LEARNING DAZE......

He talks about you in his sleep
There's nothing I can do to keep
From crying when he calls your name, Jolene

And I can easily understand
How you could easily take my man
But you don't know what he means to me, Jolene

The words could easily have been applied to myself or to Christine.  After he threw her out it would be two days before I saw her again.  She was grief stricken and totally at a loss as to why he had so brutally tossed her aside.

She still didn't know about his HIV and it was while he was spending an afternoon at the hospital that I was able to call her and let her know that I had packed all her belongings and that she could collect them.  When she turned up I was truthfully ashamed that I hadn't tried to intervene or explain the situation.

With her belongings packed in the car I suggested we go for a coffee so we could talk.  I told her everything.  She was both shocked and relieved. To know the truth about Matty's personality, to realize that his cowardice was the reason he had thrown her out, and to know that I realized that although Matty loved me in his own strange way that I knew there would never be anything more between us - except my devotion.  I couldn't  promise her that he would come round to her again but I let her know that if he did that I was happy for it to happen - she just needed to accept the fact that Matty also needed me and that we did have a platonic love for each other.

This was the last school holiday of the year, with one more term left.  I returned home one afternoon to a phone message offering me a one term full time teaching position at Glebe Public School.  I had been working at Camperdown almost full time but my day would be spent either between classes or taking computer or sports lessons with smaller groups of children.  Half of our kids actually lived in Glebe and my reputation had got back to the school there which was why I was picked to take over a class.

During my interview I was warned that it was the toughest class in the school and that I would have my work cut out for me.  I wasn't phased in fact I was really keen to take on my first full time class.  Well they hadn't held back on the reality of the class.  It was a large class with 32 students.  All from 'welfare families, many refugee children from Iraq and 4 Aboriginal boys who were absolutely uncontrollable.

It was also a 'composite class' of year 5 and year 6 students.  So I had to learn to deal with teaching on different levels, teaching to children with minimal English and to learn how to maintain control over a variety of behaviours.  Thankfully my supervising teacher was in the classroom next to me and I also had a teacher's aide to help.

For the first few days I floundered.  The children were either totally unresponsive to my instructions or all over me trying to get the individual attention that they obviously didn't receive at home.  The Aboriginal boys were the root of my teaching issues and it took me a while to realize that 'traditional teaching' methods were just not something they could handle.  We had two computers in the classroom and I brought in some Maths and English games on CD roms and devised a clever strategy with the boys.

I used my teachers aide to supervise the boys for the first hour each morning, giving them 40 minutes computer time with English games (which they loved) and then 20 minutes free time to play games just for fun.  The middle session was the same only using Maths games.  The deal was that for the last half hour they sat down and quietly did writing work.  In the afternoons, when they had exhausted themselves during their lunch break I was able to do the 'fun' teaching activities and incorporate them into the class.  By the start of the second week I was running a smooth class and the kids had all settled happily.  By the end of the term my supervisor was confident enough with me to ask me to run one of the weekly assemblies.

This was a school routine and the class in charge had to organize and run the assembly agenda plus put on a small performance.  I don't think many of the teacher's or other students could believe it when my class did the whole thing without a hitch.  Not only that but we managed to wow them with a spectacular multi-cultural dance performance where I utilised the children's backgrounds and my fabulous creative streak to make amazing costumes and dances.

 There was only one child I couldn't get through to. An introverted young girl who just sat.  She was no trouble but no matter what I did she was just a mute, non-performer.  Her mother was a heroin addict living with 3 other children and her current boyfriend.  Each morning at the daily assembly many of the parents stood outside the school gates watching.  With this girl I began to notice that her mother and boyfriend were there every morning and usually with the girl.  The mother's boyfriend would always be holding her protectively and would not allow her to enter the school gates until assembly finished.

One morning it just struck me that the poor young girl literally looked liked she had just been f*cked!  With my past history it was suddenly so blazingly obvious that the girl had that 'morning glory look'.  Horrified I spoke with my supervisor and the school counsellor about my assumptions.  The mother's boyfriend was sexually abusing the child.  The girl was immediately pulled from class and the relevant government agency alerted.

Long story short.  It was confirmed by the Department of Community Services (DOCS) that the child had been sexually abused by the mother's boyfriend who was charged and imprisoned.  A few weeks later we learned that the girl had been placed with her father.  To our horror they had not investigated the father's background and it turned out that he had been charged 3 years earlier for sexually abusing her older sister and had spent 2 years in jail.  Before anyone could intervene the girl was sent to Lebanon to her Uncles.....we dreaded to imagine what was in store for her.

This family would ironically come in and out of my life at the most tragic of times and under the most tragic circumstances in the years to come.

While everything at school was going well for me my home life was much different.  Without Christine there to help with the rent and Matty receiving sickness benefits I needed to take on extra shifts at the taxi company to make ends meet.  So I was basically back to my uni routine of working every day or night of the week and trying to run the house, look after the dog, and make sure that Matty always had food available to heat in the microwave when I was doing night shifts.

His Pneumonia had started to have a big effect on both his physical and mental health.  A large lump had started growing on his neck and he was beginning to look like the 'Elephant Man'.  This caused him to shun going anywhere outside or to have people visit us.  The only time he left the house was his weekly visit to the clinic when he would either take a taxi or if he wasn't feeling too week would wrap a scarf around his neck and take the bus, but this was rarely.  The cocktail of medication they were prescribing him also seemed to make him unstable.  One moment he was full of beans, the next he was depressed or even worse angry and threatening.

When the term ended I had six weeks with no income other than the taxi shifts.  Thankfully they were generous enough to give me lots of casual shifts and overtime - a lot of which was Christine's doing so we managed to get through.  I wasn't going out at nights but at least I could relax with a few cones which I was now able to smoke freely in the house.  Matty had stopped smoking altogether and didn't seem to mind when I smoked in front of him.  I think he was happier to have me close to him and at his beck and call rather than away in my room.

Although we got closer without Christine there we never again had sex.  Often when he was feeling really low he would sit with his arm around me while I smoked and watched TV but that was as close as it got.  What he couldn't stand was me being away for any longer than I was supposed to be.  There were many times when even if I was out walking the dog and took longer than normal I would return and have to put up with a mouthful of abuse.  As his lump got bigger things got worse.

He began hitting me again.  Often for the smallest of reasons. When dinner wasn't ready quickly enough.  If I had talked on the phone to my parents for too long.  If I worked overtime I had to ring him and let him know I would be late home.  Even then I knew I would be in for either a torrent of abuse or a quick punch in the stomach.  I can't explain why I put up with it.  I still believed I loved him, I felt guilty that he was suffering, I was too proud to walk out and start on my own - not that I could afford to financially.

Summer over and I was given another full time position at a different school.  It was by the same teacher who had given me the job at Glebe.  This time it was at a school some distance away and teaching a class of intellectually and physically disabled children.

I was offered a year's position, filling in for the teacher who had had been teaching these children for the past 5 years and was taking one year's leave.  I believed I was up to the job and happily accepted it.  It would be the worst 10 weeks of my teaching life......