Great Teachers : Few and far between....

ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI.

Theatre and drama were very new subjects in my early years at High School.

We were country kids in one of the loveliest parts of the Yarra Valley.
The local High School was situated between two rolling paddocks, with tall gum trees surrounding the entire school.Every morning there was assembly.....everyone standing in lines in school uniform.

It was announced to us all that we were about to have four new teachers....they were from the city.
When I looked up at the Headmaster....he seemed a little nervous about introducing these people.

First up was a woman in a very short mini with gorgeous long dark brown hair, and what I now recall as a pair of Gucci sunglasses. She also had very high wooden stripey sandals with hot pink ribbons sewn on the sides.

She smiled out at us like a beacon across a wild ocean.

The three other teachers were gorgeous hippy clad men with really long scruffy hair and desert boots.
After all the standard formalities.....we started our day.

The City teachers were very different to our regular teachers, in that they actually asked you how you were...from time to time they would pleasantly stop you in the corridor and say hi!...

Hard to imagine for those times as some kids were still being severely punished ...in all the traditional ways...a standard practise.

A few months in and my lovely Drama teacher decide to put on a performance of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.....by Mr Shakespeare.....we did not know anything about him or why he spoke in that particular manner....but she taught us everything needed to understand this play.

She cast us with great deliberation and I scored the role of Titania queen of the fairies and my crush was cast as Oberon....I was really  excited to think he was my love in this play....I don't think he was too thrilled about it though. As the weeks rolled on we all laughed and played out our parts with nervous energy and clumsy shyness......we were all terribly young and silly most of the time..however .........our teacher revelled in the merriment.

Days were going by when one afternoon she informed us that we would be putting the play on at night.
That sounded right....but her take on a venue for the play, was the beautiful back paddock of the school grounds.....and not the multi-purpose room...we normally used for such events.
The laughter was resonating across the room at tremendous sound.....we all looked amazed by her words of excitement.

Her name was Sandra....she had been trained and educated in Europe ...she spoke several languages and had also lived in very fashionable circles in France. This teacher was one of the most inspiring and genuinely committed teachers I had ever met....one day she held me back after class, to inform me of her plan to decorate my hair and body with large clusters of hydrangea's .....for the deliriously  enamoured Titania....... queen of the fairies.

Sandra said ..."now when you awake from your dream you will be a different queen....you will be very sleepy and free....you will dance around in your nightie and appear beautifully dressed with gorgeous flowers all over your body....after all said and done .....you are in love with the donkey!"

Yes .....it sounds funny now!....but she provoked an awareness....of the sexual kind....in her worded descriptions like a true director of wisdom.
I loved her like a guiding angel....she changed my young life with her zealous nature  and convinced me I could perform with confidence and charm. Two things I have always had in spades...so I'm told.

A Midsummer Night's Dream was an outstanding hit...in the paddock...with my father and mother bellowing with laughter at my silly dream like state....a moment in time, like no other to recall.


Today I can say with all the years gone by that that woman has played such a significant part in my chosen fields of interest.
Its as I say...... a wonderful endorsement for myself as a teacher to treasure and guide my charge...the best way I know how.....and one other mighty revelation to this story is that ....the teacher called Sandra...was actually the grand daughter of Helena Rubinstein.....an icon of 20th Century history.

Sandra you were the best!....queen of all the fairies!.....x

SELF PORTRAIT

POST SCRIPT: If it hadn't been for Gough Whitlam these teachers would never have come out to the country schools......he played a massive role in the education of working class kids....in this Country.
Forever loved.....The Tower of our cultural identity...x