Tag: Lift a Sister Up

Education /

For The Love of Teaching

Anna-Wendy Stevenson, Teacher Extraordinaire

Anna-Wendy Stevenson comes from a long line of musicians, tradition bearers and creative talent. Her father, Gordon Stevenson, most well-known for his exceptional workmanship as a master violin-maker, her grandfather, Ronald Stevenson, a gifted composer and violin player, and her aunt Gerda Stevenson, poet and actress, author of “Quines, a selection of poems in tribute to Scottish Women”.  It is hardly surprising then, that Anna-Wendy herself has many plaudits to her name as a player, composer, poet, and teacher.

It is the latter that I wish to turn a spotlight on. So often we can focus on the tangible achievements such as the awards, the albums, the stage performances, but having known Anna-Wendy for nearly 15 years, it is her remarkable character and exquisite gifts as an enabler of all that is good in her students. Some people say that like attracts like and if you’ve ever been taught by her or been in her presence as she seeks to bring together the many disparate elements of musical collaboration, then you will recognize that you have been touched by her talent and passion for teaching and enabling.  Her style welcomes you as your own thirst meets a drink.

I recall over a decade ago now, a time when we arranged to meet at a youth hostel in Perthshire. We hadn’t known each other too long then but we chatted and caught up over coffee, and she taught me Stan Chapman’s Jig, which I’m sure is still somewhere under my fingers. Later that day, we were driving to Perth when she tentatively asked me if I would like to listen to something she had recorded. She put on “My Edinburgh” and waited for some feedback while I listened. As my mind was treated to the full-bodied, delightful details of all that my ears could handle, she told me casually how she wrote all the parts for each of the musicians and instruments, which of the characters she knew and what the Edinburgh scene had meant to her.

My eyes leaked a little, and I knew I was listening to something special, not only because of her skill in playing and interpreting music, but because of who she was and what it must have taken to produce such delicate, sweet notes, each one carefully considered or spontaneously heard in her mind. A person of ego might have spoken incessantly of her own work, and maybe she thought it, but all I felt that day was the true joy of learning a jig from a beautiful soul who stepped with ease and grace between her own highly talented world to my own stumbling one of the adult learner, replete with bum notes and those screeches.

Since my own personal gains arising from her teaching talent, and throughout the growth of our friendship, I have also seen Anna-Wendy blossom into the highly skilled professional educator and leader she is today. I clapped (online) as she won the MG Alba Na Trads Award for Best Tutor in 2018. I listened to her exceptional talk at the University of the Highlands and Islands International Women’s Day event in 2019 and I barely recognized the now-blossoming feis tutor from years back. She owned that stage and had every woman in the room inspired by the way she wove story into music, and back to story again, as she let her career unfold in the most creative of ways. She reminded me of the university professors at my old Alma Mater, Heriot-Watt, whose breadth of talent allowed them to teach in their second language while working as active interpreters and translators in their mother tongues, teaching students, and marking essays and handling all the other aspects that must surely come with academic life. Anna Wendy was, and is, a truly creative professional, able to do and to teach with equal ability and flair.

If it weren’t for the considerable skills in her self-effacing playbook, then I’m certain others would be jealous of her abilities and talents. But the quiet way she works through each challenge to produce such beautiful work, whether it’s a student event, or degree assignment, or a house ceilidh, her love for her work shines through, and it is hard not to appreciate those talents in others, even if we might envy their position. She, of course, is too modest to even consider that someone might think her so capable, but it is my duty as her friend and student, to shine a light on her, the most beautiful of musical souls.

I still smile inwardly at the delight I took in her teaching me Stan Chapman’s, while she hid the true extent of her talents. But that is who she is. Barely a glance towards her own considerable talent and potential, and always willing to help an eager student like myself. If you ever find yourself in her class, bask in that glow.

*Ends*

You’ll find her here https://www.anna-wendy.com/ and here https://www.uhi.ac.uk/en/research-enterprise/cultural/institute-for-northern-studies/staff/anna-wendy-stevenson/

Feminism /

Lift a Sister Up

Queen Bee syndrome, women tearing women apart, women “behaving more like a man” once they’ve achieved a certain level of status or power, revealing or concealing sex or gender as deliberate acts of fitting in and getting on, these old tropes abound from the workplace cafeteria to the most senior positions in government. Yet who is it that stands to gain from all the backbiting? Certainly not women.

Kept outside the corridors of power in our most lauded public institutions, entitled to full suffrage only since 1928, predominantly doing the lowest paid, most insecure work and doing the bulk of all unpaid care work, I’d go so far as to suggest that women have hardly made it, while men, for the most part, have it made. Perhaps not just their tea, but their beds, their bank balances in some exceptional cases, and most often their kids raised as well.

Every once and a while, there comes across a small opportunity to be heard, taken seriously, truly supported in every aspect of our lives and it being so rare, sometimes, we don’t even notice what’s being offered. At other times, we find the weight of patriarchal conditioning so heavy that we start to erase ourselves out of the very support or recognition that we deserve. How many times have you found someone offering you help, only for you to say, “no, no, it’s fine, I’ll manage”, then in the next sentence go on to talk about how exhausted you are by the busyness of life.

I’ve often been dismissed or outright rejected when I’ve tried to offer words of support to another woman doing fabulous, interesting or important work. We are neither expected to want that recognition and nor do we know how to accept it graciously, far less pass it on. I’ve sometimes felt embarrassed when giving someone a compliment, worried that as a lesbian woman, I’ll be judged by the blokey standards of wanting something in return (and yes, I do mean “wanting something” as a euphemism). What a waste to avoid saying something heartfelt and true that would lift a sister up, because I’ve worried I’ll come across as too passionate, too intense, too much, or worse, creepy and entitled.

If COVID has taught me anything (after handwashing and the polarities of science), it is that we have lost a sense of deep connection to one another and our planet. And so it is true that pre COVID, there was plenty of room for improvement to support one another as women, it is even more essential now.

Lift a Sister Up series focuses on the cool, the quirky, or the fascinating work of ordinary Highland women. We are an exceptional and talented bunch of women living and working in rural and remote areas, so why not find ways to shout about that? The series aims to highlight some of these women in ways that might inspire and uplift others, or simply give them recognition for their contributions to life in the Highlands. Historical accounts may often reduce us to the caricature of the herring lass, or weaver, of the 1900s, but we were at Culloden too, and our skeletons live on sites of the Clearances. We burned for our talents (see Katherine Stewart’s account of witchcraft in Women of the Highlands, 2006), we worked the land, bore children, and today, we educate the next generation, we operate at Raigmore, consult at the Belford, we clean the public toilets at Garve, and serve customers at Glenfinnan. We make artworks, write books, care for elderly people at home or in homes, we shoe horses, run businesses, herd cattle and much, much more besides.

Yet despite these achievements, we are not overflowing in recognition, often scorned for self-promotion which is ironic in a world intent on living life through socials, and waiting for improvements to be handed down from up above. Since my own mid-life awakening, everywhere I look, I see the less often-told, s()heroic efforts of hundreds of Highland women and I am making it my business to write about, learn from and share their work with my audience. If you are a woman with an interesting project, job, business or hobby and would like to take part, please email lisa@thehighlandfeminist.com. Equally, if you would like to refer a woman doing fabulous things or with an insightful or interesting tale to tell, please tag her in one of these posts, I’d love to hear from her.

You do not need to be a feminist, call yourself a feminist to take part, nor are the views expressed on this blog a reflection of any of the participants in the Lift a Sister Up series. The session will usually last about an hour, then once written up, usually within the fortnight, you get the chance to review it for factual accuracy before it gets published. The whole point of the articles is to work together so that the end piece is a collaborative effort that you are comfortable with and that promotes you or your work.

What are you waiting for? Let’s chat and see if this series is right for you 🙂

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