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Esther was a student of mine in Primary School.
She was gentle, tender, pretty and very intelligent.
Eight years later, she contacted me to ask if she could do her teacher work experience with me because she had
chosen to become a teacher because of my influence in her life.
I was touched, honoured and thrilled.
Delighted, I accepted the position of her teacher mentor and trainer.
She was tall, slender, curly haired, prettier than I remembered and full of a passion for teaching. I worked with her
that year and followed her career as she taught at a Private girls school, then left to have her own family.
I was always proud to have taught Esther ,and her pride in me and her desire to be like me, was a fabulous happiness
pill that intensified as I watched her develop into a person I admired and loved and became very proud of.
So what made Esther stand out as a student? She was always consistent in everything she did. She completed tasks, was
reliable and never lost her temper or her cool. Even as a child she had the same friendly temperament that led her into succeeding
with every task however small.
She was lively, interested in learning things and not afraid to follow her own desires.
There was always an air of containment about Esther that was relaxing.
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Arthur was 7 years old in the early 70's...and was my biggest headache.
He was continental, tall and well built for his age, aggressive and a total miserable bully and class pest. When his
parents bought a mansion out of town, I rejoiced, but his beloved parents wrote me a delightful note asking if Arthur could
continue the year with me because 'he loved me so much."
I accosted dear Arthur, looked him straight on the eye and said,'Arthur, you know you are only staying because you bully
everyone here and am too scared to go elsewhere."
We made a pact that I would help him if he would try and use his strength as a leader instead of as a bully. It wasn't
easy but the end of year gift from his family was held tight with love as Arthur became a great student.
What made Arthur different?
His family...the love his parents had for him came back as he identified with love and could actually relate better to
love than brute force, and using his larger size and better abilities to his advenatge in positive situations made him a star....I
wonder where he went and how he did.
I grew to love Arthur very much and still remember his beautiful face.
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Adrian was my singer. I was training a choir and because my voice was not the best,
I used Adrian as the voice to train the choir with. I played the piano and his voice floated and followed every note. He was
12 years old and his voice was to break during a soaring solo during an eistedford, and I will never forget the utter dismay
and shock on his face. I was on the stage conducting the choir when his voice cracked, and the silence in the audience was
like a roar.
It was the best year of my life with this student and the choir and he, inspired me to value and realise potential in
every student and thrill when I found talent like I found in this boy.
I never saw him again and wonder what happened to him and where he went and whether he knows how wonderful he made my
year teaching at Morwell in the early 70's.
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Danica was exciting. She was tall, slim, blonde, waifish and with an incredible
sense of style and body. She led the students into good and bad and was full of enthusiasm and energy.
Then she waned, pined, became miserable. I contacted her father to be told that Mother was overseas, and she was being
cared for by the father who was not coping too well with her.
I asked him if she could come and live with me for a while....which she did.
She was like another daughter and she stayed with me for 3 months, then the mother returned and came over immediately
to say thanks for what I had done.
I immediately felt a rapport with the mother and we became friends.
What made Danica so special? Her creativity and her brightness...she was always imaginative and amazingly talented in
anything creative.
Twenty years later when I was researching my past students, Danica came back into my life. She had become a commercial
artist and was very talented. She now wore an earring in her nose and wore hippy like clothes and spoke a language I did not
quite totally understand but the child was there...talented, creative, imaginative and very vunerable to the sensitivities
of the world.
Her mother had taken up art too, both inspired by my art, and it was a warm, loving, artistic family I visited.
Incidentally it was this family that bought one of my early paintings and displayed it so very dramatically in their
fantastic home. I will always remember them with warmth.
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