My Favourite Teachers

TopSchool Fundraisers is having a competition and they invited me to enter. The topic is ‘Your Favourite Teacher’. This post is written in repsonse to that.

My Favourite Teachers.

Dad,

You taught me to tie knots that won’t come undone, showed me how to straighten a nail, how to use a hammer (without bashing my fingers), a drill and a level. How to tie a plumb line and how to mix mortar. Taught me to cook a ‘One Pot Wonder’ (lamb chops and layers of vegetables, with gravy, all cooked in one pan) and how to eat wallaby tails in a stew.

You showed me that any cut can be fixed with electrical tape and more work, even if it did really need stitches. (No, it wasn’t my cut, it was his)

Because of you, I can snare, kill and skin a rabbit ( I may possibly need a refresher lesson soonish though), I can bait a fish hook with worms (even if the worms do wiggle alarmingly), or grubs, or grasshoppers. I can land and gut fish (even if I excersise my right to have you gut them for me), I can cook them on an open fire and I can eat them without choking on bones (always a handy trait, that whole not choking thing) and the one time I did swallow the bones, you showed me that NOT freaking out is a good idea. (If you ever swallow bones and they get stuck, eat pieces of bread. The bread will shift the bones).

He taught me to tell when edges weren’t straight (by letting me pick faults with his building) and how to play the guitar (I really needed to practise more). How to put up a tent and split wood.

You showed me that life and death were intertwined as we raised animals for you to slaughter. I learned not to be a squeamish girl (I never got a chance to be one) as I watched you prepare animals for the table.

You let me hold the torch (very badly) as we went looking for possums in the trees and I learned that possums eyes flash red at night (and that all possums should die die DIE).

You even showed me that I wouldn’t melt in the rain (do you want to give Amy some lessons?) and that blackberry scratches will heal. You showed me how to spin for trout and how to carry the fish while it was still wiggling (your exact words? – DO NOT DROP THE FISH. You could have showed me the stick trick earlier, heh.).

Thankyou.

Mum taught me to read and write (and then got exasperated when I pinched the books she was reading and spent all my time with my nose in a book, rather than doing my chores). She taught me to count and tie my shoelaces and grow radishes (in the shape of a big V). She taught me to make my scones light and airy, to make muffins from scratch, pancakes from flour and water, and a meal from nothing (all very handy skills).

She taught me to find and catch frogs and lizards, what wild orchids lood like and how to climb a tree. She showed me mud puddles and how to make a pinch pot from clay.

She found frogspawn and let me take some in a jar to school, even though it probably killed her to watch her babies diappear off to a school, where children could KILL THEM BY ACCIDENT. We got to watch the tadpoles hatch from their eggs and grow into frogs.

She taught me to budget and cook and how to be happy. She taught me to light a fire and to cook a meal on top of it.

She showed me how to raise a baby joey in a pouch (yes, we did have a pet wallaby for a while. Eventually she disappeared back into the bush of her own accord. Someday I will find photos) and how to perform basic first aid on an animal.

She taught me that it was indeed possible not to kill your children, no matter how annoyingly whiny they are being (teaching by example).

Thanks Mum.

I think at the end of the day, what I learned at home was so much more important to my life now, that anything I learned in school.

It was my mother who was anal about spelling and grammar and made me say perfect, rather than perfickt and ask rather than arks, my father who showed me what good maths can do (learned on a plank of wood, as we worked out measurements for the new bedrooms) and how to put it into a real life situation.

I learned so much from my parents. More than I ever did from inside a classroom (and I was a straight A student).