Thursday, July 30, 2009

Up Date



Just A little note to let any one that is following this Blog that My book is coming along I'm now up to chapter 8 in the draft form. That covers a period from 1938 to 1977. That only covers my first 30 years there's still a 40 years to go yet.

Parts of it are hard to write about as they are painful and do require some deep thought as to weather I want to tell about it or not.

At This stage I'm not sure as to how I will publish it I'm thinking I'll do it as an E-Book. I'll just have to wait and see.

Any one that may be interested can find some old pictures of me and my wife Mary on my facebook at:
http://www.facebook.com/george.e.duckett?ref=name

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Reflections


Recently as I was going through my old files, I came upon an paper I wrote for an English class in 1970. I can't remember what the assignment was other then to write about how I felt about attending college.

I'm included it in the introduction of my book, Jumping Through Hoops, as it is important to me today as I write an account of my life, as it was when I originality wrote it. The Assignment, as best as I can remember, was to say on one page how I felt about starting college.

At the time, I was 32. I had just left the US Army in Auguast of 1969 after 13 years and was trying to come to terms with life as a free man.

The only thing I can compare my life as a soldier to, during the cold war, was being locked away in prison. The difference between us and criminals were, they had a better life style in prison then many of us had “protecting our country.”. For the most part convicts had only two to a cell with a TV if they could afford it, all we had was cramped living conditions, many times only two feet between bunks and no TV.

As a matter of fact I think the criminals got a better deal when they left prison then separated or returning service men and women did by the public we were fighting for. When they left prison Exconvicts had, if they wanted, support services not available to ex-servicemen and women.

In addition to the poor lifestyle I had lived for 13 years, I had experienced a very poor education and had left school when I was 17 years old, to join the army, as a means to escape the torment from teachers and school bullies. So here I was, a 32 year old man starting college with a poor educational background and scared to death I was going to fail.

The short peace that follows reflects how I felt at the time.
This is the assignment that I did for English Composition 101 class in September 1970.It was the first “A” ever, I got for an English class.

*****

The Cubbyholes Of My Mind

In my mind I find a long, dimly lighted hallway, with cubbyholes of varying size on both sides. By the doorway it is clean and well kept. As I venture in further, it gets dusty. The holes are barred with cobwebs and the lighting is poor.

I enter into the hallway with new information. What do I do with it? Where do I put it? How do I sort it?

First I have to clean out the dust, unbar the holes, change the lighting so I can begin.

Now every thing is cleaned, the cobwebs are gone and bright lights are installed. I'm ready to store the information where I can find it.

CONFUSION:

There is always confusion when I begin. I start sorting everything that is already there and take a thorough inventory:

What Do I do with all the junk I find? Throw it away?

NO!:

There is no junk! Everything I have learned has meaning. All the Information, all the experiences, good and bad, are important. I need them to learn more.

Do I just Keep them separated from the rest?

No, as I learn new things I'll put them in a different place,then go back to my old experiences, combine them, and store them with the new. I will be much wiser for it.
In the beginning I will spend a lot of time thinking and asking myself if it is worth it, do I really want to do this, do I want to go on?

THE ANSWER IS YES!

*****

The only difference today from what it was in 1970 is that the hallway is longer and now it has little rooms off to the sides with much more information storied away in them. Some of the rooms have been closed and locked for many years and the keys have been misplaced.

Recently the key for one of the rooms that has been locked away for the last 30 years Has been dropped into my lap. The opening of that door is the catalyst for the writing my auto biography. As strange as it may seem after all the years that have passed some one contacted me and we started doing what we should have done some 30 years ago, Communicate!

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

My Short Bio



My name is George E Duckett

I currently live in Tingalpa, Queensland, Australia.

I was born in Highland Park a suburb of Detroit Michigan USA in November of 1938.

My father was in the Army and served overseas in WWII and the Korean War.

We moved many times and I went to many schools until he settled us in Sonoma California in 1950 when he was on his way to to Korea.

I left school at 16 to take an Apprenticeship as a Loft Rigger at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in 1955.

I joined the Army and spent 13 years in the service from 1956-69. I served overseas during the cold war in Korea and Germany

In September of 1970 I enrolled in college. I received my BS (Hon.) Educational Media Production in August of 1973 and went on to complete my MS Educational Media Technology in June 1974 from the University of Northern Colorado (UNC). I had a Graduate Fellowship with Department of Educational Media at UNC during my Masters work.

From 1974-78 I was employed as an Instructor in Educational Media, U.N.C., Department of Educational Media. In 1977 I completed Professional Teacher's Education Certification in Secondary Communications with endorsement as a K-12 Media Specialist.

In 1977 I received an invitation from the Tasmanian College of Advanced Education, (TCAE) Department of Teacher Education to come to Australia as a Lecturer in Instructional Technology from 1978-80. My contract with TCAE ended and due to the cutback in funding for education at that time there were no positions open at the college. During this time, 1980-84 we bought a property and built a house. My wife worked and I built the house and picked up work when I could find it.

I decided to go back to TSIT and enrolled in Environment Design. At the end of the first year a position opened in the School of Architecture for Senior Technical Officer and part time Lecturer. I took the position and worked for the school until I was asked to apply for a position as Administrative Officer, Purchasing and Transport, Launceston Campus of the University of Tasmania (UT) From December 1991-January 1994. I started working on a Phd. at UT in 1992.

In January of 94 I took early retirement from UT and enrolled full time PhD by research at Deakin University from August 1993-August 1997. I completed my Research and was writing the dissertation but again severe cuts in in Education left me without a supervisor and I was forced to resign from the program. At the time the Faculty of Education at Deakin, from 1994-97 was cut from over 300 lecturers to about 30 and classes were being offered that had no one to teach them. At that point I felt I was wasting my time and opted out.

I returned to the US 1997 to see what was going on in education there and found they were no better off than we were in Australia. Returned to Australia in February 2000 and found nothing was available in my field.

Although I am now retired I have a background in education and am still interested in its outcome. I would love to do something to help bring education back to a 1st world level. This year 2009 an opportunity once again has presented itself and I'm helping with the development of online tutorials with an online learning program by the California School Library Association 2.0 Team.