In a Musical I produced on the Dicken’s character Oliver he played a warm and engaging Fagin, highlighting his natural affinity for the value of community. Maybe the isolation that he had experienced and the hours of self-reflection were what enhanced his ability to be a brilliant, understanding, creative teacher who had an amazing capacity to relate to students having difficulties academically or with behaviour. Not all teachers have that capacity to a high level. Commentators think it can be taught. Maybe some of it can but beyond that it relates to a particular teacher’s gift.

One of the great values of school, where students meet as a group, is the ever - evolving understanding of what it is to live in a community. Some find it easy, to some it’s a challenge but usually all will gain from it. I didn’t enjoy my first four years of schooling but they were really valuable with the many lessons I learnt about living in community. My first class (grade 1 - no transition) I guess had about 35 students in it.

After a bad first day (I can still remember it) I settled in and worked out the best way to make friends and how to get on with the teacher. I learnt quickly that it was stupid to fail to get on with the teacher, the results of which were very unwelcome. I remember her name and she drove an FC Holden. It is worth noting that by grade three there were 54 students in the class. By this stage many students had become proficient in relating to teachers. In a class of 54 there was such a great variety of personalities with gifts and obvious problems and even at 8 I learnt about understanding, tolerance, care for others and right and wrong.

So many important lessons continued to be learnt throughout my school days. It was an ongoing evolution, enriching understanding day by day. There was the joy of success, the disappointment of failure, understanding ways of relating to others positively and to avoid being the messenger of hurt and sadness. This was a big one and when one looks at the daily news it is obvious that some of the notable leaders have absorbed little of this compassion. These lessons are complex and are learnt over years, not at one sitting and often out of one’s own pain. But then schooling is a 13 year plus process and indeed lifelong learning is so much the jewel of the wise. Over the weekend I was involved interviewing a number of year 12 graduates who had applied for scholarships with the organisation I am involved in. I have done this for a few years and have met a number of fine young people who have benefited so much from the “rough and tumble” of their 13+ years of schooling. This years group were amazing and made me proud to have been a teacher, though I had taught none of them. Clearly there are really good parents and teachers out there!

But I believe heaps of their learning had been as a result of a school community. Of course, there is also home schooling, and I know parents who have done this and have ensured their children have been engaged in some way in community, with other children.

It also makes me sad when I see students not attending school for no particular reason. I know how much learning they miss out on as well as the evolving experience of how to live effectively in the wider community. A school is usually an example of a wider community. Students learn that everyone is an important part of the community - students of different ages, abilities and sometimes other challenges are all important; staff who are teachers and those who have other jobs; the variety of people who come to visit. I used love hearing visitors say how friendly the students are. Progress surely was in the right direction. I’m a big believer in the role of older students showing care for the youngers. In a school community students grow up learning through constant reinforcement, to be considerate of others, to be aware of and reject bullying, to practice unselfish care for others and to be thoughtful, supportive friends. Of course, these days they are exposed to many of the negatives of community through television etc.

I was shocked at the hostile, negativity of the US election which appeared in all its non-glory night after night and I’m sure lots of our students saw it. Hopefully schools can pass on that this is not the way to behave in a positive community.

I believe appropriate community service should be an important part of any school community. This helps students to develop as caring citizens. The trouble that is being experienced around Australia, to which the community is struggling to find a solution, is a very sad aspect of society at the moment. Too often people look for excuses and not solutions. One solution is to ensure all students attend school where academic and social lessons are an ongoing part of the day’s program. Bullying is indeed a real “no no” in properly run schools. Home invasions, which are now commonplace are not only an example of a criminal activity but also of straight forward, unacceptable bullying.

It is from the nurturing and teaching in both the home and the school that the students develop fine attitudes that they can take into the community while they are students and when they leave and go out as adult citizens into the world. After years at school and growing up in a good and wise home, they learn and understand what is good, what is constructive and what is bad and unacceptable. Parents who deprive their children of the experience of a learning community are really causing them to miss out and they have much less chance to be constructive, kind and empathetic members of the community. If you have a opportunity to water the garden, particularly in the summer heat, you have the joy of watching plants thrive. If you don’t water them they simply shrivel away.