Born to Teach

Kalgoorlie is a town on the edge of the desert in Western Australia. It is a gold mining town with deep red dirt and rich orange sunsets. It is the town where my Dad worked on the North Kalgoorlie mine. The town where my Mum gave birth to my brother, sister and me. The town where I had my first knowing that when I grew up I would be a teacher. I'm not exactly sure when this first teacher thought occurred but it was early enough for me to think that I was born to teach.

Certainly the desire to teach was hand in hand with the desire to learn, Even then I knew that the best way to really learn anything was to teach it. My first pupils where my pretend friends; friends I had made up with my imagination, friends who loved to play football with me, play Tarzan with me and play 'school' with me. I taught them all kinds of things and I taught myself at the same time. What my mum would read to Garry and I (my sister came a little later) I would pretend to read to my pretend friends and we would all display that learning was fun.

The year I turned six I gained the rites of passage of walking to school ten feet behind my big brother and his friends. Day one was not too successful for me as I spent the day crying in a corner and was used as the example to other students of what not to be like. Day two was a lot better, I was moved to Miss Sawyer's class and Miss Sawyer was wonderful.

In fact, each of my teachers at Kalgoorlie Central Primary School gave me some special memory which re-enforced my early knowledge that I would be a teacher. Miss Sawyer smiled and taught us all using colored blocks and I loved colored blocks. In Year two Miss Carter had us make mangers as we got near Christmas and I loved making things. In Year three Miss Payne read us The Wizard Of Oz and books started to live for me. In Year four Miss Mulder introduced the class to Enid Blyton's Famous Five and Secret Seven and a desire to write started to live for me as well.

It must also be said that our school Principal Mrs Bull left her strict but caring impression on me. In fact, many years later she continued to teach me something about the value of loving learning. I was running a workshop at the Primary Principals' Conference in Perth in 1993 and I mentioned my early teachers and my first Principal Mrs Bull. One of the participants in my workshop came up afterwards to tell me that Mrs Bull was still Mrs Bull and that she was spending a lot of her time collecting and writing a history of the Kalgoorlie area. He went on to say that Mrs Bull was now totally blind and she wrote history using a regular typewriter. When she knew her sight was failing, she taught herself how to type so that when she had no sight left she would still be able to write!

Midway through year four, Mum and Dad decided we needed to live in the city, so we moved to Perth and onto Doubleview Primary School. Blue and gold were our school colors and sport, art and music always seemed to extend our lessons of maths and english. Mr Reid (he praised my ability to kick a football), Mr Groves, Mr Devlin, Mrs Gough, Mrs Buzza and Mr McNab (he praised my short stories) all played some part in keeping a belief alive that I would follow in their wonderful footsteps and become a teacher.

One day in July in year seven (1969) we were all pretty excited because a man named Armstrong was going to walk upon the moon. We didn't have televisions at school but our Principal Mr Hopkins invited our whole class to walk down the street to his house and sit in his lounge room to watch the walk. To this day, I still don't know what left a bigger impact on me, that 'one small step for man' or sitting on the floor of my principal's lounge room. In one giant historical event, Neil Armstrong taught me what could happen when teams of people had immense vision and drive and with one simple act, Mr Hopkins taught me what impression you could make with a simple act of kindness.

By 1970, and through till 1974, I was a student at Churchlands Senior High School where some excellent teachers continued to teach me the wonder of learning and the beauty of being a teacher. Mr Playle was my English teacher in 1971 and he was extremely creative. One day he walked into class and stood on his table and started making chicken noises. After a minute of this he simply looked at us and said 'eccentric'. This was an introduction to a theme on eccentricity which led us into heaps of reading and writing and new vocab words. Unfortunately, Mr Playle was dismissed from the school because his methods were not appreciated by the administration at the time.

In 1973 my English teacher was Gary Hodge and it was from that moment that I knew I would not just be a teacher, I would be an English teacher and that in my teaching of English I would be teaching life. Gary Hodge was the first person to ever see one of my poems and the first to praise them. Now, as a songwriter, I often wonder what might have happened if he hadn't looked at my writing and seen a something special (as he wrote in my workbook). Unfortunately, Mr. Hodge only lasted a year at my school as well, but boy did he plant some wonderful seeds of learning.

And so the list went on... Rod Gillies who taught us all the concepts of Economics through story and metaphor and then through analysis and numerics. Kevin Quinn and Kevin Murray who taught history through a tutorial system unheard of in most schools at the time. Nita Shepperd who made Human Biology come alive even as we tried, as students, to kill it.

Wandering back through my Primary and Secondary schooling I feel blessed that my parents and my teachers all combined to plant seeds of learning with creativity and dedication. It obviously worked because so many of the students of Doubleview and Churchlands went on to become teachers themselves. (A lot went on to become athletes as well. Eight Churchlands students represented Australia in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics!)

Yet, my influence by wonderful teachers does not stop with the leaving of school. In fact, it took on a whole new era of wonder when I returned to school as a teacher myself in 1979. My first appointment was the opportunity to teach at Wanneroo Senior High School and the staff was hand picked by the Principal Glynn Watkins and his deputies Betty Cockman and Tony Simpson. I was a first year out and I was learning my craft from the best of them. We had professional development on day six of each six day cycle with a seminar after school. All dedicated people dedicating time to learning.

In 1981 I started my many years of travelling and every where I went teachers would appear. In Israel it was my kibbutz room mate Genia Landa who taught me not to fear mistakes, his very words were 'the first pancake is always lumpy' and since then I have continued to make the pancakes knowing that practice makes progress. In 1982 I worked as a counselor for Blue Star Camps in North Carolina and everywhere I turned were lessons for the learning and teachers galore. I was learning from the camp directors, my staff colleagues, the campers themselves and what I wasn't learning from them all I was learning from moments of wonder in simply soaking in the mountains and lakes of the Blue Ridge wonder.

Each year, each day, each moment teachers appeared and all because somewhere along the road of life I had been helped to discover that learning is an attitude and it is the vehicle to helping us honor the talents we were born with.

Now, many years down the track, I have the joy and honor of running workshops and seminars for all kinds of educators - principals, trainers, managers, parents, students, teachers, coaches - all over this world. Every time I stand up to tell a story of the art, science and ethics of being a learner and a teacher I do so as a proud educator paying respect to a host of magical people who helped me to love learning and life. And each day, where ever I may be, I look for the wonder of learning and teaching in every event on this journey through life. We are all learners and we are all teachers and each of us sets the example for each other.

Home | About Glenn | The Shop | Resources

True Learning Centre
Quality & Esteem Based Education & Training
Tel: +61 8 9221 8666 Fax: +61 8 9225 6699

E-mail: info@glenncapelli.com