Pedagogist’s Memoir

Grant Rodwell is a retired school principal from Tasmania, Australia, and an academic from four Australian universities. He holds five PhDs.

• Acknowledgements; About the Author; Preface; Part 1.  Exegesis; 1-‘We Live in an Age of Memoir-Mania’; 2-Memoirs as a Pedagogical Tool; 3-Memoirs: Problematics: Social Class and Schooling, Sexual Abuse, Racism, Correspondence/Distance Education in Our Schools; 4-General Conclusions; Part 2.  The Memoir; 5-Uncertain Ancestry, an ‘Illegitimacy’, Family and a Small-Town Mentality; 6-Shopping-Bag Waters: Family; 7-A Working-Class Kid Is Sexually Abused, Almost Schooled and Denied a (Cultural) Adolescence; 8-Infectious Small-Town Madness; 9-Pastoralism and the Razor’s Edge of Learning Racism and Protective Myths; 10-The Fruits of a Small-Town Schooling, Topped by the Fruits of Correspondence Schooling; 11-Coda: In Yet More Forests, Dark and Deep; Index

‘Rodwell says his life was “precariously positioned” – as a working-class, sexually abused, rural youth – and this well-written memoir tells his “born twice” journey and links to universal themes such as social class, educational opportunity and embedded community racism. The memoir shows how education positively changes lives. It is highly recommended for educators, and it also should be read by social workers, psychologists and healthcare professionals.’ —John Williamson, PhD, Professor Emeritus, University of Tasmania‘Rodwell provides readers with a powerful and deeply insightful text through the juxtapositioning of identity formation, schooling and Australian values in the 1960s and ’70s as this nation evolved. He also educates us about the rich process of writing memoirs. The narratives are tragic, humorous and enlightening in a way that is instructive for students and teachers’ understanding of racism, discrimina-tion and lack of opportunity for many that still exists today: behaviours that remain covertly embedded in today’s educational practices in some communities, despite policy and rhetoric that advocate for inclusion and the valuing of diversity.’ — Emeritus Professor Tania Aspland, Vice President (Academic), Kaplan Higher Education ANZ, Sydney, Australia‘A most welcome aspect of this book is the focus, not only on formal education and schooling but also on the importance of informal education, outside the classroom, and the mutually enhancing interac-tion of diverse forms of educational experience. It is an excellent illustration of how education is the lived educational journey of the individual learner and their process of becoming.’ — Tom O’Donoghue, Professor Emeritus, The University of Western Australia