Mr Dane King: crowning success in the classroom

Despite joining the RCHK community just a year ago, Dane King is admired by many students for his passion and dedication to teaching English. To find out why he’s held in such high esteem by teachers and students alike, The RCHK Truth asked him questions about his teaching interests and much more.

Can you tell us about your life before coming to RCHK?

I’m Australian, born and raised. Began teaching in a small town in outback Queensland about tweve years ago. I grew up on the beach in Western Australia where I spent all my waking hours surfing and just spending time at the beach. I travelled a lot, surfing, going around Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and other islands in the Pacific. I guess this is what gave me the bug for travel in the first place because I’ve been travelling ever since. Before coming to Hong Kong, I was in Uzbekistan and before that, I was in Turkey. 

How long have you been teaching at RCHK and what do you teach?

This is my first year teaching at RCHK and I’m teaching MYP and DP English Language and Literature. 

What inspired you to pursue teaching?

I think in literature there are two types of teachers. So there are teachers who love education, and teachers who love the content. I’m more like a content type of teacher – I love literature and books. Teaching is perfect for me to still enjoy books and literature. I’ve always had a fascination with literature and reading all my life. I guess at one point in my life I made the discovery that there was a job out there that could allow me to still be around books, live in other countries, and get paid for it; that job was teaching. It wasn’t until I actually started teaching did I realise that there were so many other aspects that I enjoyed.

Did you have any other possible career choices before deciding on teaching English?

I was a plasterer and landscaper before, and I thought that would be my career. But I saw the injured backs and sore necks that all the older guys had from working all those years digging holes that I decided I needed to do something else. Throughout Uni, and when I travelled, I worked in bars, and I thought that might be a good career, but the late nights killed me, and because you’re working such odd hours, you barely get any time to spend with friends and family. 

In your opinion, what’s the best and worst part about being a teacher?

I guess the best aspect is the knowledge that you're teaching something that you absolutely love and cherish. Say, if you're teaching a Shakespeare play, which is notoriously difficult, and then you start to see some of the students realise what Shakespeare is doing in his work, and they realise the genius of it, that’s what keeps you teaching. The worst part is marking papers. Not that I really mind, but when those papers start stacking up come assessment time, it can wear you down.

What are your goals for the future going on from RCHK?

I’ve only been here for a little while, so I definitely won't be leaving this school because I really like RCHK and it’s a great place to be a teacher. It’s very supportive and everyone has been so helpful. The only thing I can see in the future right now is continuing to teach at RCHK. I definitely see myself here for over ten years – I wouldn't be surprised!

What is your most memorable event at RCHK so far?

Being here such a short time, you would think that I wouldn’t have much that would be memorable. But this school has so many activities and events that I now can’t think of one to choose from. I think the best one so far  – just because it was so different was the Emb@rc week. It was really a highlight because you get to see students spend time outside the classroom and see another side to some of the students. The weather turned out, but it also brought out the weirdness in some of the students.

What’s your favourite unit in English?

Well, I haven’t taught them all yet, but Year 10 will be studying ‘Catcher in the Rye’ later on, which, in my opinion, is one of the best books ever written, if you judge a book by what it inspired after it. I always love teaching that book because it has so much controversy behind it. In fact, it has been banned in other countries and led to three people killing presidents, so it really has a lot of history behind it, and that makes this book so fun to teach. For DP we’ll be doing 1984 by George Orwell, which is always great to teach.

Would you say you’re more interested in particularly controversial topics?

Yeah! Mainly controversial books – there are certain types of books that are “dangerous” and they’re the best ones to teach because there is so much about it and there's so much to undercover behind its controversy. 

What's a good English book you recommend? 

This is definitely the hardest question you could ask an English teacher. But it really depends on the age group. Younger secondary students should read anything from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. It’s a story – kind of like Shrek but has so many layers of meaning, and is so funny, that it’s hard to go past. Older students should read the classics. They’re always forgotten and pigeonholed as too old, or too hard, too unrelatable, but writers like Jane Austen, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Dickens, Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Flaubert, were writers when it was a competitive art form, and those guys are the pinnacle of the craft. For those just about to leave school; ‘On the Road’ by Jack Kerouac. Be careful though, it might just change your plans for the future.

Are there any books that you plan to read?

Definitely. I’ve read a lot, but there are heaps. I haven’t read all of Dostoevsky’s work, which I’d love to do. Honestly, there are too many books to read!

Summarize your experience here in three words. 

Encouraging, enjoyable, and entertaining (Alliteration and Rule of 3).

Apart from teaching, what other interests do you have?

Books, obviously. Surfing, although Hong Kong probably isn’t the best place for that hobby. Swimming and guitars – I have several guitars, which can only play country music. 

What’s your favourite band/artist?

My favourite pop singer is Bob Dylan. But a fantastic band is going to Hong Kong – the ​​Arctic Monkeys. They’re absolutely unbelievable.

What would you most like to tell yourself at your students' age?

You don’t always have to take things so seriously. School is important, but life isn’t that serious.

A message or advice to students?

I think I’ll end with a quote by the eminent philosopher Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”