ATC Director - A Hann for all seasons
Posted 29 May 2011A Hann for all seasons
Teaching brings many rewards but also has its share of challenges. Dawson Hann faced perhaps his biggest while on an exchange in the US.
Hann was in a classroom teaching English when the first of two planes crashed into New York's World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001.
Northfield Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts is nestled into a wooded area bordering the Connecticut River in the beautiful Pioneer Valley, about two hours' drive from Boston. You could not find a less likely setting for violence of any kind.
On his second six-month stint at the school, Hann enjoyed teaching its sophomores (year 10s), whom he found similar to those at Wesley College in Melbourne, where he had been for more than 25 years. "They were very serious kids, scholarly," he recalls.
At about 10am word began to filter through about the attacks on New York and then Washington. Chillingly, one of the flights that hit the World Trade Centre came from nearby Boston.
"We watched it on the big screen, the students, all the classes," Hann says. "I'll never forget the screams and the yells, the anguish and the cries of those kids when the towers came down. It was just amazing. That was one of the busiest days of my life being with those kids." Hann and the school's other teachers spent the day with students, talking to them and organising meetings with pastoral groups. It was horrific but, like all good teachers, they put the students first.
"We were only four hours out of New York," Hann says. "It was that close that former students and relatives of present students died in the World Trade Centre."
Despite its collective shock, the school coped well. "It was quite inspiring the way they got going," Hann says. "What I love about teaching young people is their generosity. That day I heard none of those American students calling out for revenge or vengeance.
"They were all numbed and bewildered as to why someone would hate them so much to want to do this, and I found that most touching. I saw the best in those kids that night. I'll never forget that."
Hann is the kind of teacher who always sees the best in his students, whether it be helping them cope with trauma or teaching them English or drama. Considered and articulate, they respect his knowledge and integrity. He loves their character and passion for learning.
This mutual respect and Hann's love of the written word have kept him at Wesley College for 38 years. The school's longest-serving teacher, he was head of English for 25 years and has helped its drama productions for more than 30. Such longevity and dedication is remarkable for anyone, but even more so for a man who began his adult life with a distaste for institutions.
"I always thought of teaching as a possibility but ... I did not want to be bonded to the Education Department," says Hann, who attended school and university in Adelaide.
"South Australia's a very, very big state and you could be sent to all sorts of remote areas and I wasn't sure enough and I've never ever wanted to be bonded to anyone. The idea was anathema to me that I would be selling my soul, even if it were just for three years, to an institution."
Attracted to academic life, Hann completed an arts degree and an honours degree. He became a tutor in Adelaide University's English department, where he completed his postgraduate degree. "It was a part-time job; it wasn't a real job ... while I was doing my master's degree," he says.
Before he could establish himself as an academic, Hann was conscripted into National Service. It was delayed so he could finish his studies, but when he entered the army in 1970, Australia was still at war in Vietnam. Rather than fight the system, Hann, not a great supporter of the war, decided to make the best of it, something he has done all his life.
"I probably questioned but I wasn't a conscientious objector, put it that way," he says. Hann completed officer training and became a second lieutenant, "the lowest of the low", spending two years in the army. Australia was by then winding down its commitment in Vietnam, so he did not see combat.
Army life could have been a nightmare for this independent, academic young man. But sipping thoughtfully on his mid-morning coffee in Wesley's magnificent old main building, Hann looks back at the experience as a positive one.
"It was in the end because I learnt a lot of skills and made some fantastic ... lifelong friends," he says. "I had a sort of teaching role in the army too, in that I had a variety of jobs, all of which basically involved looking after other people."
The Vietnam War was a tumultuous time.
"It was very divisive in many ways," Hann says. "People who weren't called up felt guilty. It was a very turbulent time in Australian history, actually, and we're probably only just getting a kind of handle on it now."
These days Hann agrees things would be different. "There would be much more debate and much more refusal. The community values were different, and most of us who served in the National Service had fathers who had served in World War II. So there was not that questioning attitude."
Hann's father, Laurie, who worked as a clerk with Dalgety grain merchants, flew in Baltimore fighter bombers as an officer in the RAAF in the Middle East and Sicily during World War ll. His two sons, Chris and Dawson, were born immediately before and after the war. Their mother, Heather, died of cancer when Dawson, now 65, was just nine.
The family was devastated, but as you did in those days, Laurie, Chris and Dawson "just got on with it" with the help of family and friends. Hann was clearly affected by his mother's early passing, but still enjoyed school at Burnside Primary School and then Pulteney Grammar.
"Things like that never leave you," he says. "I can't say how much they have affected my life. They are always there." Older brother Chris was "a very strong support, always has been all my life. We're quite close, and remain so."
Both boys were academically inclined; Chris is a retired scientist. Laurie, who died in the early 1990s, was happy for them to find their own direction in life. "All he wanted for us was to have the opportunities he didn't have," Hann says.
The year after he was discharged from National Service, Hann won a part-time lectureship at Flinders University's Bedford Park Teachers College. He enjoyed it but tertiary education "seemed to me to be not providing the sort of interest and engagement that I was, I think, looking for". He rarely saw students, who were often "just a sea of faces in a lecture theatre".
About that time a job was advertised at Wesley College in Melbourne. It was the early 1970s and the school's principal, David Prest, was hoping to invigorate it. He wanted young teachers with new ideas to take it into the latter part of the 20th century.
Wesley has always been progressive. Its St Kilda Road campus opened in 1866 with a single student, Frederick Binks. A boarder, he spent several lonely nights until other boys began arriving. Now, 145 years later, the school has more than 3000 students on three campuses in Melbourne, Elsternwick and Glen Waverley.
Since day one Wesley has instilled in its students the need for independence, academic excellence and community spirit. Hann was a perfect fit for the school and its principal, also from South Australia. He started as an English teacher in 1973 and immediately immersed himself in the job.
The early 1970s was an exciting time for educators. Schools were opening up to new ideas, society was changing and young teachers were questioning old methods. Many, such as Hann, were encouraged to pursue their ideas. He grabbed the opportunity with both hands. "I immediately found the place to my liking because I was allowed to get on with things," he says. "No one looked over my shoulder. I felt there was a liberal atmosphere here, the sort of liberalism that I was looking for. Trust was placed in teachers to just get on with their classes, develop relationships. While there was accountability, of course, it was a much freer time."
Wesley College went coeducational in 1978, which Hann sees as its biggest and best decision of the late 20th century and one that led it to "grow immensely as a result". It also stopped taking boarders in 1980.
Those early years were exciting and fulfilling, but frantically busy. Hann, who has not married, devoted himself to the school. He mainly taught English and was heavily involved in school sport, giving up countless weekends to coach the cricket second XI for about 25 years as well as various levels of football.
"I decided this was my life and that was what I was going to do," he says. "And I enjoyed the sport tremendously. Yes it's time consuming, but by heavens you get to know a kid so much better and they develop a whole different kind of a relationship with you."
When he wasn't coaching, Hann was helping to organise school plays. A keen amateur actor at school and university, he loved drama.
"I'd always had a strong interest," he says. "It had been in the back of my mind at some stage whether I might try to make a career out of it if I was good enough, but I don't know if I would have been good enough because I never tried."
Hann was a natural teacher and pursued his interest in drama by helping students: "I've found an outlet for that in what I've done in the drama here at the school," he says. "So it's been a double victory in many ways."
In 1980 Hann and colleague Tony Scanlon, also still at the school, set up what became the Adamson Theatre Company (ATC). Before then they had organised school plays, often with Lauriston Girls' School, and the theatre company took it to the next level.
Each year the ATC produced at least four plays, including two musicals, offering terrific opportunities for many students. In 2011 the company will present Oh! What a Literary War!, Cloudstreet, The Silver Sword, The Pirates of Penzance, Kiss Me Kate, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and Aladdin Jr.
"It's primarily for the school community but we do attract quite a lot of interest from outside," Hann says. "We have had an extraordinarily large number of students in the last 20 to 25 years who have gone on to professional theatre careers."
Last year the Sydney Theatre Company had seven former ATC members working with it. Many ATC students blossom on stage, giving Hann and colleagues at the St Kilda Road campus, such as Scanlon, Nick Evans, Clare Cooper, Wayne Bacon, Felicity Pearson and head of music Margaret Arnold, immense satisfaction. All that extra work is worthwhile.
Over the years Hann has been involved in 60 productions. Loath to single out favourites, he says all are special for those involved. But, he admits, some are more memorable. "We did have an opening night cancelled when there was an electricity strike in Melbourne," he says. "That was Sweet Charity in 1989, I think. The other disaster at Sweet Charity was ... the girl playing Charity ... went off the stage, fell into the lap of the pianist ... who, without missing a note, gently lifted her back onto the stage."
Despite the technological revolution, which has moved since 1973 from hand-cranked spirit duplicators with smelly purple ink to laser printers, PCs and electronic whiteboards, Hann says the basic elements of teaching English remain the same.
He adds that we should not be too quick to condemn the effect social networking has on students.
"It may not be as great as we think," he says. "It's another form of communication. But I think kids are really smart at ... working out formal language versus informal language, about what is the right register in a particular context."
Hann's acceptance of the inevitable changes technology brings is part of the reason he has kept his relevance after all these years and continues to inspire his students. They don't see him as "old" and respect his knowledge and experience. He has never had a class where he didn't find some positives.
Does this mean he plans to keep teaching into his 70s? Not necessarily.
Retirement can be tough for dedicated teachers who love their job. But Hann, who has enjoyed every minute of it, does not fear the R word at all. He has a life outside school full of friends and travelling, particularly around Australia and into the outback.
When he retires, it will be on his terms. "In my mind I have a very secure end in sight. I'd like to leave this great profession thinking that I'm still pretty much on top of the game rather than someone having to tap me on the shoulder, put it that way," he says.
"While Wesley has been a wonderful professional life, it is not my life. I do have a life outside the school, which involves a lot of people. I'm a great reader, of course, and a great traveller of Australia too. I love the outback. I've been across the Simpson Desert, done things like that. I'll just continue my life as I always have, doing the things that I do."
When he does put his books away, Hann hopes to retain some links to the school and possibly help with the Yiramalay/Wesley Studio School, which officially opened last week in Western Australia's Kimberley region. The new facility will see Wesley students study with Aboriginal students.
"I think it's a really visionary attempt to make some difference in the slow process towards reconciliation," Hann says. "Our students will join Aboriginal students from the Fitzroy Valley community and they will share the learning up there in pastoral industry, ecotourism, that sort of thing."
Hann also has recently returned from an Anzac music tour to France, during which 78 Wesley students played several concerts on the Somme and in Flanders where Australian losses in World War I were heavy.
He was deeply impressed by the sincerity and commitment of all the students on this memorable journey, most particularly on Anzac Day, when they played at four ceremonies, including the dawn service at Villers-Bretonneux. They rose to the occasion in ways he has seen so often before.
Needless to say, Hann has no regrets and has maintained his enthusiasm and passion for almost 40 years. Wesley and its students hope he retains it for a few more years to come. "I have been keyed up for classes for 38 years," he says. "As soon as you stop being keyed up for classes then you cease to be a good?teacher."
Nick Evans, Wesley College's head of senior school at the St Kilda Road campus, sums up the views of many when he says Hann has been a "wonderful influence on countless people" as a coach, theatre director and teacher.
"I know this from personal experience as I am one of them," he says.
"Dawson has always said that the legacy of a teacher is impossible to measure, as it lies in their effect on people's lives over many years. His own career points to the truth of this."
For the original article, visit The Weekley Review.
