The Retirement Trip: Going to Weston, aka Am I Crazy, Did I really do That?

I am writing this in retrospect, a week after I visited my old school in Weston, NSW, from 36 years ago. I am still thinking about why it was so important to go there and why now.

I taught there for a little over a year, 36 years ago. I remember it, sometimes well, sometimes not. Sometimes I have wondered did I actually do that, go to a foreign country and teach school? Well, yes, I did. And I also remember it pretty accurately as confirmed by my four teaching mates, and roommates from Maitland, whom I found with surprising ease when I got to Sydney.

I drove from Sydney up to Gosford on Tuesday, August 17, to Diana's. Diana, the second grade teacher who was smart, enthusiastic and interested innovative teaching and learning from America in 1975, much to the anxious concern of our wonderful Head Mistress, Rona Mailfert. Mrs. Mailfert was 65 when I knew her and has since died. Diana and I drove to Weston on that Wednesday to take me on my magical mystery tour, beginning with the school. We found it easily although Diana had not been there since the 70's like me. My first look at it was familiar but not. It was smaller than I remembered. As we walked into the courtyard we spied a gentleman who appeared to be someone important, and indeed, he was the principal. 66 year old Allen has been the principal for 13 years and had received my emails although he had not answered them. He greeted us like he was expecting us at that exact moment. When Diana introduced us he turned to me with a broad smile and said he could hear my accent in my email. He had tried to find out if anyone there still remembered me but did not find anyone. Everyone who would remember had left or died. But he welcomed us and was pleased to tour us around the renovated Weston school. My classroom has been turned into the staff room but other than that the Infants school remains the same. I met the kindergarten teacher who introduced me to her class. When the children heard my accent, were told I had taught there many years ago and determined that I was from America, a little girl raised her had and said with a gleam in her eye, "My Nan had you!" Which is very likely true as most of the people in that area don't leave and many of the parents and grandparents and great grandparents in that school went there.
It was eerie being there, remembering how things were with Diana and the principal. We talked about the things teachers talk about, how times have changed, how kids are harder to reach, how parents do this or that, or not, how central administration can make things hard or not, how much things cost, how nice it is to get an infusion of technology money. We also talked about how America has taken the "results approach" and that one of the candidates for Prime Minister, Julia Guillard liked this idea from America and wants it implemented in Australia. The issue then is how do you measure results and are benchmarks fair if a child starts low but makes great progress? But the principal reckoned that since America had gone down that path, Australia would soon follow. There seems to be a general agreement that whatever America does, Australia does it about 10 years later.
Weston has a nice lab which is certainly different. Classes in kindergarten are not over 20, and there has been a large upgrading of the building with paint, a new courtyard, a new canteen (all kids eat lunch at school now which is different) and a few renovations...but it is mostly the same--kids in their uniforms, quiet, small, happy place. I asked Allen when he planned on retiring. And he said he was enjoying his school too much to retire and that he expected he would know when it was time. And what would he do if he retired? He likes going to work.

My former classroom turned into staff room.

And so I got a little teary again. I didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay and volunteer in the kindergarten and just be there. It is away from my life at home, a sudden lack of pressure. Perhaps my own retirement which signals a new part of life reminds me of that earlier time in my life which was also a signal of a new stage-- where you begin to see things differently, with a new perspective as an adult. Certainly living in Maitland and experiencing a new culture gave me a new perspective on my life, my country,and the world that I have carried with me. Maybe you just have to cry when one thing ends and another begins. Maybe you have to cry when you find out that what you remember is really what you remember. And maybe you have to cry when you spend time with people like Diana, Joyce, and Linda who were very important to me even if for a short while, so many, many years later.