1. Where were you before this and what persuaded you to join Concordia College?

Before arriving at Concordia, and after six years of happy teaching at Golden Grove Lutheran, I helped start the beautiful St Peters Lutheran School at Blackwood. After 23 years there (having a ball and learning a lot), I felt like a new challenge and Concordia has always been a bit of a drawcard for me as a Lutheran school that reflects grace and care in the community beautifully. I’m so happy and thankful to be here – Concordia is much like St Peters, just on a larger scale!

2. Three words to describe you.

Always a learner.

3. What is your motivation or inspiration in your role?

Well … apart from God … my inspirations widen as time goes by. I found Sir John Jones incredibly reassuring and invigorating when he spoke at ACLE a number of years ago. He reminded me of the wonderful, world-changing nature of our vocation and I felt proud and unapologetic for being a teacher and for allowing education to be in every part of my day.

Margaret Linke (incidentally a past St John’s teacher) has also been inspirational for me. She opened my eyes to how education can empower all students through authentic agency, inquiry and intrinsic motivation and what that can explicitly look like in the school setting.

4. If you had a superpower, what would it be?

Mm … the Wisdom of Solomon would be handy.

5. Who would you invite to a dinner party of six guests and why?

Apart from friends, family and people who needed a meal? If I were inviting six people of stature (past and present) – and assuming Jesus is already present, I’d go for:

• Sir John Jones (educator extraordinaire)
• Ruby Ferguson (exceptional fiction writer)
• Sergeant Olive King (courageous, clever and selfless human rights worker)
• Faith Coulthard Thomas AM (our first Indigenous Test cricketer, nurse and former resident of Colebrook Mission)
• Dr George Rosendale (Lutheran pastor who shared really interesting ideas about Lutheran theology, Aboriginal spirituality and forgiveness)
• Dr Malcom Bartsch (educator and theologian extraordinaire who can also tell us stories about his connection to The Angels – the band, not the heavenly choir).