In praise of teachers

Like most people, my life has been shaped by a number of significant educators. As an educator myself, I thought thinking about what made them so important might help me think about the process of teaching. Here is a select list. I could easily come up with another list, so read nothing into who is not there. I have not included my own relatives in whose classes I have sat, of course; and I do not include my present teachers.

1. Mrs MacGregor, North Newtown Public School. Mrs MacGregor was a white-haired lady who on first appearance was quite fierce. I had her for fifth and sixth class, in 1981 and 1982. The school was very multi-cultural, and had a large range of abilities and behavioural issues in the classroom. In retrospect she managed this very well indeed, giving some of us extension work that really pushed us to do research and extended writing. I am still doing this today! She loved music, and ran the choir.

2. Mr Dickens, English Teacher, Trinity Grammar School I don't know why I loved Mr D's classes especially: the class were often quite rude to him and disruptive. I guess I sided with him, and sitting up the front, could here the witty remarks he made about the dullards who were giving him trouble! He was my English teacher for 3 of my 6 high school years, and it was my favourite subject. He loved Chaucer, which was a great discovery, and he just knew how to attack a poem. I vividly remember doing Hopkins and the passage from Job where the warhorse snorts 'ha ha!'.

3. Mr West, Headmaster, TGS. Rod West educated by sheer charisma. I had him for both Latin and for English. In a sense he made Latin hard for me, and I lost interest in in Yr 11 and went off to do Economics instead (I hang my head in shame). But I should have risen to the challenge...a man of culture, formidible intellect, spiritual depth, rhetorical ability. He was generally interested in the boys under his care, a model for pastoral care and attentiveness. On several occassions he called me into his office: once to rebuke me gently for swearing on the cricket field, once to give me the number of a dermatologist because of my poor complexion, and on other occassions as well. As the School Captain in 1988 I had the experience of visiting the bereaved families of the school community on a humid January day. He was a crazy driver!

4. Mr Phil Harmer, Cricket Coach, TGS. This man changed my life. My other coach was a 'tear em down' kind of coach. Phil was a 'build em up' kind. He made sure everybody knew what role they were to play in the team. I was told 'open the bowling into the wind, and come in at number 6 and hit quick runs'. So, I did. Confidence returned: I performed at my best and had a great time. Wonderful days.

5. Jenny Ash, Tutor, Sydney University. I had Ms Ash in first year and we somehow just clicked. She was a research student in Early English lit. She was a feminist and a lover of critical literary theory. What did we have in common? I am not sure - though I did discover that she too was a minister's kid. Maybe that was it. But we used to chat about words after class, and my eyes were opened to the possibilities and forms of langauge. She was bold enough to challenge me in my naivety without doing it in an aggressive way. I guess she was a teacher with passion, and that is more than enough.

6. Dr Bruce Gardiner, Sydney University. The effort that Bruce put into his seminars was extraordinary. American literature was an amazing colourful journey accross cultural time and space... scintillating. Once again, not a person at all like me.

7. Dr Penny Gay, Sydney University. A model of sensible feminism and responsible, thoughtful literary criticism. Lovely person, terrific tutor, suspicious of theoretical waffle (and believe me there was heaps of it flying around in the English depts of the early 90s!!). Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf, wow. She really knew her stuff, but she also had time to chat.

8. Bruce Smith, Moore College. I have written about Bruce elsewhere on this blog. I would like to be a theologian like he was: solidly evangelical in commitment, but widely read. He simply was a brilliant conversationalist, an anecdotalist sublime, gifted with the extended metaphor and very very funny. A keen eye for the tragic as well as the comic.

9. Dr Robert Doyle, Moore College. Doylely has a formidible capacity to read and integrate material. He intices you by being more than a little mysterious. He comes at the student as a challenge, and not all rise to it. Uses the Socratic method to advantage.

10. Dr Peter Bolt, Moore College. Creative: a genuinely original thinker. An NT scholar who knows his history. At his best for me when supervising my final year project on the Genesis of Hell. Committed to high standards!