The theme of the ACE Sector Conference in June was storytelling and it’s not just tutors who had stories to share about their learning journey. Joan Cardno is a self-confessed lifelong learner. There have been very few times in her life when she wasn’t learning new skills or passing her expertise and learnings on to others, and she weaves storytelling into her experience.
More recently, that desire to learn new skills saw Joan complete a seven-week Mediterranean Cooking Class through Christchurch’s Papanui High School ACE programme.
“As you get older it’s good to keep learning,” says Joan. “It’s very easy to give up, but I felt inspired to learn a new style of cooking and was pleased by the opportunity to participate.” She had met Mark McCracken, the course tutor, at her god daughter’s birthday party where he was the caterer.
“When I got talking to him, he told me that he taught classes at the Papanui High School programme. I had read a bit about the benefits of a Mediterranean diet and Mark had such a calm relaxed approach about him that I thought his classes would be great to try, so I enrolled. Mark took that same flexible attitude through to his teaching, so it made for an enjoyable experience.”
Joan, who is now in her early eighties, has taught in primary and secondary schools in New Zealand and lectured at Christchurch Teachers’ College. She has also taught in Hong Kong and lectured in Singapore.
“I returned to New Zealand from Hong Kong and taught at Elmwood Normal School. I then went to Canterbury University full time and completed a BA degree. I followed this with several years lecturing at Christchurch Teachers College before I decided to do an MA in Applied Linguistics at Essex University in England.”
Joan says when she returned home there was very little work available in ESOL so she decided to take up a two-year contract at the Institute of Education in Singapore. “Once I returned to New Zealand I enjoyed teaching ESOL in Christchurch. My international experience contributed to my enjoyment of new foods and my desire to learn new cooking styles.
“Successful learning includes a great teacher which we were lucky enough to have on this course and you also have to independently have the desire to learn which isn’t an issue for me.”