From the Assistant Head of Senior School – Academic Care and Administration

With coffee in hand I sprinted up the stairs of Ashfield station hoping against hope that my watch was running fast or that the sound of the station master’s whistle was a “wait! wait! Chris Barnes is running late” whistle. Whilst Emily Dickinson might have once thought that “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all” – in this case hope was a delusional middle-aged man limping up the platform stairs, spilling coffee on himself whilst trying to fit a face mask on. The train had left the station. Where the train should have been was this ironic reminder (pictured above) from a local artist who clearly had it out for me:

It’s never too late

The hopeful message was lost on me in that moment as I stood there sweating, covered in an oat milk latte (it WAS the inner west) regretting the five minutes I spent chatting to my neighbour as I left the house or agreeing to “just one more hug dad” from Fletcher who really just wanted to try and wrestle me to the ground with his newly acquired Kung Fu skills. All the missteps that had led me to this frustrating moment face to face with this enormous sign.

As I scanned the station monitors, I saw the next train was in 13 minutes and so I did what every child of the millennium does when faced with 13 minutes of waiting. I took out my phone. 13 minutes of answering emails would help offset the lost time in the office.

One of these emails was from a young girl struggling with deadlines wanting to catch up before class.

One of these emails was from a student who had just missed an exam due to illness and wanting to reschedule her test.

One of these emails was from a parent worried that her daughter’s recent assessments might adversely affect her chances of getting into Dentistry.

One of these emails was from a senior student wanting to learn some time management techniques so she can make sure she was always on time (the irony was not lost on me either).

My answer to all of these was written for me on the walls of a train station neighbour.

Never too late

We throw phrases around like “life-long learners” but often get caught up in what we are being asked to do right now and it blinds us to the bigger picture.

It takes being late to the train to realise there is another one coming in 13 minutes and that next 13 minutes might just be the most important time of your day to help some people.

It takes a challenging deadline to give us the motivation to learn time management skills. It takes some bumps in the road to realise that our children might take longer to reach their goal than we might have hoped but….

It’s never too late

So this morning I set my alarm five minutes earlier, I wrestled with Fletcher until we both agreed I had won. I pre-ordered my coffee and when I arrived at Ashfield station my train was there with open doors blocking that wonderful, challenging, hopeful sign that had helped me get a little better as a human, as a dad and as a teacher.

– Chris Barnes
Assistant Head of Senior School – Academic Care and Administration