Celeste Walters

‘What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.’ To me, these words of American essayist and poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson, say it all.

From the age of nine when I took the lead in the school play, I was determined to become an actress. To that end I attended drama school, scored a number of parts, played the title role in The Reluctant Debutante and was about to claim star status when the world turned in 1956 and television struck. Theatres and cinemas summarily closed, thwarting destiny. I had no money and no prospects except for a diploma affirming that I could teach. The same being far from my dream of treading the boards. I spent long hours seeking ways to dodge the coloured chalk, and found in a certain school a principal with a love of Shakespeare. With truncated renditions of Hamlet, Macbeth and Julius Caesar I bought the Bard to the classroom. Before me was my stage and captive audience. At the age of nineteen I firmly believed that my destiny as an actress was on track…

I would use the word ‘learning’ rather than education. In my teaching career I employed what was later called the Discovery Learning Model, in that children were asked Why? How? What could be the repercussions of x and y? Here, children were challenged to make decisions, solve problems, and in sharing the findings, were discovering how others viewed the world and very possibly revising their own positions. In my view, to be ‘educated’ is to be a balanced, confident and articulate human being not very well versed in ‘the basics’ but also in politics, current affairs and the arts. To that end, in 1985 I wrote a text for teachers that is still used in the United Kingdom and Australia. Of course one has to undergo specific training to be a lawyer or a surgeon or an engineer, but this should be coupled with the reading of fiction, with visiting an art gallery, and listening to music – the soul needs stimulus as well as the mind. And learning should be ongoing.My father was a self-educated man, a reader, a thinker and a Communist. I was twelve years of age when he presented me with The Cossacks by Tolstoy, in order to ‘probe the Russian mind’. This tortuous exercise was, nevertheless, not without its benefits, for lurking within the pages were intimations of sex. Not overly explicit, but enough to impress my friends at the single sex repository for morals and manners that I attended. In the bat-winged attic, euphemistically called the library, great works nudged bindings and I devoured them; not realising, of course, that in reading I was learning about life – about history, about cultures past and present, about relationships, about the human condition, and my place in the world. And in reading I was predicting, assessing, using my imagination, learning how language works, and concentrating. Home gave me that start in life. School gave me facts, and the ‘how to’. I can speak French, I know the dates of British conquests, and that I will never understand the mystery of mathematics. But the friends I made at the age of seven have been friends for life. And that is worth every black mark and each well-earned, late after school detention.My current career is writing, and at present I am in the process of editing my nineteenth book. I love playing with words, I love listening to the music they make when linked together in a phrase or a poem. It’s a solitary life and a demanding one, but when you read a letter by someone who tells you that your words have changed their thinking, or that they’re less lonely having read of what a character you’ve created is facing – then you have lit a candle, albeit momentarily, in the heart of another human being. And the feeling is good. In the 1970s an Englishwoman by the name of Dorothy Heathcote came to Australia to give lectures and demonstrations on using elements of drama as a tool for learning. I was invited to witness her ‘in action’ at various primary and secondary schools in Melbourne. I was amazed. What these children learnt in an hour of improvising was phenomenal. This approach to learning opened up new and exciting dimensions to what could be achieved in the classroom. All those present wanted to borrow, beg for and steal this woman’s skill. At one stage she was given a class of children where poor concentration and disruptive behaviour were the norm. Again, the magic she wove resulted in each child in the room participating eagerly and unselfconsciously. Obviously none of us who were watching were skilled in this new approach, but we could try; and by trial and error, and according to our abilities and strengths, it took hold in classrooms everywhere. I will always be grateful to this wonderful woman. Incidentally, Dorothy Heathcote had neither teaching degree nor diploma. She was a worker in a woolen mill in Bradford. She saw kids running wild in the streets and had an idea.I feel proud to be a woman in 2011 when I see young women, and those who are not so young, passionate about what’s happening in their world and who, according to their skills and abilities, work towards making that world more equitable for all. I feel proud when I see my peers, who are grandmothers, contributing to the wellbeing of society in the areas of social justice, the environment, education and the arts. And they are happier and healthier for it. Like my mother before me, I get my strength from the sea. I breathe in its moods, its changing colours and textures. The fathomless sea that never looks back, that in spite of lighting strike and raping gale, is always moving forward.

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