Bulletin

Issue: March 2006

News

Teacher Man – Stories fan embers of learning

Teaching, according to Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt, might well be the ‘downstairs maid of professions’.

But that didn’t deter an opening-night crowd in the La Trobe University Marquee at this year’s Como writers’ festival from coming to hear him speak about the importance of teaching and why it is so undervalued as a profession.

McCourt, for many years a writing teacher at Stuyvesant High School in New York, was in Australia to promote his latest book, Teacher Man. In conversation with Jason Steger, Literary Editor of The Age, he captivated his audience with stories about his story telling – and gave examples of how stories can be used, often in unorthodox ways, to help open doors to learning for students.

For the third year this year La Trobe’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences was one of the sponsors of ‘Writers at Como’. Three festival sessions were led by University staff.

Author, commentator and Adjunct Professor of English, Morag Fraser, chaired a conversation on poverty and inequality in Australia with ALP Shadow Treasurer, Wayne Swan MP, author of Postcode.

Faculty Deputy Dean, Dr Lilit Thwaites, chaired one session featuring award-winning Australian poet, Les Murray who spoke about his writing and read from his works. In another she turned the spotlight on Bernard Cornwell, best known for his historical novels of the Napoleonic era.