A teacher’s legacy

What will your legacy be? How will your colleagues, children, and friends remember you? I’ve found myself contemplating this question recently, my retirement years are on the horizon and St Stephen’s School is celebrating our 40^th anniversary. The School’s theme for the year is telling stories. Stories are our legacy, as Benjamin Franklin once said, “If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”

Think Walt Disney. In 1937 he debuted the first ever feature length animation film, Snow White, critics nicknamed the project ‘Disney’s folly’ arguing no-one could sit through an hour-long cartoon. The $1.5 million ‘folly’ was instead a triumph, bringing in $8 million and permanently changing the cinematic landscape. Disney’s public legacy is bringing joy to millions through his larger-than-life characters and theme parks. His legacy within the industry is a man obsessed by detail, when constructing the Disney animation studios, he ensured it was built on a strange diagonal so that his animators would benefit from northern sunlight, considered the best light for animators to work in.

We can’t all leave legacies like Walt Disney, however I am confident that each of us has left a mark on at least one person we’ve encountered in our lives, especially if you’re a teacher.

Growing up I had the privilege of being in classes with some amazing teachers. I didn’t realise at the time how important they would be in shaping my perspective on life but what I did realise early on was if not for some wise, patient, kind, and firm teachers, my life may have taken a very different turn.

Sister Sandra-Maree was my English teacher in junior secondary, 1^st to 4^th form, what is now Years 7-10. She was an American nun from the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth and taught at Holy Family High School. Her love of language, reading and the importance she placed on making sure your voice was heard helped me to understand the power of words and books. How they could alter someone’s ideas and beliefs. As a young girl in the 1970’s it was important to learn that your opinions and views were just as important as the boys and men, we were the generation of Germaine Greer and The Female Eunuch. We had things to do, places to go and opinions to share. Her understanding that education was powerful and provided women with options was a life lesson I am forever grateful to have been taught.

In 5^th and 6^th form (Years 11-12), my Modern History teacher Mr Howard taught me the importance of the past. His passion for history coupled with a sense of humour captured my imagination, he was all about making up your own mind based on the evidence of the time. I learnt from him that the past assists in guiding you, helping you to decide what is important and what we should “fight” for, however the past doesn’t define who anyone is.

Both these teachers were passionate about two things: teaching and their students. Their classes had clear expectations and rules that enabled mutual respect even during the most heated classroom debates. They built my confidence and gave me permission to get things wrong, to ask questions that might be “silly”, to not get upset when you didn’t get the top mark but instead try harder and most importantly to understand that I had ideas to contribute, and I would be wasting my education if I didn’t use it in the future.

None of this I realised at the time, as George Bernard Shaw once said, “youth is wasted on the young.” It has taken me many years to understand what he meant by this and years to grasp some of the lessons learnt at school. Not the content of books or research findings but the life knowledge shared by teachers. I wasn’t ready to hear their messages when I was younger but now, I see them for the pearls of wisdom they are. This is the legacy left to me by Mr Howard and Sister Sandra-Maree.

Teaching is one of the ways to equip our youth with the means to change their world, because a good education can change anyone, but a good teacher can change everything.