Michael Powell recognised by University of Tasmania for teaching excellence

The pacing may have been off-putting to some students but for Mr Powell, in his own words, it was the only way he could "bloody hear" what was going on.

Despite being deaf, Dr Powell excelled as a teacher, often lauded by his students for his energy and enthusiasm in lectures and lessons.

While they say "those that can do do and those that cannot teach", Dr Powell proved that teaching was a passionate craft and a rewarding vocation, an attitude which recently earned him a medal for distinguished service to UTAS.

"As I say, you just found techniques, and you found methods of being able to turn it to your advantage rather than withdraw, because the temptation with deafness is that you withdraw socially," he said.

"The thing about it is, it's hard work, you've got to concentrate. And what people don't realise is just how exhausting that can be.

"Teaching can be a vocation it's a gift to you, and it's a gift to be able to do it."

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Dr Powell was also honoured in 2012 by UTAS when he received the Vice Chancellor's Citation for Teaching Excellence and Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning, with his dynamic teaching style receiving plaudits, especially in history.

There is a sense that you have to be crazy to teach, being an educator, psuedo-life coach and mentor but Mr Powell's path to teaching was far from straight forward.

He served stints on a farm, working the land with cows, who are "shit conversationalists" before returning to UTAS to undertake PhD study, which is where his teaching career began, somewhat hesitantly.

"I thought, now, I don't want to do that. And then I did it, and I found it extraordinarily pleasurable and not only that, I suddenly realised I was really good at it," he said.

"That's what you do as a teacher, you're teaching the teaching, not just your subject, but life. And one of the things about teaching is you don't teach the subject you teach in the tangents, you teach in the side paths," he said.

"That's where the teaching takes place, that's where the memorable teaching takes place."

Dr Powell left teaching briefly after a dispute between himself and former politician Andrew Nikolic but, in a quirk of fate, buddhism drew him back in.

Buddhism bought Dr Powell to UTAS as his PhD focused on a Buddhist monk in Northern Tasmania who translated scriptures. The eccentricity of the story, Tasmanian at its core, became the basis of a PhD thesis and book for Powell.

During his time away from teaching, Dr Powell met a former Sri Lankan school teach, a monk by coincidence, who referred back to the Buddhist doctrine, the Brahmavihara.

They discussed the concept of mudita, in essence, the joy of the accomplishment and within the success of others.

A chance meeting but a revelatory one for him, to draw him back into the vocation which had been a calling as much as a job.

"I suddenly realised what it was that had inspired me as a teacher. That was the joy in the accomplishment of others of my students, the realisation that many of them were better than I would ever be," he said.

"They were smarter than I would ever be. And rather than sort of feeling anything other than just the sheer joy, of being able to watch and nurture that was where my pleasure came from."

Now retired and battling terminal cancer, Dr Powell reflects fondly on a life dedicated to shaping the minds of Tasmania's youth and allowing them to think critically.

"I'm also extraordinarily grateful for what it gave me for what it did for me and for the contact that I had, with so many students," he said.

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