Hi, I’m Jane, and I’m an English teacher. When I’m not out the bush, or even when I am, I’m thinking about my next essay. Yes, I’m a rare species, but I love the essay form, and I love the challenge that a tricky question poses.
I hope you like my collection – it is a work in progress and I intend to keep on building my stock of essays. I am already thinking of 2023 and the new VCE English Study Design. I am super keen on the idea of reintroducing writing opportunities that invite students to invest themselves in their writing, and I am hoping that the new Study Design promotes this way of approaching writing. I have been teaching for over twenty-five years, and it often surprises me that we as English teachers get asked questions like ‘Why are you still teaching Macbeth?’ I remember writing my first Macbeth essay in Year 11 English in 1989, and yet I am still writing essays (and creative responses) to this play. Every time I teach this text, every time I read this text, every time I write about this text, a new idea, a new way of seeing, forms. Nothing stays the same. I know that I speak for others in my profession when I say that you never churn out the same stuff; old texts in new classrooms become new and exciting and dynamic beasts.
Now, if you want to know about my credentials as a writer, I can tell you that I have a BA Degree with Honors in Literature, along with a B.Ed, but I can’t tell you about graduation because I have never attended a graduation ceremony (not one where I was a recipient of a bit of paper at least). I think that when I was supposed to formally graduate, I was working at a cattle property in far Southwest Qld, cooking for a bunch of jackaroos and truckies in the middle of nowhere. No, I am not one for titles although perhaps I should be, with a name like Jane and no middle name.
More importantly, I have been schooled by great scholars. I remember reading in first-year university, Robert Lowell’s poem ‘My Last Afternoon with Uncle Devereux Winslow’ – David Tacey was my tutor and he called me Clare all semester – I harbour no resentment. I studied Russian politics and was quite unceremoniously told by Robert Manne that I wrote beautifully but without substance (I promise I have taken his criticism on board). My Honors Thesis supervisor was Laurie Clancy who disagreed with my ideologically driven approach to studying the novels of Mario Vargas Llosa. Rigorous intellectual debates were the hallmark of Suvendrini Perera’s classes – she had studied under Frank Kermode. Finally, our American Literature teacher rode his bike to university and left his trouser clips on all day. He was passionate about his subject matter, but hated children.
My secondary school education was just as illuminating:
– As a Year 9 student, I was invited to co-write our school production in Year 9 – ‘What’s Goin’ On’ which we performed as an original stage production (thanks George Missouris). George also introduced us to ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ and extensive bouts of journalling. Embarrassingly, on one occasion we were asked to present a piece on our favorite song. Despite my parent’s eclectic collection of music – from Beethoven to Bob Dylan, Dr Hook, Joe Cocker, I settled for ‘Driving Wheels’ by Jimmy Barns. How I wish it had been U2’s ‘One’, or maybe a Sinead O’Connor number.
– I was given constant encouragement by Mr B who, in Grade 6, would indulge my love of writing and let me read my stories to the rest of the class.
– I ingested the energy of Kaye Whiston. The cut and paste job on the weekly school newsletter in Room 7, gave us an understanding of audience and purpose, deadline, text types, and teamwork.
I am also fortunate to have enjoyed some pretty amazing teaching moments:
– In 1998 a Year 8 student loaned me her copy of ‘The God of Small Things’ by Arundhati Roy. Billy Fasolo, it is still on my bookshelf. Sorry.
– In 1998 my Year 8 homeroom class sat around eating McDonald’s and shared Christmas presents whilst reading the poems we had written in English.
– In 2006, a Year 11 boy asked me if I had read ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ by Thomas Hardy.
– In 2020 I taught my Year 10 kids about effective speaking deliveries, asking them to identify the audience and purpose of the examples I put on the screen. Harnessing the power of Speakola I tuned into Danny Frawley’s eulogy and a speech by former North Melbourne player, Wayne Schwass, about his personal struggles with mental health issues. After reducing all of the boys to tears, I told them that I was sorry for so aptly demonstrating audience and purpose and to go and get a drink whilst the only remaining female student in the room thought I might have gone in a bit hard. Why this teaching moment? At times we wonder about our impact.
– In 2016 attending a performance of Hamlet at the MTS and being spat at and sweated on during the ‘O What a Rogue….’ speech.
– Connecting with our local gallery the ‘Grainstore’ and producing Ekphrastic poetry in response to an Exhibition featuring a visual representation of each of the Articles on the Declaration of Human Rights. This was an amazingly creative group of kids – we ended up publishing a book of Gothic fiction which was a lot of fun.
