Acceptance speech for The Peter Botsman Memorial Award (March, 2003)

By Lindsay Williams

Thanks and my thanks also to the Management Committee of ETAQ for acknowledging me in this way. Thanks to Peter Botsman’s family for making this possible. And thanks to Mel Dixon for nominating me.

I have to admit, I was excited when the letter arrived from Karen informing me that I had been awarded a “Botsman". Excited partly because good English teachers work extraordinarily hard and the tangible rewards and acknowledgements are few and far between. And as corny and insincere as it sounds, it is also quite humbling.

Many of my predecessors were “heroes" of mine as a young English teacher. They were people who challenged me, extended me and inspired me to over-reach myself. They are responsible for me joining Gary Collins’ Career Flatliners Club. Because, the most important thing I learnt from them is that English teaching and being a Head of Faculty is not a stepping stone elsewhere – it’s a career in itself.

As this appears to be my fifteen minutes of fame, I want to use the opportunity to thank some specific people because English teaching is a collaborative enterprise.

Miss Adams, my Year 10 English teacher and Enid Duncan, my Senior English teacher at Aspley High who kick-started my love of English and grammar. Glyn Davies, the most remarkable, inspiring lecturer a teacher trainee could wish to have.

Nea Stewart-Dore who taught many of us about the need for explicitness in teaching English. Ray McGuire – whose workshops I often attended in my formative years as a teacher. In particular, Ray taught me how to link cognition and the teaching of language.

I can still remember the first Senior English SAC meeting I ever attended at the Board. I introduced myself to Ray and gushed about how much he had meant to me as a teacher – and he just stared at me for about two minutes, speechless.

Looking back now, I probably sounded like some deranged stalker…

Ross Vicary who was an inspector in Brisbane North when I first became a HOD – and he was also chair of the 1-10 English syllabus reference group at the time. I am grateful to him because he obviously recognized something in me that I didn’t recognize in myself – and he opened doors that I suspect would have been much more difficult to open otherwise.

John Carr, one of the architects of the renaissance of English in the late eighties. He introduced me to the work of Michael Halliday and made me excited about grammar again. Attending one of the first Systemic Grammar Summer Schools at Queensland University, I remember him telling me that I was about to embark on one of the most exciting parts of the course – Noun Groups….Okay, call me a grammar geek, but I came out of that session a changed man.

Christine Ludwig who has manned my own personal call centre for grammar emergencies. And second last (but far from being least) is Wendy Morgan.

It’s a great honour to receive this award from Wendy because if one person was to be singled out as helping me become the teacher and professional I am today, it’s Wendy.

She has been a constant source of challenge, inspiration and support over the past decade. She helped us at Park Ridge establish a critical literacy course across Years 11 and 12 long before the Senior English syllabus enshrined the approach. And most of all, she is a fantastic collaborator – she always made me feel like an intellectual equal and encouraged me at a time when, I look back now, I knew very little. So, who pushes Wendy out of top spot?

My family – partly because I have to live with them and I’d be in big trouble if I didn’t mention them last. Seriously, with the support and perseverance of my family, Liz, my wife, my daughter, Millie, and my son, Darcy (yes, after Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice), I have been able to pursue some great opportunities. Liz was also my first Head of Department and she taught me that in the end, it’s the “kids? who matter. Okay, that’s it for the acknowledgements.

You’ll be grateful to know that I don’t intend to thank God or Jesus. Before I finish, however, I do want to do a Vanessa Redgrave. That is, I’m going to be a little bit controversial.

In fact, I want to declare that I really hate John Howard,

but thought that may be inappropriate at an English teacher’s conference.

Instead, I will limit myself to a few reflections about the state of English. One of my favourite quotations is from Writing the Future by Günter Kress in which he states:

Curriculum is a design for the future

Indeed, I love being a Head of Faculty mainly because it is an art – designing English courses involves the orchestration of a myriad of different variables, demands and resources. You are trying to create a soaring symphony from a cacophony of sound.

And to what end?

My answer: a better future for all. However, the part that English might play in helping Queensland students shape a better future has been causing me a good deal of concern in recent years. One concern has been our priorities and what we choose to foreground.

Let me give one, quick example. A number of years ago, I was bemused by an edition of English in Australia that was devoted in its entirety to the place of Shakespeare in English. Now, don’t get me wrong. I have nothing personal against the Bard – although, my own difficulties as a Year 12 student in understanding Shakespearean language almost convinced me that I shouldn’t apply for a tertiary course in English teaching.

Instead, my despair at the time revolved around a few questions which no one has ever been able to answer satisfactorily:

Why Shakespeare? Do we want students to emulate his language? Do we want them to practice his peculiar form of plagiarism? Do we want them to embrace his Elizabethan views of the world?

However, a more significant question occurred to me: why have we never devoted an edition of English in Australia to an Australian author (say Peter Carey), poet (say Judith Wright) or playwright (say David Williamson) or to a multi-media author? Related to this is my second concern about some vocal members of the English community (including some in the ETAQ) who have waged a crusade against change.

Now, I think dissent and debate is healthy, in fact absolutely essential in any field. I used the term crusade deliberately, because, in my opinion, the actions of some of these people verges on a religious fervour that goes beyond rational, legitimate dissent.

Despite what you might hear, the new syllabuses are not critical literacy syllabuses or functional linguistics syllabuses. Rather, they draw on a range of English teaching traditions and theoretical positions. I listened with interest to Graham Turner yesterday afternoon – and agreed with just about everything he said. I have been implementing critical literacy for almost a decade and know, though, that you go through stages.

One of the early ones is a zealous, almost evangelical application of critical principles and the development of overly skeptical reading, viewing and listening practices. But after a while, you start to recognize some of the limitations of this approach – the ones that Graham spoke of yesterday – and start to restore balance.

I can’t tell you the number of conversations I’ve had with Wendy over the years about how we develop a more balanced approach – a critical aesthetic. Finally, the charge that English is abandoning its ethical, human dimension is just not supportable – read the new Years 1 to 10 English syllabus carefully, especially the section on cross-curricular priorities in the Rationale and make your own decisions. Oh, and there’s also ample reference to literature.

Recently, I’ve returned from the IFTE conference in Melbourne. This was a conference that is supposed to attract the best practitioners and theoreticians from around the English speaking world – including South Africa, Canada, New Zealand, England, Scotland and the Unites States. Amongst the delegates, Queenslanders were well represented and we attended a wide range of sessions. At the IFTE party on the last night, we discussed our general impressions of the conference.

Overwhelmingly, people agreed that the work being done in English in Queensland is equal to, if not better than anywhere else in the world.

The new Senior and Years 1 to 10 syllabuses are absolutely world class.

We have every reason to be proud of our syllabus developers, our academics and our teachers. It’s another reason to be especially proud of receiving this award from my peers today.

So, I say let our symphonies be heard along the sandy white beaches, through the mountain forests, across the swaying cane, through the streets of Western towns and in every Queensland classroom. Thank you again ETAQ – and I hope you’re all around to hear me speak again at my retirement in eighteen years time.

Until then, “Live long and prosper!

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International Federation for Teachers of English
© Lindsay Williams, 2003