Teachers once taught SUBJECTS. Mathematics, English, History and Geography held sway until the middle of the 20th Century. In today’s vernacular, they are KEY LEARNING AREAS. There were also some “frilly” subjects that could not be easily tested by Head Teachers, Inspectors or Public Examinations, so they didn’t matter much. They included Music, Art, and Drill [later called Physical Education] and, when Public Examinations were imminent, out went all these frilly bits.
When History and Geography were combined to be called Social Studies, in the 1950s, it was described by U.Q’s Professor Schonell as “…the hybrid outcome of an unhappy marriage between Geography and History.” Curriculum gurus and organisational theorists like changing names. Over the years, English became LANGUAGE ARTS. Syllabuses became CURRICULUM GUIDES. Daily programs became CURRENT CURRICULUM PROGRAMS. As more and more guides were provided for more and more subjects, INTEGRATION of subjects was consequently encouraged. The lumps in the stew got bigger.
When Special Education folk intruded into the every-day teacher’s effort with MAINSTREAMING, it was not always well received by those who had enough on their plate, and the description was changed to INTEGRATION. More semantic confusion. It was already a description of primary school teaching behaviour highlighting the notion of integrating subjects not children. Special Education leaders changed its nomenclature to INCLUSION instead, and after thirty years its effects on key learnings for both groups in a classroom have yet to be sorted out.
The last Queensland Scholarship Examination was held in 1962. When this blanket testing device designed to promote fear of failure was scrapped, more attention was given to the fear-less development of the whole child. Achievement in academic standards, commonly referred to as the 3Rs [Reading, Writing, Arithmetic - believe it] did not slacken, and there was a marked improvement in the understanding and achievement of these easily-tested bits. Indeed, the Year 7 October Tests administered to assist high schools, had to be re-normed each year for many years, because pupils were doing better and there was a need to record the results more accurately for general heuristic purposes.
These late sixties, the most exciting period in the history of educational effort, witnessed an expansion of the use of teaching styles. Previously didactic of the ‘jug to mug’ variety, there was an addition of group and maieutic styles. This represented an enormous expansion of teaching repertoires. Children were treated as pupils. The master-apprentice model of coaching students was enhanced by the learning facilitator model, helping pupils with what and how to learn. Good teachers remained good teachers as they added to their individual styles, and their habitual attention to the 3Ls [Love, Life, Learning] made the 3Rs as well as the ‘frillies’ more meaningful.
The classroom environment also changed. The prehistoric static desks were unscrewed. Learning was activated. Up-close-and-personal classroom teaching/learning interactions demanded more time for individual contact to take place and there came a legitimate call for smaller classes to ensure adequate contact-time between teacher and learner. Teaching small child-focussed classes is much more difficult than teaching large subject-oriented classes using ‘jug to mug’ techniques. The sixties held promise, because teachers knew that primary-aged children needed a stimulating atmosphere to do what they were doing, but….
Alas, stakeholders came to believe that Primary Schools were coping so well that they could handle almost anything, especially those things that the communities were concerned about. Schools started to be used to right the wrongs of society at large, to teach those basics that affected everyday behaviour, and they also introduced developmental concepts for groups with causes. By the 1980s, there was a general expectation that schools should, within the usual daily time frame, add the following to their teaching repertoire. Added to the daily teaching routines activities were subjects that had never existed in the past. Here are some…
Languages other than English
Talented & Gifted children in a special kind of way
Children who require special help
Drug [including alcohol & smoking] Education
Physical Education Programs of a special kind
Multi-cultural Education
Outdoor Education
Instrumental Music
Road Safety Programs
Child protection Programs
Computer Education.
Each of these learning key-holes and others* [see supercilious offerings below] donned a jersey and the curriculum became grossly overcrowded. None of these curriculum aspects listed here, each with an enthusiastic community lobby, held a place on the time-table before 1970. Authorities in Australia undertook a curriculathon for a couple of decades and the effort continues to the present day. Will it ever cease? Enthusiastic non-school advocates and educational middlemen [those with only a passing acquaintance with primary school operations] were more concerned about gaining entry to the school time-table than about the consequences of their intrusion. Even some chic causes found entry. [LOTE is a chic cause, isn't it?] In 1985, the Primary Curriculum Committee itemised over forty lobbies, including those fourteen learning areas listed above, that wanted a part of the normally busy school day. A simple mathematical exercise in distribution of time to each of them will illustrate how messy things can get.
Since achievement in any human endeavour is directly related to the time spent on it, there must be an annoying dilemma for present-day teachers to try to explain things to critics of achievements in the 3Rs. Anecdotal evidence is clear that over-all achievements in all things primary are rocketing.
When a Works Department painter made a useful contribution to educational progress by setting alight the Petrie Terrace State School, his action prompted the Department to plan a school for 1970 that reflected the best judged teaching practices of the time…certainly more stimulating than the egg-crate design. Because some walls disappeared, they were described as an open area design. The term OPEN AREA was loosely used in Queensland. No Open Area school per se has ever been built in Queensland. The construction of areas that covered more than the area of two classrooms, as was done in other states, could not be afforded. Two was the limit and traditional classrooms were altered to suit. A wing of five classrooms, for instance, would see two rooms at both ends of the wing with no wall between, and the middle room used as a withdrawal area. Verandas were enclosed to provide more room. It was simple and affordable on a large scale. Some new schools, such as Norville [1971], Happy Valley and Craigslea [1972] used a purpose built plan borrowed from Western Australia. From there grew designs that relied on the best that was known about stimulating learning environments.
Although the changes in terminology, design and ways of operating over two decades seemed endless, trends and fads were accepted, but not without some occasional critical comment. Len Roles, Central Region Director, once asked Ray to write a discussion starter for a Principals Conference. Ray cunningly chose the ‘Vicar of Bray’, a satirical poem about a Vicar who, in order to retain his position, embraced whatever form of liturgy was favoured by the Monarch, Protestant or Catholic, who reigned between Charles II and George I.
Arch Guymer was Director-General [1971-76] at the time, and Clyde Gilmore was Deputy Director-General.
THRUSTS AND FADS
[Poem: "The Vicar of Bray"]
In Education’s forward march
My feet are never draggin’.
The band’s in front – I’m there with Arch
Or Clyde, up on the wagon.
Though Men and Methods come and go
One rocky truth which stays is
That A la mode and comme il faut
Are not just foreign phrases.
And this is law I will maintain
Until retirement day, sir,
That whatsoever fad shall reign
That fad I will obey, sir.
I use the latest tools of trade
As long as I can trust ‘em:
RESOURCE-BASED TEACHING I essayed
When that became the custom.
But if some craftier instrument
Should advertise its presence,
Then who am I to be content
With creaky obselesence.
And this is law…Yon blue-striped English Syllabus,
So subject-orientated,
I tossed aside as tyrannous
And hopefully outdated.
It happened that the LANGUAGE ARTS
CURRICULUM GUIDE was due, sir:
Like clockwork when the old departs
I turn up with the new, sir.
And this is law…
When OPEN AREA came in vogue
I quit my eggcrate prison
And scorned that colleague for a rogue
Who chose to rot in his’n.
I concertina’d back the wall
And gave my kids the freedom
To follow boldly where the call
Of learning chanced to lead ‘em.
And this is law..
If INNOVATION should be in
I’m in there innovating:
Let INTEGRATION’S term begin,
Behold me integrating.
Shifting and turning, never still,
Onward through life I go, sir:
Each morn brings new grist to my mill,
Each eve, promotion closer.
And this law…
[* During the Whitlam years, federal finances were offered direct to schools for INNOVATIVE undertakings in schools through newly created wide-ranging programs. Some got out of hand. A maverick group at an Australian Council for Educational Administration/Leadership Conference, suggested the addition of curriculum items such as Dodging Kamikaze Canaries; Gross Motor Skills for Primary Pupils over 144; Dis-metricated Daisy-Chains; Land Rights for Gay Whales; Jazzmatics for Geriatrics; Under-water Knitting; Reformed Pronounciation; Advanced Traffic Dodging for English Migrants; Tautology Repeated - two times over; P-Eternity. Intended to be jovial, the suggestions were red-wine- inspired at the Conference dinner.]
