Thursday, September 13, 2012
Parent Teacher conference
We had the first of two-days of parent
teacher’s conference at our school today. I have done this at schools before,
nothing new, but I did get to thinking about life in general and the turns and
twists one takes on the journey.
Sitting there with parents I remembered
my days as the parent with my children. Life was so different then. I was a
single parent in South Australia (I was the foreigner there, being a Yank and
all, though allegedly I spoke the same language as the teacher) and usually
there was a problem with at least one of my children, I will not say which one.
Of course I blamed the teacher because obviously the reason my child acted out
was because the class was not challenging enough and my son was creative and
beyond their slowed down standards. Actually I was probably the parent from
hell.
This was between 1985 and about 1999. Not
sure why but my children attended lots of schools. We started off with Mt.
Compass, and then there was Pt. Elliot, Meadows, Victor Harbor, Christies, and that
was just primary. There was Wirreanda High School
later on and a temporary school because of some discipline stuff and maybe
Seaton High too; I lost track.
I started my own studies in 1991 and
went straight through to 2005; 14 years of university, from starting my BA when
I was 44 to collecting my PhD at the University of South Australia when I was
58. I started teaching in 1999 at age 52, when most people start to look at
retiring. Before that I had been a tofu maker for seven years, a brother in a
religious order, a cook, street artist in New Orleans, NYC, South Australia,
Honolulu; a happy hippie living in communes in the 1960s and a variety of
things but sitting in front of parents talking about their children always
amazes me; especially here in China, where I need an interpreter for Chinese,
Korean, German and or etc. and I am happy to present myself as the teacher or
as is the case now, the student’s advisor. I try to recall my children in
school and think of nightmares – principal’s phone calls, me defending my
children, the fire in the boys toilet that many years later a son said yes it
was him, to the court appearances for graffiti and on and on. One of my
favourite was when I was being showed my son’s diary (this happened with both
children). There were lots of absent days with my signature – this was at Wirreanda High School, my children would have been in about
8th and 10th grade. There were days when they did not
have their uniform with some excuse about it is in the wash –this was in many
entrees. The reasons for missing school were everything from baseball practice
at another school (that son was later signed by the LA Dodgers as a pitcher) or
meetings at the dentist, doctor and a host of visits I
barely could have imagined. All signed by me. When I pointed out it was not my signature
anywhere in the diary I was shown the front page of the original signature – my
children had signed my name from day one. OK so I never looked at their diaries
– poo hoo on me. I had other things to deal with like
being a perfect parent.
What I find really fascinating is when
two parents are talking a mile-a-minute in a foreign language, and looking up
every once in a while at me then going back to saying stuff I have no idea
what. 他无法组织一个妓院的螺丝 (He couldn't
organize a screw in a brothel).
I love my
job – teaching broadcast journalism and being our video media person and
creating our school news shows and working with teachers with technology and
teaching my middle school publications class. It is just a long ways from being
a single parent living on a pension with naughty children and a tenth grade
education until one day I thought shit I am in my 40s and doing not much and
then 14 years later I was Dr. Neuage. Whats next?
The only thing that is the same is that I am, as always, in a foreign country.
Well
tomorrow is Friday and early Saturday morning we are off with the International
Club of Dalian for a two day trip to one of Dalian’s best getaways destinations
– Bingyu Valley 冰峪沟! “Beautiful
scenery, exciting white water rafting, fresh air and interesting people…”
1989
Pt. Elliot South Australia
1997 Hackham, South
Australia
Thursday, September 13, 2012 Dalian, China
contact DALIAN CHINA ~ TOFU ~ PICTURE POEMS ~ Educational blogs updated August 15, 2013 Vietnam trekking.
Blog Index updated August 15, 2013 K - 12 technology (updated August 13, 2013). Travel Site (2013) updated August 14, 2013. Videos/Blogs on Youtube, Twitter, Wordpress, Photo albums. Updated 15 Second Street, Round Lake, New York and photos from parent's 1943 wedding as well as Leigh's page. Farmville page updated Thursday, March 17, 2011 5:58 PM neuage.org updated August 15, 2013 neuage.us updated August 15, 2013 Resume updated August 15, 2013
Blog updated / Integrating Technology Blog: terrell.neuage.us and/or neuage.me, neuage.info, neuage.mobi, livejournal, Serendipity, neuage.co, drupal-gardens
Today working on picture poem links starting around "better"). Picture poems are the digital format of work I did as a street artist in New Orleans in the 1970s, as well as New York City, Honolulu, San Francisco and Adelaide South Australia. Follow @neuage.
|
|||