Part 1 Chapter 3: The Turtle

From my book 'School Portrait' (McPhee Gribble/Penguin, 1987)

‘What can we do now, Steve? We've done a lot of extra maths and we've had enough.'

Kate was speaking on behalf of the four girls who sat around a single table, their maths books spread out in front of them.

She stood out in any company, with her thick, wavy, copper-coloured hair and her forthright and direct manner. It was now the third week of the 1982 term, and I was enjoying teaching her very much.

‘Do you feel like joining Allen?' I asked. 'He's making easels outside with some of the girls.' Allen had been working with the group for a couple of days now, first of all designing and then building some big easels for our wet area.

‘Not really,' said Kate. None of the others looked keen either.

Then I remembered that two of the girls, Cass and Jessie, had started to make a model bridge a couple of days back. It had been carefully constructed of cardboard, but earlier plans to put a fence along each side and to paint it had never materialised.

‘Would you two like to finish that bridge?' I asked.

‘Not really,' said Jessie. ‘We think we'll leave it as it is.'

"Well,' I said, I'm taking photos of finished models at the moment, as a kind of record. Bring it outside now, into the light where I can get a good photo of it.'

Jessie and Cass glanced at each other. ‘Well, in that case, come on Cass, let's paint it,' said Jessie, and Cass nodded. They obviously cared what posterity might think. It reminded me of the effect on children's writing when it is known that their work will have a wider audience through a class magazine.

Kate and Zoe were now left at the table.

‘Shall we do something together?’ Kate looked at Zoe. They had been a part of a loose bigger group for the first weeks of the year, but hadn't done anything special together as a pair.

‘Yes, let's make something,' said Zoe. ‘I feel like making something.’ Zoe was the same height as Kate, a pretty girl with large brown eyes and long eyelashes.

I left them to talk together, but it wasn't five minutes before the two of them came running up to me.

'Steve, we've decided,' said Kate excitedly. ‘We want to make a huge model turtle together, something that's big enough for us to get inside.'

'Yes, really big,' said Zoe. ‘We want to be able to do things inside, like our work and things.'

‘We could make it big enough to take a table in, so that it could be our own private space,' said Kate. 'Hey, this is going to be fantastic!'

‘Are you really sure that you want it so big? I mean, that's a lot of work that you're making for yourselves.' I knew, even as I was talking, that it was my own inexperience in working with practical things that was talking, my own fear that the project would become too big - not for them, but for me. That I'd soon be out of my depth. 'Anyway, I'm not sure that we've got that much chicken wire in the school.'

How would Allen or Bernie handle this, I asked myself. I couldn't send them to Allen - he was flat out with the group making the easels. And I felt that their enthusiasm might go off the boil if I persuaded them to wait till Allen had some time.

No, I thought. I'd resolved that I was going to learn more about helping kids with their practical and creative projects this year, and this was as good a place to start as any.

Zoe and Kate went off to the school garage, to see if they could find some chicken wire. What would Bernie have done, I thought again. I'd often watched him with kids in last year's art and craft room. Bernie had a way of asking kids questions about their ideas that helped them see possibilities, whereas I tended to impose ideas on them. Hell, that was exactly what I'd just done! There must be many more ways to make a turtle than just by shaping some chicken wire and plastering it with papier-mâché! Bernie would have sat down and talked more with these two about their intentions. They would have explored different ways of making it - maybe done some sketches. He would have found out from them what was more important - making a model turtle, or building some kind of private space. I'd leapt in too quickly, carried along by their breathless excitement.

My thoughts were interrupted first by Dan, who wanted to show me the marble machine that he'd been making, and then by Kate.

"We've found some wire,' she said. 'But it's up too high and we can't reach it. Come and give us a hand.' Dan was still explaining his machine to me, but Kate grabbed my hand and pulled, oblivious to the fact that I was listening to Dan.

'Oh, come on, Steve. We can't wait forever,' she said good naturedly.

They bubbled all the way to the garage.

‘This is going to be great …’

"Yes, really great…’

‘We'll paint it, and put carpet in it…’

'And we could put things up inside, around the walls …’

'Look,' I said nervously. ‘This is a big thing you're taking on. Are you really sure you want to start something like this?'

'Of course we'll finish it, Steve. Don't worry,' they chorused.

That afternoon they shaped the wire into a rough turtle shape, about half a metre high and a metre long. My anxious questions had had the effect of limiting their ambition so that it would be only big enough for one of them to crawl into. It was the first of my mistakes.

***

First thing the next morning, they started to put the papier-mâché on. It was a slow process, but they were enjoying working

We had a writing time in the group after morning tea, and Kate and Zoe asked if they could do their writing inside the turtle.

'Inside! You couldn't fit!'

‘Oh yes we could, you just watch,’ said Kate, and they started to squeeze their way in.

‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘You're not going to be able to write properly in there. If you're really so sure that you can fit, you can try to get in after you've done your writing.’

‘Meanie,' said Kate, and Zoe smiled. She seemed to be enjoying the forcefulness of her new friend.

Kate was a good writer, fluent and racey. But this time she was in a hurry to get into the turtle, and she dashed off the following:

On Saturday I went to Canberry Fair for a birthday party. It was super. So was the cake!! Anyway, today Zoe and I papier-mached the turtle. The papier-mache is still wet. Oops, I forgot to tell you, I have started my soccer training.

Zoe scribbled something too. 'Now can we get in?' they asked.

'OK, as long as you understand that everyone else is writing and the room is silent. Don't disturb us.'

'Of course we won't disturb you, don't worry, Steve. Would we do a thing like that, Zoe?' They crawled into the turtle frame, and obviously felt themselves to be in a world of their own. It wasn't long before I could hear their giggles.

‘Can you be quiet in there?' I said to the model.

Two minutes later, they started giggling again. Kids were looking up from their writing. I was cross.

'OK, that's enough you two. Come out now. You've disturbed the writing session, and I feel pretty annoyed about that.'

Two smiling faces emerged, their spirits anything but dampened by my disapproval.

Later that day we looked at the list of punishments from William Chaffin's school, and Kate and Zoe were particularly taken with it. They asked me to act like the 1848 teacher for a while, pretending that I had a cane and gown, and they spent the afternoon respectfully calling me 'Sir'.

***

They continued to papier-mâché the model over the following couple of days, but began to get impatient with how long it was taking. I noticed one morning that they were using masking tape instead of papier-mâché at the base of the model.

It won't work, I thought. That masking tape will soon come unstuck, and the result isn't going to satisfy them. They'll feel unhappy about the finished product, and they'll be left with the feeling that they're no good at making models. I decided that I'd get in there and help them with the papier-mâchéing, to get that over and done with.

The next morning, I called the kids together at the beginning of the day. I found that it helped get kids started if they heard what others were planning.

‘Right, what's everyone going to do this morning? I've brought in some maths problems that some of you might like to have a go at, and there are unfinished stories that some of you started yesterday?’ Most of the kids knew what they were going to do. Zoe and Kate sat still, saying nothing. ‘What about you two? Are you planning to work on the turtle? I thought I might come and help, if you'd like me to.'

They suddenly sparked up. 'Yes, great,' said Kate. 'Come and help us.'

We walked over to the model. Kate went to the sink to get the glue.

‘Hey Steve, have you smelled the glue yet? It's lovely! Here, have a smell.'

She shoved it under my nose. It was revolting, a corn flour mix which had gone off.

‘I'm not working with that,' said Kate firmly. 'Yuk!' Zoe was still smiling at my twisted face. The smell seemed to have got inside my nostrils.

‘Well,' I said, ‘if we're going to try to make the papier-mâche stick to the wooden base, like I suggested yesterday, then maybe we should use some strong wood glue?'

Neither of them responded. Kate still had her glue jar in her hand.

'This stuff is horrible. Yuk!'

'Zoe, I said, feeling already that I had broken my resolution to let them do the leading. 'Go and get the strong glue, and we’ll start with that.' She went off half-heartedly, and I went to the sink to get some brushes. I was starting to feel resentful that I was the only one of the three being purposeful, that if I went away the model wouldn't get finished.

Zoe and Kate thrust the glue under Allen's nose too, and he offered to make a fresh mixture. He threw me a half smile of encouragement. We'd talked about this model turtle in the staffroom, and he knew that I wanted to get in there and learn from my own mistakes on this one.

We worked for a while with the strong glue, and then I looked at what Kate was doing.

‘You'll have to put more glue on than that, Kate. You've got to completely cover each bit of paper.’

‘But the whole point is that you want the thing to dry,' she said. ‘The more glue, the longer it takes to dry. That's logical isn't it?'

I tried to explain, but could see that she wasn't really listening. Later on she repeated the same argument. We worked in silence for another five minutes.

‘Come and help me over this side Steve. I’m getting frustrated, and when I get frustrated, I get really mad.’

'Just a minute,' I said. ‘I want to finish this bit off.'

'Come on, Steve. I'm going to get furious soon, and I'll start destroying the thing.' She was working herself up into something of a state. ‘I want to rip off part of it cos I'm getting so mad! … There!'

She tore a tiny strip off.

'Don't be silly, Kate. If you want me to help you, come round here and help me finish this bit off first.'

She walked around to my side, muttering, but with a twinkle in her eye. She didn't look all that wound up.

‘Hey, this is starting to look good,' she said after a while. 'I think it's going to work you know. Models that I do never work, I always make a hash of them. But maybe this one's going to be different!'

I started to dip my paper into the bucket of warm paste, rather than paint it on with my brush. I found that it worked better, and that I got a very satisfying feeling as I smoothed the saturated sheet of paper onto the model.

As we worked, I listened to Dan and Michael a little distance away making a cardboard model of a city. They were showing each other what they were doing, sharing their discoveries and making up stories about their city as they went. But Zoe and Wate did very little of this. They put on the papier-mâché, but they becoming less interested in what they were doing the longer they went, except for a brief flare of enthusiasm when one of them mentioned putting carpet inside the model when it was finished.

Kate mumbled something under her breath to Zoe.

‘That's unfair, Kate. I don't think you should make jokes like that.'

"Well,’ said Kate, sounding a touch defensive, 'my jokes aren't as unfair as Barry's. I can't stand the way Barry keeps making jokes about my feminist ideas.'

"He's often very funny, though, don't you think?' I said.

‘Not from my point of view, said Kate. 'I think his jokes are unfair.'

Soon afterwards, they ran right out of steam.

‘This is getting very boring,' said Zoe.

‘You're not kidding,' said Kate.

I was really enjoying it, and I tried encouraging and cajoling them to spin out their involvement for a bit longer. But they were happy when it was time to pack up, and were very reluctant to talk about their plans for tomorrow's work on the model.

As I washed out my brush at the sink, I felt that I was treading, none too confidently, a very thin line between helping them to finish it on the one hand, and taking over and threatening their emotional involvement with the turtle on the other.

***

Having spent so much time with them that Friday, and feeling that I was too involved anyway, I left Kate and Zoe to themselves on the following Monday morning. But I did overhear the beginning of the conversation together.

"Let's do the feet now,' said Kate. ‘These bits of wood would be good for two of the feet. Zoe, do you know where we could find some more?'

‘No, I feel like doing the head,' said Zoe.

'Come on, I'm going to get some more feet.'

'Kate!' There was real exasperation in her voice.

‘Well,’ said Kate. ‘You don't have to come. But I'm going'

Zoe looked at her new friend. ‘You make me so mad sometimes, Kate.' But she went off with her all the same.

They were gone for about twenty minutes, and finally I went looking for them. I found them wandering around the secondary part of the school, still vaguely looking for feet.

'So what are you planning to do now?' I asked.

‘We'll put on the feet, then a head, and it'll be just about finished.'

‘But what about the papier-mâché?' I said, incredulous. ‘You haven't finished that yet! You haven't stuck the frame to the base yet!'

‘Oh, we'll do that with masking tape, won't we, Zoe?' Zoe nodded.

Their plans seemed so vague to me. I could see it in my mind's eye, lying around the classroom, unfinished and unwanted. What would Bernie or Allen have done now?

‘Well, describe to me how you want it to look in the end, when you've finished it,’ I said. I could hear the tension in my voice.

'Like a turtle of course,' said Kate.

‘And have you got a picture in your mind of what a turtle really looks like? Do you want to come to the library with me now, and we'll see if they've got some good pictures of turtles?'

‘May as well,' they said, and we went off to the library. I've done it again, I thought to myself. I'm dragging them along, I'm taking over. Whose model is this anyway?

We got some pictures from the library, and went back to the classroom. I was feeling drawn out, sick of it all, and I went outside to do some therapeutic gardening with Anna and John.

I was away from school the next day, but went in after everyone had gone home, to collect some books. I looked over at the deserted wet area, and the turtle was sitting on its new wooden legs. Kate and Zoe had obviously worked pretty hard on it that day, and they'd done what I had tried to steer them away from - they had nailed on the legs and painted the shell without finishing the papier-mâchéing. They'd also begun to shape a new piece of wire for the head, and I thought, as I looked at it, that they would find it hard to attach it to the main frame. Perhaps, I thought, if they ever get to that stage, then they'll be really tackling problems that they want to solve, and, in solving them (however roughly) they will have got more from the activity than my involvement had been able to achieve thus far.

The following morning, Zoe wasn't there and Kate didn't want to work on the turtle. Zoe came in about half an hour later, with her mother. She had her cat, Thumb, with her. Her mother told me that Zoe had been feeling miserable that morning, and a bit sick, and that she would only come in if her cat could come too. Her mum didn't know what was the matter.

Later, I overheard a snippet from a conversation between Kate and Zoe.

'Let's just leave the turtle now. It's all right as it is, and I'm a bit sick of working on it.'

‘I think we should at least put on the head,' said Zoe, but without much conviction or enthusiasm. And they went off to do some sketching.

***

And that, I thought, was the end of the story of the turtle.

Our trip to Jervis Bay was coming up, and Zoe and Kate were showing no signs of wanting to do any more. I felt it was best to leave well alone.

I described the making of the turtle to a meeting of the primary teachers, and the discussion that followed helped me to see that I had become too involved in the model itself, that I had not properly understood the motivations of Zoe and Kate. Essentially, they were wanting to make something together, something that could serve as a private space, a kind of symbol of their new friendship. But I had become caught up in the turtle, in having a model successfully finished, and my anxiety had no doubt been communicated to the two girls. It was important I reminded myself after the meeting, that I try to see that it is the child, and not the activity, which is the focus and starting point for what goes on in the room. When I interfered too much in what Zoe and Kate were doing, it was because I had lost sight of this.

But it could have been worse. I could have made sure that the turtle got finished by taking a much bigger role myself, mapping out the precise steps for Zoe and Kate, and then insisting with they follow them. They would have come out the other end with a finished turtle (which they would have probably felt very little emotional attachment to, it being more mine than theirs), and perhaps with a feeling that, in order to make things like this, you needed to follow the blueprint of someone who knows (or pretends to!). There would have been very little exploring, and the turtle would have ended up much less an expression of their friendship.

Above all, such an approach would have undermined (to a greater extent than my mistakes had already done) a belief that I wanted to encourage in children, that significant parts of the curriculum were in their hands, were subject to their direct influence, could be changed through their thoughtful involvement. My guess was that children who grew up believing that they were active agents in the world, not just powerless objects who must follow the dictates of the 'wise', were more likely to develop confidence and independence for their adulthood.

***

And so we went off to Jervis Bay, and then worked on the Jervis Bay projects. Kate was very proud of her project, and spent many hours in the library reading books and making notes about dolphins. Zoe also enjoyed working on hers, and did a very striking painting of a black whale gliding through a lovely turquoise sea.

One morning, while we were putting finishing touches to our displays for the parent evening, Zoe and Kate came up to me.

'What can we do, Steve? We feel like making something.' I looked at the unfinished turtle lying in its corner of the wet area. They followed my gaze.

"We've been thinking about that,' said Kate. 'Do you think we could?'

'Go for your life,' I said. ‘But this time, what about sitting down for a while and talking about why it didn't get finished last time. Just make sure you've learnt from that.’

Off they went, and when I looked over about an hour later, they were still working busily on it. I went over to have a look.

They had shaped a head out of wire, and were now sticking paper on with masking tape. ‘Look,’ I said, forgetting everything I had learned from what had already happened. ‘Don't forget what I said last time about the masking tape. It just won't stick properly'

‘Steve,’ said Kate. ‘No offence, but could you keep out of it this time? We know what we're doing, really we do.’

I beat a hasty retreat.

They continued work on the turtle over the next two days. They shaped the head, papier-machéd it, stuck it on with masking tape, and then painted it. They also painted eyes and a mouth, and gave it a name. Skedaddles. They wanted to do a tail (and were unimpressed when I suggested that maybe it didn't need one), but couldn't think of a way to do it. In the end, they gave it a flat, very un-turtle-like tail, saying only that it had undergone 'bum surgery'.

And so it was finished. Zoe and Kate couldn't agree about whose home it would go to, and so it found a semi-permanent place in the classroom. That seemed appropriate to me. The turtle was a school project, the mascot of a school friendship, and this was its home.

Kate and Zoe left my group at the end of 1982, and so they weren't a part of the medieval village project. The ghost of the turtle was though, as I carried the lessons (and repeated the mistakes) of the episode through the village's life.