Ballarat's KJ Hayward at the 2023 APS National Final - The Courier - October 12 2023mp4 - video Dailymotion

Ballarat's KJ Hayward at the 2023 APS National Final. Video supplied

Transcript

00:00 Ode to my teachers.

00:03 Today I hold the red pen and I will correct your behaviour like you corrected my originality.

00:09 You will sit trembling at your desks whilst I drown you out in a waterfall of shh.

00:17 Because I require a quiet classroom.

00:20 You tried to shape me like the modelling clay in art class.

00:23 You pinched my skin expecting me to mould into some kind of star pupil.

00:29 You'd come away with stained fingers.

00:31 You'd click your tongues and bestow upon me your interrogative hmms and ahs and soon whispers

00:37 in the teachers lounge of lost causes and she's too ambitious would slip out from behind

00:43 tight lipped smiles and over the brims of your mugs.

00:46 Comments like those would be down to the dregs of cold coffee for the staff room is no safe

00:51 zone from schoolyard gossip.

00:53 You stole my voice and hid it in the marble jar and on the student of the week certificate

00:58 you taught me that good girls are quiet girls and quiet girls must raise their hands first.

01:04 And even then you liked your questions served with an entree of apologies.

01:08 Um excuse me miss but am I interrupting?

01:12 Once upon a time teacher my heart would shoot up through my arm and attach itself to my

01:16 sleeve every time I raised my hand and every time you would shoot it down for I was a flame

01:21 in your fire ban and this system is so exam paper thin that it would burn to the ground

01:25 had I been left unattended.

01:27 So this isn't an ode this is an epiphany it is the rebirth of the goody two shoes and

01:32 the teachers pets it is the handover of the mic to the pen chewers and the desk vandalists

01:37 it is the rebellion of the students who have succumbed to sitting in silence for all of

01:40 their school lives this is a call to shame the bullies who left marks on our hearts and

01:44 our heads before we even met the ones they warned us about in the playground.

01:48 So this is an ode to my teachers.

01:51 You're all dismissed.

01:53 [applause]

01:55 (audience applauding)

01:58 [BLANK_AUDIO]