Seven Seasons in Aurukun by Paula Shaw

Author:Paula Shaw
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 2008-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

18

Halfway

MacKenzie Night is over and Jess has left Aurukun. She leaves me a letter. One that makes me cry. One that lets me know that we are friends beyond this time and place, and I cry because I’m happy. Natasha has arrived as well, just in time to catch the MacKenzie Night action, so I have no chance to feel lonely.

School is now just a matter of keeping the kids entertained for the last few days. We have a staff break-up dinner down at the tavern – in the inside bar – as a private function where arrangements have been made that allow us to buy UDLs. Everyone is all clean and dressed up. The community teachers who have come look very pleased to be there, as though they’ve been allowed into an exclusive club. It is their town, and their tavern, but it is only whitefellas who have dos like this.

There are official goodbyes for some of the teachers who are leaving, people who have become my friends, people who have seen me in tears, who have seen me angry and argumentative, people who have shared some of the toughest experiences I have known. Knowing that they won’t be here next year is a little scary. It means so much getting-to-know-people will have to be done all over again.

I will miss Sarah. With her in the classroom next to mine, I have never felt I am totally alone. She is compassionate and kind to the kids and seems to be able to get some actual work out of them. But I have seen how frustrated she has become and how the cynicism and sadness have crept up on her over the year. How her body is telling her she has to leave. Kidney stones can’t be ignored. She has been here three years – a whole year more than Education Queensland requires her to, and I admire her for that. I still don’t know if I can do it. On International Teachers’ Day the school had been sent a whole batch of badges for teachers to wear saying things like ‘My work makes a difference’, and Sarah had looked at all of them and said to me that she couldn’t wear one of those badges because she didn’t believe what they said was true anymore.

Next year, thanks to the class reshuffle that I spoke up for, I’ll be with the secondary school kids, down the back of the school by myself. I thought it would be unfair to put a brand new teacher in that position, and at least I do have some secondary teaching experience. But who will I turn to if (or when) I have another crisis where I need to leave the room? Who will I be able to talk to every day about what the hell I can do in the next session, about how to make teaching basic number facts interesting? Who will have such a great supply of useful worksheets? I will really miss Sarah.

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