Resisting Idealised Perspectives in Education.

 

During the session entitled  What Life Teaches at the Bendigo Writers Festival, featuring John Marsden, was certainly enlightening. John Dewar, La Trobe University Deputy V-C spoke with  John Marsden, a notable author  and academic treasure, who displayed a natural humility during the discussion. He described his resistance to idealised perspectives to his education facility, Ironbark College,  and to the students. John  Marsden  dismantled common socially upheld negative stereotypes of adolescents.  Although John Marsden is at the forefront of progressive education practice in Australia, and author, he didn’t inhabit any pedestal of self-aggrandisement. This was evident in his use of language register which was expressed in a relaxed way, appropriate and relatable to the Australian colloquials commonly in use for a younger audience.  It was humorous to observe his utilisation of common place words such as “wanker” being well received by the younger audience contingency, much to the agape of more seasoned writers festival audiences sitting further away from the stage.

John Marsden bravely expressed with a candid honesty his own adolescent experiences and used these as an example for his contention that our own experiences can be a transformative process  which can inform our writing practice.

He gave the example, “characters trapped in dreadful situations and create opportunities to improve themselves, possibly discovering parts of their inner resource,  strength to transform the situation. Possible journey towards wisdom and enlightenment.”

Recommended were three premises for developing a narrative trajectory which included;

1. Find Inner strength
2. Transform the situation
3. Become someone I never thought possible.

The session spoke in terms of personal destinies and John Marsden encouraged the audience by stating, “If you are a creative person, consider teaching as a profession, as the creative part of the self and teaching interweave very nicely.”

If there was one sentence spoken that resonates completely with me as an audience participant at the Bendigo Writer’s Festival,  this was the one.