Ray Kelley’s parodies cover the period from the 1960s through to the 1980s. It was during this period that the greatest changes in primary schooling throughout the world took place. They were truly dramatic. Queensland was well and truly to the fore in fostering the change of teaching processes from adult-dominated, content-oriented, testing-focussed to those that recognised the differences in children’s ways of learning and making the most of them.
Queensland Professor G.W. [Bill] Bassett wrote Each One is Different in 1963 and its message took a while to sink in. The dreaded Scholarship Examination had been abandoned in 1962 but children were still treated as students rather than as pupils for some time.
During this period hard lined, red-necked critics and middlemen organised themselves in their disapproval of these and other changes. They were successful in having school courses banned and they exposed the Education Department’s helotry in such a way that its organisational school focus was easily changed to a business model. Phil Cullen describes these spoliations in the USQ Monograph Back to Drastics [2006]. The preliminaries to the turmoil are featured in Ray’s parodies.
He wrote about those things that formed the topics of conversation whenever teachers met. The times were exciting. His amusing parodies were sung at formal gatherings, and those who attended kept copies of his work and shared them with others throughout the State.
One of his largest productions was one for the QTU organised Teachers Dinner in Mackay in 1967. It dealt with such issues as class size ["Day Dreams"], inadequate pay ["Dough-Pay-Me" and "Something About Bullion"], general issues of annoyance such as school stock, understaffing, exodus to Canada ["A Little Beauty"]; and it said ‘cheerio’ to those who were pleased to get away from the confusions of the New Maths to take up cane cutting or having their number called for army service ["Farewell to Teaching"].
The broad issues of this 1967 Dinner Song Book provide an excellent introduction to the rest of this section.
Ray wrote more about the exodus of teachers to Canada from all over Australia and gave good reasons for the mass movement in his “Vancouver, Here We Come” and “They’re All Flaming Well Gone”.
Corporal Punishment, once used in schools for “offences against morality, gross impertinence and for wilful and persistent disobedience”, the subject of debate for many years, is illustrated through “The Ray Costello Theme” and “Lay of the Last Lawyer.”
After an extended period of turmoil, teachers were very pleased as their retirement date approached. “Exit Laughing” describes the joy of an anticipated superannuated retirement. Then the fashion fad of mini-skirts brought almost comic relief as Ray asks, “Who Dat Girl in De Mini Skirt?”
The use of demountables for the fast-growing and mobile Queensland population once disposed Minister Bird to ask, “Do they breed ?” and Ray wrote “The Demountable Dirge“.
Ray was an active member of the Queensland Teachers’ Union and he despaired of those members who used membership as an excuse for off-beat behaviour. He wrote “Union Man” to take a shot at those who let their colleagues down somewhat.
His rollicking verse “To Us, Then” is a reunion song. Originally written for those who attended Kelvin Grove TTC in 1947-8, it can be easily altered to suit different re-unions. In “Our Pastors and Masters”, he gives special tribute to some of the TTC staff of the time. His “Drinking Song” also suited such occasions.
“Undermined” is an amusing story of a young teacher in a coal-mining town where his financial have-not status ruined a romance. “Pros and Cons” tells the story of Pupil-free days, now accepted as a matter-of-course, while “Schoolmarms’ Upset” tells the story of those who struggle with change, and how such a lady is missed by her pupils when she gives the game away. “We’d Go Anywhere” was aimed at Central Region R.D. the much-admired Joe Gutekunst, and it named a few outlandish places that teachers on transfer were expected to go.
Ray’s “Song of the Also Rans” is a short ditty that generated a description of how the training of teachers has changed over the years and this section concludes with the story of a couple of blokes who shot through from their one-teacher schools in the Central Highlands early enough to have some cheerful R&R in the metropolis. Ray ? “In From the Hinterland” gives you a clue.
