Archive for October, 2007
My English teachers 2
I started at the University of Sydney in 1960. Think about that: such a long time ago. I was sixteen years old. If in 1960 someone had said to me “I started at the University of Sydney in 1913″ I would have thought “You poor old bugger…” Perhaps some of you are thinking just that.
On Labor’s tax policy
Look, just go and read Thomas, OK? I don’t think I can improve on what he says.
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Chaser on tabloid TV and Asians
This is a very sharp comment both on the Citizenship Trivial Pursuit Test and on sleaze journalism. LANGUAGE WARNING: The following video may offend someone even though broadcast as is on ABC-TV in September. I loved it.
Hard to be more Australian than that last guy; he should pass the test. 
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Meanwhile on another channel
Hat tip to Thomas for that title. He recently lamented the “sad fact that more people will have been watching Kath & Kim on channel 7, while on channel 9 at the same time there were separate interviews with John Howard and Kevin Rudd (both quite good) about the election.” I would like to lament the fact that on Monday night more people would have been watching the Infotainments on Channels 7 and 9 or the soap on 10 than watched Message Stick on ABC, and it was a particularly relevant episode.
My English teachers 1
Fifty years ago my English teacher was a Mr Harrison. He could claim just enough eccentricity, often a quality in an inspiring teacher, as he was famous for weaving and making his own suits. What he was especially good at was reading aloud. I still remember his reading of The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico as particularly magic. In my own teaching career there have been times, I like to think, when inspired by Mr Harrison’s memory I too have held a class captive by reading something or other. This has been especially valuable with classes who are not all that good at reading. I can remember doing things like serialising novels: Robbery Under Arms and Kidnapped come to mind, not to mention a Macbeth where I took all the parts for a scene or two, and it was only when in a Wollongong HSC class I began to read parts of Patrick White’s The Tree of Man aloud that I saw for myself how good it in fact is! I would urge all English teachers to develop this old-fashioned skill.
Ex-students: Trevor Khan MLC
An old teacher always enjoys hearing of ex-students. A story in today’s Sydney Morning Herald has brought back a lot of memories. The story itself is hardly relevant, the only point being that it mentioned National Party NSW Legislative Council member Trevor Khan from Tamworth, a fact that will delight Jim Belshaw.
Trevor, along with my old friend Simon H, was in the class of 1975 at The Illawarra Grammar School in Wollongong. I taught him English, and I suspect Asian Studies, from 1971 to 1974. I was fascinated to read this in his maiden speech delivered in the NSW Parliament on 9 May 2007.
Oz election: Uncle Gnome and his fistful of dollars…
The Treasury is rolling in it…
So out come The Gnome and The Other Costello showering coins on the peasantry… So cool!
Me, I’m old-fashioned. I think I would rather have a Treasury not quite so flush with funds. Rather I would like adequate funding for hospitals, dentistry, childcare, public housing, and public education, just for starters…
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Thanks, Antony
Even if I think Antony really misread the purpose of my entry How to Maintain Classroom discipline (1947) – not intended to elicit admiration for the bad practice shown in the first half of the video there — I am happy that he has referred his readers to this blog in his entry disgraceful teaching discipline? Perhaps Antony experienced a Mr Grimes I somewhere in his career? I know I did.
My point further is that all of us can be Mr Grimes I — the shouting, bullying, sarcastic and basically insecure person barely holding it together on classroom discipline — on occasions, especially when we are inexperienced, or when the nature of the teaching environment we are in wears us down, or we are having a bad hair day, or whatever. None of us is Teacher Perfect 24/7 week after week for forty years or so, and I challenge anyone to prove otherwise. We are in a terrible state if Mr Grimes I is the norm, however, and the point of that very old — sixty years old — object lesson on the video was to show us a better way. Mr Grimes II is of course just a bit too perfect, and the whole video is simplistic. That doesn’t mean that the lesson it offers is of no value, because what it said sixty years ago really remains true.
Playing your part
Another principle Andrew Metcalfe and Ann Game (Teachers Who Change Lives) derive from their corpus of interviews goes beyond the culture wars.
The canon doesn’t restrict student self-expression but develops it: students find their particularity by taking part in the life of cultural traditions. Because a tradition is continually changing, teachers initiate students to its wonders by allowing students to show them these wonders in a new light. In this way teachers demonstrate to students that the tradition will carry them if they carry it.
Think space 1
I make a difference! What about you?
You may have seen this, but maybe not…
Dialogue as an opening of the mind
Another principle Andrew Metcalfe and Ann Game derive from their corpus of interviews is:
Although commonly mistaken as an exchange of views, dialogue is a pedagogic process in which new ways of thinking emerge between people. The teacher’s skill lies in modelling the ethics of openness: they hold their knowledge until students call for it; when they ask questions, they are ready to learn from the answers; rather than instructing, the teachers listen to students and feed back challenging questions.
Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn’t…
