gunfire (I read later that the gunman was taking potshots at commuters standing at the train station). I didn't totally realise that there were bullets in the air, until I got to a mate's house at Wiley Park, turned on the news and found out what had happened. It was surreal, distressing. I think 8 or 9 people died that Saturday afternoon. The gunman shot himself on the roof of Strathfield Plaza. For this poem, I could've gone into personal experience, recounting my reactions to the day, but I found it more interesting to write the poem in a more detached style, where questions about (and stemming from) the Massacre are proposed and left dangling in the ether for the responder to consider.

Anyway, my fingers are crossed. I've wanted a little collection of my work out for a long time. I'm sure the competition will be leopard-in-a-trap fierce. Regardless, I'll give the other poets a run for their money.

LJ, February 28 2012