`It's no wonder that the rain forests in Brazil are nearly depleted," proclaims our PO to our affable facilitator as she dispenses reams of handouts to us at our pre-planning day. It is a matter of considerable interest to him that for the first 30 years of his teaching career the Department of Education and its agents saw fit to leave him to his own devices, whereas for the last few years he is being bombarded with tips, ideas, instructions and recommendations on how best he should approach his pedagogic task. We are going through a period of enormous change in primary education and, as with any metamorphosis, there are elements of fear, anxiety and even pain. The waters have been agitated and the ripples are ongoing. The large wall calendar is dotted with red marks indicating course days, pre-planning days, planning days, new curriculum days, principals' days, in-service days.
The staff-room bookshelves positively groan under portfolios, booklets, folders, circulars and mountains of photocopied material, all of which conspire to help us to be better teachers than we were heretofore. Our staff-room conversation has become frenzied and provocative. We have become introverted and paranoiac. How will we cope? Will we take early retirement? Will we be forced to throw in the towel? Will we have a nervous breakdown? Will we take to the drink? Such pretentious hyperbole, such histrionics, such blatant excess. Not us. We are made of sterner stuff. We rise to the occasion. We embrace change and all that it entails.
We are a small academy. We will take small steps. After each step we will look back and observe our progress. Then we will rest for a while and bask in our success. We will look to the summit of our climb before we proceed. We will join hands and help each other over obstacles. It will be such a pleasant experience. We will rejoice in the motto Festina lente and when we have completed our journey it will feel as if we never have moved. But the panorama which will be before our eyes will be living proof of how effectively we managed the change with which we were confronted long ago, when the rain forests of Brazil were densely luxuriant.
