The Elasticity of Time.

When I was in primary school, in the early 70s, my friends and I played soldiers - both physically acting out scenes as well as with our toy Airfix soldiers. I don't know if we were truly aware of what was happening in Vietnam, but I don't think it even entered our consciousness and, and so we always played WW2 soldiers, and being British immigrants, watching shows like Colditz, and reading those WW2 comics, we always played British soldiers fighting the Germans.

The early 40s seemed so long ago to us, a world from another time, a time when the world was dismal and black & white. It was a time my mum and dad had been kids and told stories of their lives during the war years. I couldn't imagine how long ago that was. And yet it was only 30 years earlier.

Sitting here in 2021, and subtracting that same 30 year time period, I think back to 1991 and it's not that long ago or remote. It seems quite bizarre to me that the time in which I played those soldiers is almost 20 years further in time than those thirty years between the war and my primary schooling.

It all seems very strange. Where has the time gone since then? How can it have passed so quickly?

As I sit here writing this, I'm listening to an album of mid 60s music (no, not Beatles). A psychedelic collection of tracks and artists that are now largely forgotten. A collection of songs that is around 55 years old. And if I take it back to when I was a child playing soldiers, it would be comparable to my Dad actively and frequently listening to music from around 1918.

I do listen to current music, I read current science fiction and fantasy. A lot of both, actually, but I must say the music and the SF of the 60s, 70s & 80s, are the ones I hold closest to my heart.

And I suspect I'm not alone.

Me and Stevio Down By The Schoolyard.

I had some good friends in high school, but I don't really know what happened. Within a very short time we'd all lost touch. Of course that was well before the internet and we all moved out into other worlds. These days I'm only really in touch with one of them, and that's infrequently and second hand through his wife on social media. Hey Steve B, thanks for all those years of friendship through school. I'd love to be in touch more often.

But what about the other other Steve C? What became of him? And Doug P? We used to play cricket and tennis and hangout after school. Doug D? I remember standing on the lunchtime soccer ground and talking about Bob Dylan. Keith F? Another Beatles fan. You gave me my first taste of Sgt Pepper and All Things Must Pass on cassette. Neil S? You lived just around the corner and I have no idea where you went. Tim G? I caught up with you once a few years ago and never heard from you again. Paul W? You left our school and moved to Sydney. A mad keen Carlton fan and a good writer. Where are you? Arthur C? We were good friends, and I have no idea where you moved to. Michael H? You got in touch with me at work many years ago, and asked me to call you back. I felt terrible because I lost your number on my desk and waited for a return call. 

And Johnny R? I search online for you from time to time, and can't find anything about you. We spent so much time together - fishing, listening to music, eating toast in the middle of the night.

I would love to hear from you all. I'd love to know what you're doing, what happened, hear some memories.

In fact, I'd be thrilled.

So Is This How It Ends?

Finished work at LCHS yesterday. And, for the most part, it's an odd kind of feeling.

Disappointment in not being able to follow students through their entire academic year, but a relief that the end date has been reached. It's certainly been busy over the past few weeks, both at work and at home. Lots of marking and assessment to ensure no extra work is left for my colleagues who remain at the school. And we had a visit from Ofsted.

For those who don't know Ofsted (and until late last year I didn't know much about it), they are the inspectors who visit schools and classrooms to determine their teaching and administration standards. And, certainly within the teaching world, they have achieved a myth like status for being brutal. Teachers rip their own heads off rather than face them, administrators wail at the merest mention of them, and principals become blubbering, thumb-sucking wrecks from their visits.

Yes, it was terrifying, and for someone like me who is rather new to the system, stressful beyond belief. But somehow we survived their visit. All we have to do now is await their report, and they weren't giving any clues away. Anyway, I won't be around when it's delivered. For my colleagues' sake, I truly hope it is favourable.

Last night I had a few drinks with my colleagues. My friends, actually. The English department has been wonderfully supportive, and I know I'll miss you all. And to the others who are moving on from LCHS, I wish you nothing but the greatest successes.

Last In, First Out.

A few days ago I was informed that due to budget concerns, approximately 18 teachers will be finishing up at Easter this year. All teachers made redundant are on short term contracts - basically 'last in, first out', and unfortunately I am one of the 'last in'. This means I have approximately 13 weeks of teaching left.

This decision seems to have taken all staff by surprise. My colleagues, managers and even some of the leadership were genuinely shocked by this. None of the students have been informed yet, and I won't be the first to tell them. I know some of them will be quite upset by this.

You know what they say, "One door closes, another opens."  Yeah, that's not something to which I ascribe. Doors are made to be opened, or sometimes kicked in. I've never been one for automatic doors. I'll certainly be making time to take stock, consider my options, and choose which door I plan to open.

I look forward to the opportunities I may discover along the way.

Words, Words Everywhere.

Lots of words. Thousands of them. None of them for sale. I wrote them all, but they've been given away and I don't even know how many of them will ever be read.

In the past few weeks I've marked lots of essays and written hundreds of school reports. Then there's been the proofreading, corrections and tweaking to get the comments just right. It's not a pleasant job, but one that has to be done. It's one of the compromise aspects of my career, one of the roles I must do if I want to do the actual teaching stuff.

The creative side of my writing is still quiet, although some would joke the reports I write are fiction. But one of my mentors tells me to take those 'report' words, use them. There are narratives in there. Hopes, dreams, success, failure - all you have to do is sort them out. Use some, twist them.

He's right, of course. He usually is. And he's far more experienced with words than I am.

I will play with those words. I will contort them, slash them, hack them within an inch of their lives.

Another experiment. Will it result in anything useable? Who knows? But that is what experiments are about. And it may plant a seed, something that leads to something that leads to something else.

They are, after all, only words.

Future Career?

I have a post graduate qualification in careers development, which qualifies me to give careers advice to students. I spent two years as a counsellor, until my career path took me in a different direction. In this role I had a number of tools that I could use to assist students in thinking about their futures. There was one in particular, an online program, where you were required to answer hundreds of questions with those 'strongly agree' through to 'strongly disagree' radio buttons.

One day I needed to run through the program to get to last part where the user receives suggested careers and options to consider. I did so, rapidly, without looking at any of the questions. Some I answered randomly, others I made patterns on the screen.

Imagine my surprise when I arrived at the final screen to be informed that my 'most suited' careers were:

1. Writer
2. Teacher
3. Astronomer

I teach in a secondary college, I write and astronomy is one of my hobbies.

Last year I had my fortune told, and I was told that I would have some success in an endeavour and come into some money.

Sounds good, huh?  If I combine these results, watch out publishing world.

One Tin Soldier Rides Away.

When I was a high school student, they occasionally dragged us off to a cinema somewhere to show us a film. In those days DVDs and videos simply didn't exist, and if they wanted to show a film in school they had to rent the reels and have a licenced projectionist on staff.

I remember they took us to see 12 Angry Men. I presume that was for Legal Studies, although it was the 70s and anything was possible. We saw Macbeth, the playboy version with the three naked witches. I'm pretty sure this was for English. And then for some bizarre reason they even showed us No Blade of Grass, a post-apocalyptic survival film. I have no idea what that was in connection with.

But the one I remember most, the one that had the biggest impact on me was Billy Jack. 

I haven't seen it since, but I fondly recall the story of a Native American Vietnam Veteran defending a bunch of kids and teachers at a 'free' curriculum school from a bunch of rampaging, racist rednecks.

The writer, director, star of that film, Tom Laughlin, passed away a couple of days ago. He was 82 years old, and still married to Dolores Taylor, his co-star/co-writer in Billy Jack. They'd been together since 1954.

I've read a couple of comments that the themes in Billy Jack are outdated and confused, as the peace/love thing fails while Billy Jack has to resort to violence in order to win. But I don't remember it like that. I recall the story being about how sometimes you have to stand up against the bully, about how justice fails those who have defended the country, and how patriotism comes in different shapes and sizes.

Billy Jack only fought back because the local rednecks pushed him into it, after a rape and a murder, and someone had to stand up for the kids. And the horses.

Yes, there were horses.

And, as Billy Jack was taken away by the police after surrendering, he was given a guard of honour by the kids, fists raised in salute, while the song One Tin Soldier was played.

I must watch this again soon, to see exactly how much it has dated.

The Crazy Time Of Year.

Busy.

The end of school year is approaching, which means people think teachers are starting to slack off. But there's a lot of marking, report writing and course planning for 2014 to be done. I'm also completing kitchen renovations at home, as well as a few other bits that need doing in the garden and the house, and preparing for visiting family.

In about 2 weeks I feel like I'll finally be able to kick back and relax a little, and even maybe get some writing done. But for now it's full steam ahead.

And darn those torpedoes.

What Big Words You Have, Grammar!

I spent six years teaching English in Japan. I didn't work within the education system, but for private conversation schools. Mostly solo or in small groups, my youngest students were around 3 years old, while my eldest was well into his 80s. It was fun and interesting, and very educational. Those students, who had been studying English since they were in primary school, had varying spoken abilities, but generally their grammar knowledge was far in advance of my own.

I recall the first time I was asked whether a particular word was the 'past participle' or not. I panicked, not even knowing what that meant.

But during that time I studied and learned and picked up a great deal of grammar.

By the time I went to university to study English teaching, at the ripe old age of 37, I knew much more grammar than my fellow students. This certainly served me well, and I can remember a couple of time I was asked by the tutor to explain a concept to the rest of the class. EFL experience helped a great deal.

Now that I write none of this knowledge and experience is wasted. I don't always get it right, and there are times when I've written something that's more obvious to me than my beta readers, but generally I'm told that my pieces, even the first draft, are very clean.

Personally I think a writer should be interested in language. As an English teacher I  encourage my students to develop more sophisticated writing styles and reading habits. I also try to engender a love, or at least an appreciation, of words and language.

Sometimes I even succeed.

Writing For Writers.

A few months ago, my school leadership asked me to submit a proposal to introduce a new subject in 2014.

I wrote an outline for a course, Writing for Writers, designed as an elective subject for year 9 students. (I believe that would be equivalent to Seniors at Junior High School)

Not only was the proposal adopted and offered, but I'm thrilled to discover that there were enough applicants from students to run two classes.

Two!

Think about it.

We are continually told that students in Year 9 are the least engaged in education. We are told they have no interest in English, or reading, or writing. And yet I had around 50 students apply to do more than the required English class. (My friend David had a similar number of students apply for his Maths elective.)

So what does this mean?

Do students find mainstream English too constricting? Is the course too focused on essays and text analysis? Are we taking the joy of writing and reading out of school? Or is it simply that not every kid wants to do wood or metal or textiles as an elective?

Whatever the reason, I think it's fantastic and I look forward to the challenge of developing an actual course now.

Have A Safe Trip.

My Chinese guest left this morning at a ridiculously insane hour, which means I'll have a slight headache from a lack of sleep for the rest of the day.

The exchange program is now off the ground, and there'll be lots of work to do before we take our students over to China. The last week or so has flown by, but the educational benefits for both Chinese and Australian students and teachers has been obvious and immediate.

We had a great week here at Chateau Cameron, and Hunter will be missed. Have a safe trip home.

Short On Words.

People regularly ask me where they can buy my book. Which is great, because it means the people I meet and have contact with are genuinely interested.  The problem is, of course, that I don't have 'a book' as such.

As a short story writer, my stories appear in anthologies and magazines along with a bunch of other writers. And so I have to explain this to the person asking. Usually it makes little difference, as they ask where they can get hold of ones of those books.

In the past week I've had four or five people mention to me just how much they've enjoyed not only my story, but the others in the book. They mentioned how it was nice to read something that could be digested in a single sitting. It's as though they've never really read short fiction before.

It's true that we don't teach enough of the short form in school (and there are explanations for that), but a colleague and I have made a concerted effort to try to introduce more into our classes.

And it seems as though the students, although puzzled at first by the brevity of text, are starting to enjoy and appreciate these stories.

Long live the short form!

School Holidays Are Here.

I'm in the first week of my term break, and starting to relax. Although I must say I actually haven't had much 'down' time.

Lots of work to do around the house, particularly with this unseasonably clear weather. It's supposed to rain for the next week or so, which means I'll have some time to get some writing done.  I did manage to free up Monday, and spent the day writing, and tweaking a story for a deadline. I sent it off with a couple of hours to spare. No we wait. And the waiting can be long. 

It's an unusual story for me. Different style, different genre, and different format.  Hopefully it pays off. If not, then I've tried something and pushed my own personal writing boundaries.

Apart from that I've built a gate and a fence, repaired outdoor steps that had broken, and generally done stuff around the house.

But the physical work has been good. It's a nice change from the classroom, but it's not something I'm particularly suited to, or something I would want to do full time.

Strange Things Are Afoot At The Circle K.

Report writing and the subsequent intensive proof-reading is enough to drive any sane teacher mad. Having read hundreds of these things in the past week, and the typos made, I now question the sanity of some of my colleagues. And that includes the ones I considered normal.

The current format for reports includes more information and data than anyone really needs. But I suppose information overload is the way of the world.

Proofreading is almost done, as is the term, which means I'll have a little more free time in the coming weeks. Good things, along with the strange, are indeed afoot. And I have hopes that a couple of opportunities will come to fruition.  I have a good feeling about a couple of these things.

Maybe it's just my post-birthday optimistic outlook.  Or maybe, just maybe, things might come together for me.

Convergence.

I've been back at school for more than a week now and it's been insanely busy.

Usually I feel as though I ease my way into first term, but for some reason there hasn't been the opportunity to do that. The classes I have are fabulous. I'm truly looking forward to spending this year with these kids. I'm already seeing students responding to these classes.

It's the other stuff, the things and events on the periphery that's using up any free time I have. And all of it seems to be converging at the moment. Not just at work, but out in the 'real' world too.

Don't get me wrong, none of this is bad stuff - just busy stuff that all demands my attention now.

And some of it is excellent.  I'd just prefer it if life could sometimes pace these things for me.

Pain And Procrastination.

In traditional stories, fairies come at night and sweep up, or sew buttons and so on. Why isn't there a fairy that comes at night to mark student work and writes my reports for me?

I have a colleague who tells me her house is always spotless at this time of year, simply because she'll find something, anything to do rather than write reports. I'm much the same - but without the spotless house. The internet is a huge distraction. Funnily enough, I don't work on short stories at this time. I'd feel guilty knowing I hadn't finished my reports. And so neither gets done.

But there comes a point where I can no longer put it off, and I have to finish them up.  Teachers know what I'm talking about.

See you on the other side.

This Week Had Seven Days.

An insanely busy week.

I had parent-teacher interviews on Thursday night which does not, as someone recently said, mean you get to just sit down and chat. They take a lot of preparation, and there's always the possibility of aggressive or hostile parents. Fortunately the parents that came to see me were fine. The ones I needed to see never came.

I also finished my university assignments and submitted those. Since I was overseas for a few weeks, I had quite a bit of catch up reading and writing to do. But they're done now and out of the way.

Jack Dann's writing workshop continues full steam ahead. During the week I somehow found some time to read and critique the stories for yesterday's class. Some nice moments and some good writing, and a couple of stories I'd like to see developed further. And I learned quite a bit. I'm already re-imagining future stories in my head to make them tighter. This course is doing exactly what I hoped it would.

There was a Ditmar nomination a few days ago, and I'm thrilled by that. I'm also very appreciative of the comments made and emails people have sent me. Especially since some of those came from writers whose work I had on my shelf but had never met only a year or so ago. Thanks. I currently have a couple of stories on hold, which I was hoping I'd have had more news about by now. Many friends (or at least writers I know) have been nominated for awards, which is always exciting.

All I need is some time to write some new stuff.

The sun is out and the sky is blue. My new audio system sounds great. I'm enjoying my work (apart from parent-teacher interviews) and my dogs are fine.

A busy week, but a great one.

Nothing Really Changes...

Time passes so quickly, and some things never change.

As a student, 35 years ago, I was forced to attend the school swimming sports.  Now that I'm a teacher, I'm forced to attend the school swimming sports.  Only now I have responsibilities and duties.

Ah yes, the halcyon days of youth.  Late summer, sitting on the grass near the pool, watching all the athletic kids line up and take the races seriously. My friends and I would sit around, talking, eating snacks, discussing music and listening to lots of tunes on one of those 1970s cassette players.  Very cool, for the time.  I seem to recall lots of Beatles music, but that's just me and the kind of kids I hung around with.

And at the school swimming carnival a few days ago I saw pretty much the same behaviour from our students. Right down to the music. So OK, it's all digital now rather than cassettes, and it was more communal in those days.  The kids now have it on earphones on Mp3s - probably illegally downloaded - and their listening is an isolated experience.

But I was surprised, and rather pleasantly so, when I happened to hear a Beatles tune playing somewhere.  Love Me Do, I think it was. (I know it was - I just wanted to use a Bad Company reference)

Some things change, and we discuss whether it's for the better or not. But at heart kids are still kids - they're just trying to cope with a rapidly changing world.

You May Leave School, But It Never Leaves You...

Report writing is the one aspect of teaching I don't really enjoy. And, of course, they seem to roll around just as the last ones were done. Ours were due today. I completed them on time and dropped in at work last night to upload them.  In fact, I was on the way home from the doctor's when I did.

Yeah, I got hit by some dreaded lurgy that's making me feel like crap at the moment. But like any other show, the reports must go on. And there are enough problems with the print run without incomplete reports adding to it. I don't wish to be the one that throws the whole printing process out because I was late.

It's kind of weird, writing reports for kids. Especially since I have such 'fond' memories of receiving my own - ironically, from the same school I currently teach at. I always try to throw in a couple of positives and some recommendations. And I try to be totally fair and accurate in my reporting. The first time I wrote reports was nerve-wracking. I must have checked and re-checked them about thirty times. Then I uploaded them and worried myself for days as to whether I was being fair to the kids I taught.  And then once they were mailed out I was worried sick waiting for the phone calls.

They never came.

These days I still check them a couple of times, mostly for spelling and grammar. There's nothing worse than someone picking up a typo from an English teacher. But that stuff still slips through sometimes. Fortunately they usually get noticed by other teachers during the proof reading process.

And if I were to write a report for myself and my writing efforts?

Hmmm. Must write more often, needs to make the time. Write daily, even if it's only a few paragraphs. Be more adventurous, take risks with your writing and keep reading.  Reading a wide range of books will assist in a fluid and sophisticated writing style.

Or at least it can't hurt.

Anyway, I'm off back to bed to try and recover in time for school tomorrow.  Good night.

Learning From History.

I had a strange experience today - a sudden memory of being about 13 years old again and stuck in a boring class in school.  It was more than just deja-vu, it was like some twisted Vietnam flashback on acid.

OK, that's a major exaggeration, but it was kind of weird - and vivid.

I've previously mentioned that I teach in the school where I was a student.  This morning I took an extra class for an absent teacher, a Year 8 history class where they were studying the black plague. They were a great bunch of kids and worked really well all class.

 As I entered the room, I looked out the classroom windows at the vista pictured above. Today is cloudy and wet and the beautiful mountain range which sprawls across the eastern horizon was mostly hidden by cloud. And so I suddenly remembered walking into the same room for a geography lesson in 1976, on a day with similar weather conditions. I remember the class was about Mongolia - the rainfall, the topography, the produce and whatever. But apart from the name of the Mongolian capital I remember none of the other facts or figures from that class. And the only reason I recall Ulan Bator, is because my friends and I thought it sounded very funny and said it about 20 times a day over the next few weeks. Well, it seemed funnier at the time than it does now. I guess you had to be there, and be a 13 year old boy. (Ironically a Mongolian fact has risen again. A group of friends and I currently have a similar joke regarding the Togrog, the currency of Mongolia. Maybe you don't have to be 13.)

What I do remember from that class, though, is being amazed at how different the landscape looked with Mt. Dandenong having disappeared behind clouds forcing a closer horizon, and watching a dog that spent most of the 40 minutes running around the playing fields while I was supposed to be working.

Memories like this are important to me. They remind me what it is like to be bored in class, and serve as motivation for keeping my teaching varied and interesting. And the same with my writing.  I'll read almost anything to the conclusion, even stories I don't think are written particularly well and try to learn from them to improve my own writing. (It goes without saying that I also learn from the stories I love.)

And so I write the type of story I love to read.  I know they're good and worth reading - if only I could convince editors my writing is worth purchasing