“In 1984, Leanne Hanson borrowed a guitar from the school music room and looked incredibly cool carrying it home. The rest is rock ‘n roll history.” That was the opening line to the bio that Leanne Hanson sent me in preparation for her P3 . What followed read, “The truth is, Leanne Hanson…was a nerdy kid obsessed with mythology and storytelling, who went on to a BA in creative writing, media and cultural theory that she didn’t use for more than a decade.” Leanne went down several different paths before returning to her professional calling- teaching. She did all of this with her profound sense of humour, keen sense of word choice and an openness to the world of possibility.
Leanne went back to school, attained a graduate degree, and became a qualified high school English and Media teacher. According to our guest, “That was the beginning of the real awakening, where [I] was introduced to a mixed cohort of disengaged youth and long term unemployed adults in an alternative, vocational education setting.” In 2015 Leanne was an Australian finalist in the National Training Awards Language Literacy & Numeracy category, and she is a national ambassador for vocational education. Presently, Leanne is also the Educator Community Lead for innovative Australian company called Become Education, with goal of “transforming the way that young people are prepared for life after school in this rapidly changing world.” Leanne is also a Launch Team Member for FutureWe, and she is a co-presenter of the Edunauts on VoicEd Canada, a podcast which unpacks the FutureWe Framework of literacies that young people need in order to thrive in the future.
Leanne nostalgic song was one that took her back to her beginnings. She grew up in the Australian Outback, and her father was a farm hand on dairy farms. Growing up in New South Wales, there was a rivalry between those in the Outback and those from Queensland. One of the big musicians that her family used to play while travelling around in the car was the well-known Slim Dusty who had been making music for 60 years. This song was Leanne’s first introduction to Queensland, where she now resides. “It’s terribly prejudiced, really, when you think about it.” The artist was Leanne’s introduction to poetry, and he championed the Bush Ballads of Australia, which he put to music. Here is Slim Dusty’s A Grasshopper Loose in Queensland:
Leanne found her love for poetry early and recalled reciting poems with her dad in the kitchen as they used to do the dishes. While her kids were small, she settled into a “challenging but comfortable niche mentoring beginner poets and offering detailed critiques to the more experienced, while working on her own writing.” Leanne had two anthologies published. She took on a position as editor-in-chief of an international poetry journal, but needed more opportunities to share her knowledge, so she started to volunteer as a tutor in an adult literacy program. It was the gateway to meeting her partner, and our guest shared that poetry taught her a lot about teaching. “The main thing that poetry gave me was… a way to express myself and to share what I know in the world, and to make comment on things that were happening without being preachy or soapboxy.” Her identity song alludes to famous poets including Keats, Yeats and Wilde (even though he is best known for his novels). Leanne likes poetry that, “...builds a world because of the cracks and the shadows.” Similarly, this band sometimes explores those shadows in their work. Here is Cemetry Gates (The misspelling of cemetery in the title was an error by Morrissey, not intentional as I had once thought) by The Smiths:
Leanne’s pick-me-up song is one from an influential Australian band. This is a song that, according to Leanne, everyone sings along to. She loves this song because of the lyrics and the music. “There are a few people in my life that, no matter how many years go past, as soon as they walk through the door, I feel instantly uplifted. That’s the feeling that she sees captured in the song. I couldn't help but think that this song was a soundtrack from a movie and Leanne agreed noting the “cinematic” sound. Leanne said that, “The clue is in the title.” Here’s My Happiness by Powderfinger:
Leanne is not presently in the classroom. She is a passionate defender of “the interconnectedness of all things” (with a nod to Douglas Adams), a future thinker and cultural theorist who now works as the Educator Community Lead for innovative Australian company Become Education, transforming the way that young people are prepared for life after school in this rapidly changing world. She is developing a series of lesson plans that can be purchased through Become Education. It’s career education for student from Year 4 up to Year 9. You can reach out to Leanne on Twitter, LinkedIn, and through her website, where you can also read some of her poetry. Listen to the Edunauts, a podcast which unpacks the FutureWe Framework of literacies that young people need in order to thrive in the future. You can read her poetry in various places including her anthologies and over the internet. You can also hear Leanne on podcasts throughout the voicEd radio family including Chris Cluff’s Chasing Squirrels, Rola Tibshirani’s Missing Link, Brad Shreffler’s The Planning Period Podcast, and Ramona Meharg’s I Wish I Knew EDU
If you need a refreshing sense of humour, great insight and a future-minded educator in your life, reach out to Leanne.
Update: On Thursday, June 13th, our voicEd Family was informed first through Ramona Meharg ad then Stephen Hurley that Leanne had lost her battle against cancer. In what became our final interaction only last month, Leanne had shared that voicEd changed her life. We all share in the heartbreak, and I hope that this post remains a tribute to the woman that I was so lucky to have gotten to know, who I've come to call a friend. This is what was shraed through her Twitter account:
If you are interested in donating to this fund that began as support for Leanne and will now be used to help fight bladder cancer, click on the image below:
