FRIENDS since working together in 1989, teachers Gail Groat and Tracey Wareham
were delighted to find their paths cross again in 2010 at Swan Hill SuniTAFE,
where they bring their respective classes together one day a week to study
visual art.
When they first met 24 years ago as teachers at Speewa Primary
School, Ms Wareham was a recent graduate from teachers’ college and Ms Groat had
been teaching in local schools in the Swan Hill region for years.
They were
part of a team of just three teachers in Speewa, in the days before the school
closed and students moved to larger institutions in Swan Hill.
“In 1989, it
was just a little school, the kids came across on the Speewa punt or in a tinny,
with their life jackets on,” Ms Wareham said.
“I was 38 and Tracey must have
been 21 — that’s how we first met,” Ms Groat said.
When they found themselves
working together again in 2010, both teachers had had varied careers at
different schools in the interim — Ms Groat in the Swan Hill district and Ms
Wareham at the Swan Hill Specialist School and for seven years in Melbourne.
For more of this story see Wednesday’s Guardian (December 11).
