A Broader Vision
Voices of Vocational Education in Twentieth-century South Australia
by Erica Jolly
This site provides access to the individual entries in Erica Jolly's book. You can read the essays and memoirs by clicking on the 'Read' link next to each entry. The entries are presented in the same order in which they appear in the book.
Please note that each entry is copyright material, and may be read on screen but not be reproduced elsewhere. For permission to reproduce material from A Broader Vision, please contact the publisher, Lythrum Press, tel: (08) 8415 5150.
To buy the book, go to the on-line order form available on this site, or contact Lythrum Press.
| Erica Jolly | Introduction | Read |
| 1 | Four Very Special Schools | Read |
| Adelaide Technical High School | ||
| Oscar Knauerhase | Out of a nineteenth-century central school | Read |
| Robin Haskard | I do know he loved teaching | Read |
| Dorothy Wood | ATHS only took the top students | Read |
| Margaret Sheppard | Lunch was not to be wrapped in newspapers | Read |
| Raymond Theel | The concept of technical high schools seemed worthwhile | Read |
| Allan Vial | Mr Moyle raved about my magnificent shoulders | Read |
| Edwin G. Croft | In some respects the teaching staff was ahead of its time | Read |
| Maxine Spencer | Rather a rude awakening | Read |
| Oscar Knauerhase | Social studies added a humanity to the technical course | Read |
| Bruce McGowan | Ideal for the career path I took | Read |
| Barbara Smart | You learned a lot from the blackboard or you perished! | Read |
| John Bartlett | No time to explore the highways and byways | Read |
| William Ridgway | He was one of those rare teachers | Read |
| Barbara Healey | She was a great teacher of geography | Read |
| John Murrie | It was more a processing plant | Read |
| Helen Paton | Our teachers commanded a healthy respect | Read |
| Barry J. Harris | My solid memories | Read |
| Christopher Keenihan | Tradition, pride and certainly the record were there | Read |
| Thebarton (Boys) Technical High School | ||
| Harry Macklin-Shaw | I remember Dr Fenner saying, 'I want you Harry' | Read |
| Frank Fenner | The Dalton Plan and independent learning | Read |
| William Nettle | My father wanted me to have a technical education | Read |
| Charles Fenner & A.G. Paull | Individual Education | Read |
| Harry Macklin-Shaw | I didn't know quite how to handle that one! | Read |
| William G. Fenner | You could take the Intermediate in two or three years | Read |
| Maurice R. Ey | In a way we felt like pioneers | Read |
| Sir Eric Neal | One of the specialised high schools | Read |
| Jack Peake | Classrooms were set up as academic workshops | Read |
| Gordon Hewitt | Those war years were a bit tough | Read |
| Viv Veale | Alas the asphalt floor remained | Read |
| Geoff Wilson | Varicose veins and chalk dust in the hair | Read |
| The Marist Brothers Technical School, Thebarton | ||
| Brian Maloney | He taught me all this without setting homework | Read |
| Girls Central Art School | ||
| Mary P. Harris | In One Splendour Spun | Read |
| Neville Weston | A remarkable school within a school | Read |
| Rhondda Gluyas | Suddenly the bird dive-bombed the audience | Read |
| Lorraine Pratt | Miss Good place a form in front of me and told me to sign | Read |
| Ruth Tuck | A memory of Mary P. Harris | Read |
| Gladys Good | There was only one school like it in the world | Read |
| Vanessa Smith | I loved my work | Read |
| Joan Milner | School diary of a first year art student | Read |
| June Kidman | I did about twenty subjects | Read |
| Lucy M. Dennis | The influence of the GCAS never withers | Read |
| Eleanor Christie | I enjoyed the relaxed style of learning | Read |
| Ruth Freeman | I see them as skills for living | Read |
| Laurell Bigg | Her versatility was remarkable | Read |
| Kate O'Neill | We can't have money messing up our kids' chances | Read |
| Kate O'Neill | In praise of a great headmistress | Read |
| 2 | Central Schools: the post primary compromise | |
| To serve the best interests of the State | Read | |
| Jack Peake | The system and the treatment of technical teachers | Read |
| Mary Connell | From primary to central school teacher | Read |
| W.P. (Bill) Holmesby | A boon to many families | Read |
| Lorna Ellery | General lessons included debating sessions | Read |
| Kath Milledge | My parents were poor: Thebby Girls was where I had to go | Read |
| Mick Ryan | We had a slave driver for a headmaster | Read |
| Jack Webber | I had not wanted to be a tradesman | Read |
| Kath Wundersitz | Better the devil you know than the devil you don't, eh? | Read |
| Gordon Phillips | Let them pay for their own education | Read |
| Narma Woodards | They've killed 'im. I knew they would | Read |
| Jean Andrews | From the country to Nailsworth Central School | Read |
| Douglas W. Yarrow | It was the end of the great depression | Read |
| Edna Matthews | Encouragement meant so much | Read |
| Loris Bulger | It was a new world | Read |
| Albert L. 'Alb' Smith | I was to get a job as soon as possible | Read |
| Margaret Jenkins | My parents wished us to have the best education possible | Read |
| Eleanor Christie | I remember her with kind affection | Read |
| Betty Pawson | Conduct, character and diligence | Read |
| 3 | Secondary Schools in their own right | |
| War made a difference | Read | |
| Charles Fenner | The cultural value of technical education | Read |
| Mary Connell | Schools shouldn't be turned into accounting houses | Read |
| Gordon Phillips | I had not gone through the proper channels | Read |
| Ruth Kloeden | You could feel the difference - a very broad picture of tech art | Read |
| Croydon Boys | ||
| David Dallwitz | At Croydon I had to teach music - there was no one else! | Read |
| Geoff Wilson | There was another line of boys with their ragged kitbags | Read |
| R.W.A. 'Wal' Fisher | We had a specially gifted teacher, a very great singer | Read |
| Peter Armstrong | After Whyalla Croydon seemed very 'alive' professionally | Read |
| Croydon Girls | ||
| Ivy Dowling | It was customary for females to cease schooling at 14 | Read |
| Narma Woodards | Commerce at Croydon and in other Girls Techs | Read |
| Verulam Robertson | We knew where we stood with these young women | Read |
| Margaret Hewitt | Very few continued after third year but I did | Read |
| Marie Cawthen | No distinction between Australian and migrant girls | Read |
| Margaret J. Grant | For the first time I felt successful at school | Read |
| Joan Young | Find each child's doorstep - Lead him out from there | Read |
| Valmai Curnow | I told mum I wasn't going back | Read |
| Carole-Anne Fooks | I was treated as a person in my own right | Read |
| Erica Jolly | A disciple of A.S. Neill | Read |
| Laurel Bigg | Girls often arrived wet through | Read |
| Helen Mackenzie | No one was to go over the imaginary line | Read |
| Beverly Smith | A prac teaching experience at Croydon | Read |
| Goodwood Boys | ||
| Viv Veale | The threat to Australia was taken seriously | Read |
| Peter Emmett | Today it's 'Arunga Close' | Read |
| Jeffrey Smart | I was amazed at the talent | Read |
| Alan Vowels | We learned by doing - that's what 'tech' schools were all about | Read |
| Maruice R. Ey | You will be teaching sheetmetal work | Read |
| Maxwell Smith | Goodwood produced youngsters full of music | Read |
| Bob Such | This school is made of boys not bricks | Read |
| Bill Cowley | From manual arts to technical studies - training direct entrants | Read |
| Bob Goldsmith | Goodwood was closed by the 'working-man's' party! | Read |
| Le Fevre Boys | ||
| Ian Appleton | Fred was a fearless battler for his staff, school and students | Read |
| Lewis O'Brien | You could build on this three year technical school foundation | Read |
| Robert Buckland | The smaller more ancient school had an intimacy I treasure | Read |
| F.A. Vickery | From the Headmaster's page | Read |
| R.W.A Fisher | Fred appreciated the work of his staff and let them know it | Read |
| Trevor Tisdall | I loved this time and that blackened workshop | Read |
| Don Hopgood | Science teachers made some connection with craft | Read |
| Denis Brien | The department had set up an elitist, sexist, separatist system | Read |
| Glen Mcarthur | I chose to teach in a tech school | Read |
| Brian Cunningham | Rules were rules at Le Fevre | Read |
| Viv Veale | We did read the Karmel Report but rather dismissed it | Read |
| Gordon Phillips | I had no intention of trying to step into Fred's shoes | Read |
| Nailsworth Boys | ||
| Bob Verco | Probably the best teacher I had in ten years of schooling | Read |
| Les Kemp | As their maths improved so did their behaviour | Read |
| Nailsworth Girls | ||
| Barbara Murdoch | She didn't mind questions | Read |
| Carmel Chaplin | 'Get him to talk about Ireland' | Read |
| Gisele Nemeth | 'None of you will be doing PEB' | Read |
| Kaye Hall | They made me feel that I was dumb | Read |
| Johanna Schaefer | What the system lacked in flexibility teachers made up for | Read |
| Joan Dallwitz | Would I consider some craft and art teaching? | Read |
| Norwood Boys | ||
| Cliff Rooney | A decision I never regretted | Read |
| Stanley R. Kirk | I had immense satisfaction working with my hands | Read |
| Viv Veale | Mr Fyfe had lined the woodwork room | Read |
| Henk Dorrestyn | Few migrants came to South Australia then | Read |
| Maruice R. Ey | As Ey see it - changes in the '60s | Read |
| Eric Bryce | We led the way out of unimaginative, blinkered traditionalism | Read |
| Norman Dowdy | Take a moment to look up at our mighty old red gums | Read |
| Norwood Girls | ||
| Rosalie Burdon | We were the future's educated female half of the voters | Read |
| Pauline Sims | I don't regard that time as wasted | Read |
| Eleanor Christie | Those IQ tests were far from foolproof | Read |
| Janny Udinga | Norwood Girls Technical School was a godsend | Read |
| Fay McGinn | We became one of the new breed | Read |
| Caroline Curnow | I'm glad I spent those days at Norwood | Read |
| Port Adelaide Girls | ||
| Mary Bailey | She was modern in her marking | Read |
| Margaret Burton | Students were left on their honour | Read |
| Jean Walsh | My love of music, ballet and theatre developed | Read |
| Beverley Ambridge | Art was a subject of some standing | Read |
| Verulam Robertson | The Port was like a family | Read |
| Ruth Park | Room to move - alternatives in secondary education | Read |
| Eva Jozeps | We could feel the foundations rocking | Read |
| Eleanor Abbott | I wondered what I would find | Read |
| Gareth Colquohoun | My strongest recollection was their humanity | Read |
| Lynn Peterson | The ban the beret brigade | Read |
| Helena Nikitins | The girls were fiercely proud of the Port | Read |
| Helen Alfrey | Miss Park is having a 'hair' drive | Read |
| Gale Edwards | She was the 'new' woman - dazzlingly contemporary | Read |
| Helena Nikitins | Jam and cream - my best years at the Port | Read |
| Thebarton Girls | ||
| Geraldine Blight | In those days children had very little say | Read |
| Olga Atchison | The curriculum seemed to fit the times | Read |
| Joy Fisher | I loved her from that minute on | Read |
| Avis Gale | It's sad they didn't believe us | Read |
| Yvonne Miels | Children in western suburbs weren't expected to aim high | Read |
| Rosalie Francis | Mediocrity was all that was required of our young ladies | Read |
| Beverly Smith | What a kick in the teeth for those old Adelaide attitudes | Read |
| Erica Jolly | He insisted that fascism was dead | Read |
| Adrienne Earl | I still keep my creative hand in | Read |
| Pam Curran | If you lose self esteem this leads to all sorts of problems | Read |
| Frances Dharmalingam | We were together engaged in an experiment | Read |
| Barbra Leslie | The art of a country is, after all, its soul | Read |
| Helen Nichols | They were nurturing our imagination | Read |
| Jennifer Brouwer | Who said you were incapable of academic study if you did craft? | Read |
| Julie Hodgkionson | I was different and accepted as such | Read |
| Tess Young | A special place | Read |
| Pam Lindsay | She had a strong sense of pastoral duty | Read |
| Zena Williams | A headmistress's message | Read |
| Marie Cawthen-Black | I loved my five years at Thebarton | Read |
| Unley Girls | ||
| Vola Thomas | I have a broader vision because of my education | Read |
| Mavis Fathers | Miss Rendell arranged an audition with the ABC | Read |
| Helen Cramond | Unley Tech for me | Read |
| Jean Nottle | Teaching was their life and they taught us well | Read |
| Nancy Joy | Not one subject I studies was wasted | Read |
| Margaret Burton | 'Margaret's at a technical school because she can't spell' | Read |
| Marjorie Woolford | Mutual respect was the predominant feeling | Read |
| Jan Verco | She proved this type of school was not only for non-achievers | Read |
| Jean Andrews | Working with Mass Maschmedt was important | Read |
| Helen Went | If only I hadn't had a sister with a uniform and a brief case | Read |
| Cynthia Spurr | Has this stigma kept driving me? | Read |
| Joyce McMenamin | A call came to 'outsiders' - I was a 'direct entry' teacher | Read |
| Aileen Preiss | Technical schools had become more academic | Read |
| Zillah Maschmedt | More school makes girls better mothers | Read |
| Whyalla Technical High School | ||
| Graham Heinjus | WTHS - The perspective of a BHP apprentice | Read |
| Evelyn Brougham | Four types of schools in one | Read |
| June Chenoweth | I lived for my work and getting things done properly | Read |
| Hartley Searle | The first comprehensive high school in South Australia | Read |
| Ray Horne | The training I had stood me in very good stead | Read |
| Tony Hughes | Everything was so easy, so well-organised - a pleasant place | Read |
| Bronwyn Colegate | Extra help was not available for those who struggled | Read |
| Maxwell Smith | The Technical Branch understood the need to educate the whole student | Read |
| Bronwyn Colegate | The bottom of the heap | Read |
| 4 | The 'new' technical high schools - boundaries were beginning to blur |
|
| Slow signs of changing times | Read | |
| Evan Mander-Jones | Koestler's curves - the increase in technology and man's powers of destruction | Read |
| Max Bone | Secondary education for the non-academic student - the inadequacy of the rigidly imposed course | Read |
| Ian Appleton | Max Bone - champion of technical education | Read |
| Alan Vowels | Into the '60s. An increasing emphasis on problem-learning | Read |
| Mitchell Park Boys Technical High School | ||
| Albert L. 'Alb' Smith | 'My boy, you've been trained in the university of hard knocks' | Read |
| Bob Goldsmith | A great place to learn | Read |
| Brian Fopp | Mathematics in the 1960s techs | Read |
| George Grachanin | I have been in touch with the future | Read |
| John McMenamin | Technical schools were light years ahead | Read |
| Mark Woollacott | I will be forever grateful for my years in tech high schools | Read |
| Bob Johnson | The greatest thing done was making this school co-educational | Read |
| Jeff Heath | The 'ramp' was central to my life at Mitchell Park | Read |
| Vermont Girls Technical High School | ||
| Marguerite O'Neill | Near enough was never good enough | Read |
| Pam Walters | I chose to attend a technical school | Read |
| Leanna Read | By the end of first year I was hooked on science | Read |
| Sue Speck | I never felt my education was less than my brother's | Read |
| Strathmont Boys Technical High School | ||
| Michael Ryan | A real preparation for life | Read |
| Mark Warner | Students now are better prepared for adult life | Read |
| Tony Hughes | Those 'remove' kids were magnificent | Read |
| Marisa King | A sense of belonging | Read |
| Malcolm Fox | A brush with the bland | Read |
| Jean Pudney | A strange decision by the department | Read |
| Strathmont Girls Technical High School | ||
| Barbara Williams | I was well equipped to be a 'modern mother' | Read |
| Kathleen N. Rumbold | The first word that comes to mind is - affection | Read |
| Elizabeth Boys Technical High School | ||
| Neil Marks | It was a good school for knocking off some of the rough edges | Read |
| Lou Kloeden | These schools still had to fight for educational recognition | Read |
| Elizabeth Girls Technical High School | ||
| Margaret Davey | The birthing of a new community | Read |
| Margaret Hutchinson | We had fun at school when the Beatles came to town | Read |
| Winsome Millane | Science teaching on the Adelaide plains | Read |
| Erica Jolly | Give to the most difficult classes the best of your teachers | Read |
| Joyce Emery | I had become multi-skilled | Read |
| Mitcham Girls Technical High School | ||
| Margaret Ward | Those splendid girls | Read |
| Edna Wilson | I was determined students would appreciate their own worth | Read |
| Gareth Colquohoun | Girls achieved results not envisaged by primary schools | Read |
| Pam Boyle | The leadership skills course was of great benefit to me | Read |
| Erica Jolly | Interdisciplinary connections had to be made | Read |
| Debra King | I was there before they had 'proper' subjects | Read |
| Angle Park Boys Technical High School | ||
| Viv Veale | Team teaching allowed exciting flexibility | Read |
| Ian Appleton | 'Come with me and I'll show you how it's done' | Read |
| Gordon Phillips | The Angle Park kids were the easiest I've had to teach | Read |
| R.W.A Fisher | Angle Park was needed in this very poor district | Read |
| Angle Park Girls Technical High School | ||
| Joan Stratford | I did teach some wonderful girls | Read |
| Kensington Girls Technical High School | ||
| Brenda Baker | Salvation came in the form of a new school | Read |
| Winsome Millane | 'It's always good to know you've made a difference' | Read |
| Seaton Boys Technical High School | ||
| Stan McMillan | From the Headmaster | Read |
| Neil Piller | That broad-based, hands-on, interactive education | Read |
| Dover Gardens Girls Technical High School | ||
| Sheila Roberts | I must refer to the wonderful assistance from parents | Read |
| Maggy E. Ragless | Streaming into pre-conceived courses didn't suit me at all | Read |
| Heather Riach | Studying at an all-girls' school was an advantage | Read |
| Gwen Hofmeyer | I loved the music with the students | Read |
| Christine Harris | Universities were for rich people | Read |
| Robyn Bradford | The shortcomings were in the system | Read |
| Gepps Cross Girls Technical High School | ||
| Joan Young | We needed to structure academic and social success for everyone | Read |
| Margaret Hutchinson | Any fool can teach physiology | Read |
| Cheryl Shammall | I felt confident, mature, skilled - ready for the workforce | Read |
| Linda Sutton | This school had sown a belief in ourselves | Read |
| Peter Armstrong | From Salisbury North Tech to Gepps Cross | Read |
| Kidman Park Girls Technical High School | ||
| Beverly Bills | I had proved something to myself and didn't look back | Read |
| Brighton Boys Technical High School | ||
| Bryce Saint | A balanced education | Read |
| Ron Vanderzwan | They looked just like the real thing you buy in shops | Read |
| Ian Purcell | Brighton Boys Tech was being run as if it was a college | Read |
| Stephen Conway | This marvellous, new, all boys' technical high school | Read |
| Erica Jolly | I had to build on boys' interest in practical things | Read |
| Grace Addis | I fell for the lot | Read |
| Anne Bartlett | What sort of sissy subject was drama? | Read |
| Mount Gambier Technical High School | ||
| Cynthia Spurr | He was the first boy to study home economics | Read |
| Bob Goldsmith | Some in the department saw it as the 'poor cousin' | Read |
| Smithfield Plains Technical High School | ||
| Les Kemp | Technical high schools were now in the forefront of educational change | Read |
| Campbelltown Technical High School | ||
| Geoff Thorpe | Bert told me he'd first spent his meagre money on music | Read |
| 5 | Comprehensive schools: diversity on one sight | |
| Was the Karmel Report a 'non-event'? | Read | |
| Ian Appleton | John Walker trod on toes but chose where he trod | Read |
| J.S. Walker | We stand poised for another leap forward in secondary education | Read |
| J.S. Walker | The emphasis today is on learning how to learn for one self | Read |
| A.W. Jones | Peter Karmel: the greatest education statesman of this century | Read |
| Val Lambert | SA's models of student-centred, community-oriented, innovative schools | Read |
| John Steinle | Today students can pursue academic and vocational subjects with equal rigour | Read |
| Maurice R. Ey | Would the walls between science and tech studies come down? | Read |
| Ian Appleton | Dimension: a magazine about computing in secondary schools | Read |
| Val Lambert | At Goodwood: deliberate efforts to break down barriers | Read |
| Alan Vowels | The old technical schools no longer seemed relevant | Read |
| R.W.A. Fisher | Whitlam tried to be the benefactor of all mankind | Read |
| Ian Purcell | Whyalla was carrying on the tradition of 'the model school' | Read |
| Geoff Thorpe | We could cater for matriculation students | Read |
| Margaret Burton | The true technical subjects were being squeezed out | Read |
| Viv Veale | The concept of The Parks Community Education Centre | Read |
| George Grachanin | From different backgrounds, achievers in their own right | Read |
| Denis Brien | 'They should have converted all high schools to techs' | Read |
| Renata Wierzbowski | I could use those skills now | Read |
| Erica Jolly | The time had come to unite hand, heart and head | Read |
| Eva Jozeps | I wished someone had analysed the term 'equality' | Read |
| Ray Horne | I went to hear Professor Karmel explain the impact on music | Read |
| Joyce Emery | We worked a six-day timetable | Read |
| Ian Purcell | At its best, that's what Mawson set out to do | Read |
| Vic Pellen | Their metamorphosis into high schools was not a dialectic leap | Read |
| David Calder | There is still a place for developing low level tech schools | Read |
| Peter Lassock | A powerful learning experience: the act of practical creation | Read |
| Tania Leiman | Glen McArthur - all of us were touched by his driving force | Read |
| Lyn Wilkinson | Relationships are at the heart of learning | Read |
| Clare McCarty | We educated in a new way through drama at The Parks | Read |
| Brian Fopp | Transforming a country technical high school - a success story | Read |
| Neil Marks | Girls achieved as much as the boys in tech studies | Read |
| Yvonne Miels | A lively, progressive environment | Read |
| Heidi Brady | We had the chance to show girls could do what boys could do | Read |
| Enid Ryan | Mitcham was moving 'into the Eighties' | Read |
| Joan Stratford | Oh for those days again! | Read |
| Chris Battams | And why did I go through all of this? To matriculate! | Read |
| Les Kemp | A retrograde step - an educational and psychological disaster | Read |
| Marilyn Haysom | We made history with the nation's first all girls cadet unit | Read |
| Bruce Amos | I had been part of a small, caring, family-like school | Read |
| 6 | Educating for the 21st Century: some barriers lifted | |
| Kellie Smith | I am a third year mechanical fitter apprentice | Read |
| Peter Armstrong | I still felt strong traces of its origins | Read |
| Ian Maynard | We were there to serve the needs of this community | Read |
| Nick Hardie | Ours is a long and valued history of 'hands-on' education | Read |
| Susan Cameron | School needs to be more flexible | Read |
| Kylie Henderson & Jane McMillan | We hold the same views | Read |
| Kathryn Sullivan | School is a community of learners | Read |
| Justin Hooper | The engineering pathways programme at Hamilton | Read |
| Natasha Moore | Thank you Thebarton Senior College | Read |
| Brad James | We can go anywhere just by clicking on a button | Read |
| 7 | 'It's not an "or", it's an "and"' | Read |
| Dr Denis Grundy | The challenge of universal secondary education | Read |