Appendix A – Inaugural Staff

Staff Departments

Practice Department

Unlike, other departments, the Prac department had a fluctuating staff population. This was largely due to the fact that MLTC was under the auspices of the Education Department of Western Australia, and therefore various teachers were seconded to this department for periods of 2-3 years. The constant in this arrangement, in the first four years, was Alan Jones, who was permanently assigned to MLTC.

The use of seconded staff supplied a variety of highly experienced teachers, who excelled in teaching and could impart their skills to the students. This also advantaged the staff involved, as it allowed them to continue employment with the Education Department and apply for promotional opportunities at the same time. Seven years after the opening of MLTC, Terry Watt and Gail Shannahan, two of the original MLTC students were employed in this role.

Lew Eborall was appointed in 1973 and John Love in 1974, and both of these joined Alan Jones as permanent staff until at least 1979. Table 1 shows the various staff, who were seconded during the period from 1973-1979.

 

Programs

In addition to running the pracs, staff in this area were also responsible for the school-based orientation week, which all first years attended. This was set up so students could observe real classroom activities and help teachers with their daily tasks. The school-based orientation allowed students to work within the school environment and experience the roles, tasks and daily activities of their chosen profession. This program was made possible, due to the earlier start of the primary school program and the later start of the College semester system.

Another area the Prac Department was involved with was teaching workshops, which were timetabled one morning per week. Teaching workshops comprised demonstration lessons in schools and micro-teaching with 3-4 children, peer group evaluation of video replays, group discussions and study of specific methods of instruction. These sessions enabled students to work through classroom problems. According to the MLTC Annual Report 11970, p.8 Section 4.8, prominence was given to using available aids and new educational techniques.

As stated previously, the Prac Department was responsible for teaching practice (preparation week) workshops. These were put in place to bridge the gap between theory and practice and enable the students to have the skills and confidence to teach a prac class.

These were based entirely on students’ individual needs, where they could approach any staff member for ideas, recommendations, approaches and methods related to their specific teaching tasks, as provided by their supervising teacher. On the first day of the week, students attended their allocated schools, obtained detailed school-specific briefings, met their classroom teacher, obtained lesson plans for expected lesson contents and to get a “feel” for the students and the general school environment.

The rest of the week, the students returned to College, where they were helped by Prac staff: to prepare and organize their lesson plans, teaching aids, audio-visual materials, and to develop presentation techniques. Students could borrow teaching aids, models, cameras and audio-visual devices from the resource centre, for use in their classroom. They could also participate in role playing activities to help build their repertoire of skills and provide confidence.

In the final year of the course, students were expected to undertake a 14 week assistant teachers program in the schools. Most of the organization and placement for the program was arranged by Lew Eborall and Alan Jones. They met with principals in the various primary schools to facilitate the program. This required considerable knowledge of identifying suitable schools, both for the quality of their teaching staff and programs, but also for the enthusiasm of the school principal and the supervisory skills of the selected supervising teachers.

As a result, school staff who participated in this, were extremely positive and enthusiastic about playing an important role in developing the skills and abilities of the students. In addition, they felt part of part of the MLTC program.

Both Alan Jones and Lew Eborall knew most of the principals and had an excellent rapport with them. Lew Eborall refined the content and organization of the third year practical teaching program annually. Despite the fact that Lew had never met a number of the students in the program, he always greeted the new students by name. They were very impressed by this!

Other activities within the Prac Department included: cross-graded team teaching (Belmay Primary School); teaching in remote schools and teaching for those with disability; and supervising children at camp schools (Pemberton, Point Peron).

 

Rural and Remote Schools

In the 1970s there only existed a single standardised course to prepare every student teacher for every classroom in Western Australia, regardless of context, location, demography or the particular needs and strengths of students.

Early in 1973, two separate and serious complaints were brought by parents of graduates to Charles Staples, Acting Principal of the then Mount Lawley Teachers College (MLTC), claiming that the College had not adequately prepared these two graduates for their first teaching positions. One had been appointed to teach in a remote Aboriginal community and the other in the school in a town with a significant Aboriginal enrolment, both in the far north of WA.

As a result, students were required to undertake a rural or remote school placement, during their training, to ensure that they were adequately able to teach in these areas. They were introduced to multi-grade teaching and classroom organization. In 1974 the College and the Student Association conjointly acquired an old MTT bus. This bus became the means of transporting students to rural destinations , as well as College camps. It was also used to bring local children to the College for micro-teaching and other activities.

Permanent Staff

• Alan Jones
• Lew Eborall
• John Love

Education and Psychology

Educational psychology focuses on how people learn and retain knowledge. This is done to improve the learning process and promote educational success for all students. Beyond this, they also study social, emotional and cognitive processes involved in learning and apply their findings to improve the learning process.

According to the 1970 Annual Report Bob Peter’s changes of reducing the passive learning had been reduced by 30% and there was much emphasis on laboratory exercises such as role analysis, role simulation, verbal learning, achievement motivation, and depth perception. The topics were directly related to the classroom situation.

As a result, considerable usage of one-way screens was useful for role performance, child observation and replication of experiments.

In later years, students were to complete brief child studies consisting of structured observations and responses by the student. These were designed to be completed in 20 minutes.

This department was also responsible for setting up a remedial reading clinic for students, who wished to speed read.

Programs

• The classroom as a social system
• Social roles of teacher and pupil
• The school and the community
• Culture and Education
• Curriculum
• Education and Social Change
• Social deviancy
• Community studies
• Role Performance and Classroom Technique
• Perception
• Developmental features
• Motivation

Staff

• Phil Smith (HOD)
• Mike Lee
• Sybe Jongeling
• Laurie Summers
• Rod Underwood
• Ian Kerr
• Brenda Buchanan
• Neil Tuckwell

English, Oral English and Drama

Like mathematics, English literacy is a major subject in the teaching curriculum and students were tested to ensure they had satisfactory spelling and grammar. They were placed into remedial, normal and advanced streams. The written English course was developed out of suggestions and needs of the students themselves. The advanced groups were instrumental in the biennial College magazine.

In Oral English, there was emphasis on the practical application and use of voice in the classroom situation. Child Drama, was involved with puppetry, assisted by the Art Department. There was also participation in play readings, productions and poetry reading.

English staff were at the forefront of a number of publications including: Loot, Seedtime, Talus and the Calendar ….

Programs

• English methods
• Literature
• Oral English methods
• Film and television
• Creative writing and journalism
• Theatre arts

Staff

• Glen Phillips (HOD)
• David Hough
• Margaret Erneste
• Colin Kenworthy
• Oliver Deacon
• Gillian Hogben
• Glenys Nicholas
• David Nicholas
• Vivian Evans
• Sue Statkus
• Ruth Clarke

Maths and Science

Students were tested on their mathematical ability. If they had not done maths at Leaving level, they were put into a remedial group to build their skills. An excellent text book was provided to allow students to work through the syllabus by themselves, with help provided if necessary from the staff.

Science was another area, which was streamed according to ability. Like maths, failure to complete this at Leaving level resulted in students being assigned to a remedial group. In this group, they were assigned activities to improve their standards.

In addition to teaching maths, the Maths Department, were responsible for the way in which student marks were structured. They provided arguments in favour of the validity of frequency distributions and the suggestions for cut-off points.

Each department produced lists of all students taking particular subjects, set out in rank order from the best to the worst, with an evaluation mark with each name. The Senior Lecturer gained the agreement of staff concerning the cut-off point between satisfactory and unsatisfactory and drew a line through the list at the point.

It was agreed that overall, there might be a failure rate of 10% +x (plus or minus +) and a distinction rate of about 15% +x: also that the Satisfactory group (Group C) should be distinctly larger than the Creditable group (Group B).

When marks were set out in the rank order, there were a number of students on each mark. Very large numbers appeared against the marks in the Satisfactory and Creditable sections – bulking around the mean. The Unsatisfactory and Distinction groups were easily distinguishable above and below, with either few or no names against each mark. Often the numbers against marks to a clear group at each extreme. Very occasionally, no tail end appeared, with quite large numbers of students on the lowest range of marks. With such results, the Department could claim no failures.

The Science staff were responsible for working with students to plant trees, shrubs and other plants as well as to supervise the weeding of the quadrangles. They were also well-represented in running science camps and in the Mentor Cup boat race.

Programs

• Science
• Maths background and method
• Geology
• Computing

Research and Publications

Staff

• Len McKenna (HOD)
• Jack Bana
• Dick Lamb
• Tony Knight
• Ken Rettalack

Social Sciences

There was debate regarding the composition of the Social Science teaching area, which was formerly designated as history and geography. According to Charlie Staples: “We were told in primary school here by our wise men, who returned from overseas, that Social Studies was the “in thing” and everybody had to do Social Studies”. However, according to the American Social Studies Yearbook, most of the school leavers in America were doing History or Geography, not Social Studies.

The 1970 Annual Report, p.13 indicates that there was a pilot study amalgamating the two in order provide greater knowledge of the various concepts to understand society and social change better and thus teach “social science” in the primary school more intelligently.

As a result, future students studied social sciences, except if they had completed both of these disciplines to Leaving level.

Programs

• History
• Geography
• Sociology
• Social Studies Methods

Staff

• Lyall Hunt (HOD)
• Fred Marsh
• Colin Marsh
• Brian Jenkin
• David Hedges
• Brian O’Sullivan

Music

The Music Department taught the history of music as well as theory and practice. Students were all taught the recorder and some also the guitar. The squeaks of recorders were a background to the College at large, as students practiced for their recorder tests. Theory was based around the works of Orff, Suzuki and Kodaly.

Programs

• Elements of music
• Recorder and Orff instruments
• History of music
• Musical education background

Staff

• Alan True (HOD)
• Jean Farrant (Harvey)

Junior Primary

Staff from Junior Primary also worked with the Mathematics Department in the area of early childhood.

• Jeanette Connolly (HOD)
• Lee Hunter
• Kaye Kirkwood
• Jill Duncan

Art

• Bryant McDiven directed the theoretical section. He was heavily involved in the College art collection and in the creation of the official MLTC crest. Bryant was active on a number of committees including: National Vice Chairman of the Australian Society for Education through the arts as well as chairman of the planning committee; member of the Festival of Perth committee as well as convener of the art sub-committee; and member of W.A.I.T. advisory committee on associateships in art teaching and industrial arts.
• Mel Livesy ran the practical workshops. His duties also entailed receiving and storing acquisition materials as well as providing assistance with the MLTC calendar and preparing silk-screened labels for the gardening project. He completed advanced certification in the areas of ceramics and jewellery making. He also conducted Raku pottery demonstration in York, Darlington and Hyde Park.
• David Jones had exceptional artistic, teaching and organizational skills. He was popular with the students and made an outstanding contribution to graphic design for publication and general purposes. Examples of his work included: the cover design for the 1972 calendar, letter-head layouts and College crest designs for the Identification Committee and printing of the student club insignia.

The Art Department was responsible for designing the MLTC logo as well as for its collections of art.

Programs

• Personal enrichment
• Nature and philosophy of art
• Art appreciation
• Professional preparation – understanding child art
• Practical creative activities

Staff

• Bryant McDiven HOD
• Mel Livesey
• David Jones
• Jennifer Allen

Physical and Health Education

The Physical & Health Education Department was somewhat of an anomaly as its program spanned all the semesters instead of taking place over specific ones. As games instruction needed to be incorporated into this area, the time required was greater than for other disciplines. The compromise arrived at, was that one afternoon per week, would be a sports afternoon, based on the activity rather than normal class groupings. Games taught included golf, squash, tennis, badminton, gymnastics and basketball. Students were required to learn the rules for each of the areas studied in order to be able to run these activities within the school. PE classes also encompassed dance, cricket and football and were largely unsegregated, except for body contact sports.

The Physical & Health Education was also responsible for a number of activities surrounding College camps at Poinr Peron and Rottnest. Activities at the camps included dancing, games, canoeing and water sport.

Initially, Physical Education took place under basic conditions, firstly at Subiaco and then in the early days of MLTC. At MLTC students used the change rooms adjacent to the car park and undertook activities at the park across the road from the College. They also used the Inglewood swimming pool as a place to ensure that students would know how to rescue someone from the water.

Sports clubs were set up in men’s and women’s International Rules basketball, men’s and women’s hockey, women’s netball and men’s night hockey as well as football.A number of canoe trip were conducted and students were involved with the Royal Life Saving Services carnival at Beatty Park.

In Health Education there was emphasis on providing first aid for simple problems that may occur in a school setting and were trained in responding to emergencies and bandaging.

Programs

• Swimming and lifesaving
• Games instruction
• Physical Education
• Health Education
• Skeletal System
• Muscular System
• Immunisation and communicable diseases
• Social problems

Staff

• Brian Churchward (HOD)
• Addy Hayes (Carroll)
• Bruce Sinclair
• Sandra Mohlmann (Brown)
• Malcolm McKercher
• Sue Fawcett
• Robyn Mackey (Arnott)

Aboriginal Teacher Education

A major prevailing policy underpinning teacher education was that of generalised content, in which the one standardised course was regarded as sufficient to prepare every student teacher for every classroom in Western Australia, regardless of context and demography. This “generalised” teacher education was a clear case of one size fits all. There was virtually no specialised training offered in teacher education courses, to equip students to teach in unusual situations across WA. John Sherwood was successful in setting up the most comprehensive and innovative programs in Aboriginal Studies and Education in Australia.

Staff

• John Sherwood (HOD)
• John Bucknall
• Neil Chadwick
• Carole Reed
• Lois Tilbrook
• Ed Brumby