I kept starting blog posts with resources or teaching ideas these last few weeks and would then stop myself from posting them because it's December. I just feel like everyone is done with the teaching year. I'm right, aren't I? This year was the first uninterrupted year of school since 2019 but there was this constant sense of 'could things become unsteady again?' and the COVID-related absences (both staff and students) riddled the year with a certain sense of discontinuity. It feels really obvious to say this but everyone across the entire planet is feeling really tired.
So I thought I'd do something different and write a little more personally for my last blog of the year.
Here are some things that I was thankful for this year:
- My beautiful baby, who is now wobbling around the house on two legs like some stop-motion wonder from an old Ray Harryhausen movie. It's a cliche but my whole worldview has genuinely changed with the arrival of this additional person in my house. It's been amazing to watch such grow, to see everything anew through new eyes, and to share this journey with my beautiful wife.
- A new school to call home. This is the fourth school I've worked at now and it's been great professional learning to see just how differently every school operates within the same overall system. I feel a great sense of calm in knowing that I will be continuing at this school into next year and beyond.
- Becoming a Learning and Support Teacher. I've alternated between English and History for my decade-plus career, never quite committing to just one (I'd like to say that I can't pick between the two but the honest truth is that I just go with the flow - if I'm asked to teach English, I will, if it's History, I'm happy to do that too). In Term 4 this year I got to step into the entirely different role of Learning and Support Teacher, and I've loved it so much. I've been feeling a greater sense of self-worth and I enjoy working to help students and their families - plus it allows me to look at big sets of data (a secret and highly nerdy passion that I've never had enough opportunity to dive into in the past).
- New (and old) friends who have been supportive and funny and helpful and a reminder of what matters in the workplace and beyond.
As you might have guessed from the above, things have been busy in my house this year. I haven't had as much of a chance to write aside from a couple of teaching articles and some poems (two were published under a dastardly pseudonym). I read about half the amount of books that I'm usually able to (being a parent reintroduced to me to the concept of existing in a constant state of tiredness) but there were still some really great things that I got to read, here were my ten favourites, in no order:
- Plunder of the Ancients by Lucinda Delaney Schroeder. A true crime account of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Agent going undercover in the Native American illegal artefact trade.
- Kindred by Kirli Saunders. I read this because I wanted to teach it to Year 11 and I found the poetry to be quite soothing and welcoming - Saunders has a way with words when it comes to providing a window into the very soul of the earth.
- The Overstory by Richard Powers. This was a big wow; a brilliantly interwoven and finely crafted piece of climate fiction about trees. Much more interesting than you could imagine.
- The Hare with the Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal. My second time reading but my first time truly appreciating.
- Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. A seedy knife's edge cooking memoir, and the perfect spiritual companion to this year's best new TV series (The Bear).
- A Confederate General at Big Sur by Richard Brautigan. My third Brautigan novel - and I've loved all three so much that I'll be working my way through his entire body of work in the near future.
- Pax by Sara Pennypacker. A heartbreaking and beautiful coming-of-age novel about a fox and his boy. Thanks to my friend Ellen for this one!
- Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong. Last year, Vuong had a poem included in the HSC and he found himself (unexpectedly) bombarded online by students who hadn't coped with said poem. Unlike most authors who have previously faced this horrifying prospect, Vuong merely expressed bemusement and set about savagely and hilariously mocking some of the messages he received. His poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds further exemplifies his mental acuity with a raw juxtaposition of the tough and the intimate in a range of pieces filled with unforgettably visceral imagery and remarkable wordplay.
- After Story by Larissa Behrendt. This one was recommended by my friend Lis. I just finished it this morning and I love how effortlessly it blends together so many different elements (trauma, family, travel, literature, Aboriginal culture) through dual perspectives.
- The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow. Technically you could call this picaresque novel a 'coming-of-age' but, really, I haven't read anything like it before. Bellow's voice is uniquely colloquial yet sophisticated, presenting a range of misadventures and characters both hilarious and poignant.
And that's it from me in 2022. If you're reading this, I hope you take some time over the holiday break to rest and be with the people you love most. Here's to a gentle 2023.
