This could only be in Australia!
Greetings All
I have just received Xmas letters from a couple of great people I used to work with (Nick and Stace) and realised what a fantastic way to end the year on a reflective note. I am always too lazy to send Xmas cards and never have enough time to catch up with everyone. This is a way of making up for all those conversations that I didn’t have this year and a reminder that I look forward to the next time we catch up and celebrate our lives, families and friends.
As this letter is going to a broad group, some of the names may be irrelevant but read and interpret at will. When I think of this year nothing much appears but gradually all that has happened unfolds and I realise that I now know why I had not enough time to get everything done. Rather than sending this as a document I thought it better to add to my Blog site which has long been ignored, as a means of keeping abreast of web technologies. So here goes.
Well I have survived my 2nd year back as a primary teacher. The last time I was in a primary school was 1990 and that was in a special class. One of my greatest challenges has been to learn all 500 plus student names as I teach all them computing during the week. In those 2 years I have had 4 principals which has made it difficult to cement a direction for how I apply and integrate ICTs but it seems to have worked out well. When I arrived there were about 50 computers in the school. Now there are about 130 and Interactive whiteboards in 3/4’s of the classrooms so it’s been a rapid rise in technology. I have added a lot of new software including Kahootz, Comic Life, and Groovy music. I bought a class set of digital cameras and filled the network with movie files much to my techies disgust. Have I enjoyed it? The kids are great and are very receptive to learning and being creative. I had a lot more to do with the school community as I was heavily involved in the school’s 90th Anniversary. It’s great place to work, great staff, students and parents and a brilliant coffee shop across the road http://www.coffeecraft.com.au/home/ . I give them a plug as they roast sell and grind a wide range of coffees all Fair Trade or Rainforest and are the most passionate coffee lovers have ever met. So yes it was worth making the move.
An added benefit has been that I ride from Stirling to
Cycling has kept me sane. I have managed to do a 120k ride to Victor Harbour in March with Bicycle SA, a couple of rides to Carrickalinga, numerous long rides through the hills and 80k rides on Saturday mornings with Cobwebs. All up I have ridden about 8000 ks with half a dozen punctures and one broken chain. In the “things to do before I die” category, I rode from the bottom of the Corkscrew road to the top, one of the steepest climbs in SA. To my enjoyment Ady has taken up riding as well and is planning to do the
Home renovations are nearing completion. The last of the kitchen will be completed this new year, the dining area is done and I just finished the entertainment centre. It’s amazing what one can do with IKEA products. In fact there are websites dedicated to such projects. I must post mine. The garden continues to grow and recover from the previous dry years. Only the one tree fell this year and unfortunately wiped out a rhododendron that I had nurtured for about ten years.
Ady has worked most of the year at
Ella has had a year of highs and one low. Her year started with getting 89.6 for Year 12. We were extremely happy and proud of her as the whole year had been quite stressful. She then delivered us the news that she was going to undertake a Bachelor of Education at UniSA. We tried everything to talk her out of it but she was adamant. Have Ady and I failed as parents and as teachers? To be honest she is well suited to the calling and has had a fantastic year with excellent results and brilliant Prac teaching reports. At the end of January she and her cousin flew to
The issue that most defined our year was Mikaela attempting and completing year 12. We had wanted her to do it over 2 years but right from the beginning she insisted that she was going to do well and get a good score. Ady enlisted Ysha to help her with language rich subjects and Julie Keast to assist her with her Art work. Anne Marie also came along for the ride with the art work as well. It meant there were always extra mouths to feed and beds to make. Miky took over the whole house with scripts, drafts, paintings and photographs. I set up a Bike trainer in the lounge and her bookwork took over the entire dining area and office. She applied herself for the entire year hardly taking the foot of the pedal. I learnt never to ask how an exam went (I’d rather walk on hot coals) or how her painting was going. When the results arrived we were gob smacked! 95.7 which included 20 for Drama and 19 for English and Art 19. Her results showed that if one is determined to succeed and puts in the effort, reward awaits. Never in her entire schooling had she gained grades anywhere near this and it will be a constant reminder to her and anyone who witnessed this, that hard work pays.
Special thanks must go to Ysha and all her efforts with Miky. She has been her living elf-mother. She was present at her birth applying acupressure to Ady and absorbed every wrong turn and emotional breakdown during this year. Her tutorship was fantastic to witness and it was a highlight of my year to see the value of mentoring. Ysha was so taken by Generation C’s (connected) thinking that she read every book and article she could find. She believes that at 67 she more in common with this generation than any before it. We had many late nigh discussions on how this generation works and thinks and this has benefited my understanding of how kids learn. She was a great interpreter of Mikaela’s thinking and helped her deal with her dyslexia positively. A gap year awaits Miky.
So what is there to write about?
- Tour Down Under in
- WOMAD was the brilliant weekend it always is. It is like going around the world in 3 days. A grand celebration of Multiculturalism, diversity and being Australian without out all that flag waving jingoism.
- Weekend and Short get aways to
- Bike riding
- The Crows when they were winning and the direction they are heading.
- No more kids in school.
- Ady’s fund raising dinner for the orphanage in Puna at the Om Centre which raised about $2500.
- Not a big year for reading but enjoyed the Vintner’s Luck
- Film’s Gran Torino, Up and Moon.
What does 2010 offer?
- No Kids in school
- More value time with Ady
- A family trip Asia “Four go mad in Thailand Malaysia and
- Discovering more cycle routes through the Adelaide Hills.
- Reading some of the classics starting with Don Quixote and Great Expectations
- Crows Premiership
- More film going, theatre and live music.
- No more renovations
- Catching up with all of you I haven’t seen for a while
That’s it. Enough. Merry Xmas and Happy New Year.
Stay in touch
An image gallery summing up the year is at http://picasaweb.google.com/alister.davies/ImagesOf2009
