Life before Girton
I grew up on a dairy farm on the edge of the Snowy Mountains upriver from Corryong. After completing secondary education at The Scots School, I worked at an equipment and machinery hire firm in Albury. I then moved to Canberra for 12 months to play football for the Ainslie Football Club, whilst employed in the hospitality industry and also as an employee of the club to conduct football clinics in primary schools.
I attended La Trobe University in Bendigo as a mature age student and was employed by the Bendigo Football League to conduct clinics around Bendigo Primary Schools.
Prior to Girton I worked in Boort and Flora Hill Secondary College and was inducted into the Army Reserve; officer training in the Melbourne University Regiment.
I am a Level 2 qualified AFL Football coach and have played over 300 games of VFL/premier division country league football over 20 years.
What I Love about Teaching
As my background would suggest, a love of the land and a sense of place combined with testing one’s abilities is something I thrive on. Girton provides the opportunity to engage with and teach students in a variety of environments and allows me to share my passions.
What do you like best about the subject/s you teach?
The Humanities and English allow students to really explore and appreciate the human condition. Often the emotions and authorial themes and messages explored in English texts directly stem from historical events. It is often the stories that arise from major historical events that I find most fascinating to share with students.
My favourite classroom activity
One of my favourite activities is to take my History students outside and re-enact historic battles. Whether it be Mongolian battle tactics or the Battle of the Somme, the students are, hopefully, able to appreciate in a small way the experience of peoples from the past and what they endured.
What difference can good teaching make?
A desire to learn and an open-mindedness to new things are important. A student may not like a text or historical period but they should be open to the concept that it will broaden their minds.
An ability to appreciate what others can do, that they can’t. But also to have the courage to attempt the task; you never know you might enjoy it.
Other Hats
Outside the classroom, I co-manage a Basketball team, am involved in the Girton Running/City to Surf Club, assist with the Girton Netball Club and am the MiC of Football.
I enjoy exercising or camping, spending time with my family, tinkering around the backyard or playing or watching some sort of sport. Any chance to get back to the old farm in the mountains to go horse riding, fishing or hunting is relished.
