BOGDUK's RECOLLECTIONS ABOUT TEACHER

English

 

Williams          Nicknamed Mickey because he was so short.

Wrote left-handed on the blackboard with a peculiar anticlockwise style.

Humourless and oppressive.

Did teachers have to be nasty as he was?

Or was his style necessary both to control a class of ferals, and to protect his own sanity?

Mahoney         

A gentle soul, not offensive.

I can’t help thinking that school was more a child-minding exercise, than an educational experience.

Steinmetz         

Nicknamed Stinky for his aggressive behaviour.

I knew him only from a few periods when he relieved. He was someone else’s problem.

But is there truth – yea wisdom – in the proposition that someone needs to be the bad guy amongst the Teachers?

History

Gibbons

Was there not once a second form history class, that had become unruly?

Was there not once a young teacher who came, and chastised the class for having learned nothing about the Middle Ages; and therefore, set stupid assignments on this topic?

Was this teacher subsequently driven mad by Cro,  and one day never came back.

Then arrived this Welshman.

His opening remarks were MOVE, BOY!!

Later, once he acclimatized, he tried to teach history in an intellectual manner. I hazard that you can’t do that in a high school class. The majority members of the class do not want to be intellectual. Plus, 15-year old boys are not yet able to conceptualise; their brain has not finished myelinating.

Nevertheless, was it not Gibbons who organized night-time excursions, for the illuminati, to go to exotic lectures by Kamenka in some dive in a Union Building in Sussex Street? I think Barry and Chris went. Maybe Osti remembers.

French

Astle

I did not know Astle as a teacher. I had Tucker for French.

But Astle did have a very large formative influence on me.

He was one of the ISCF mentors. On a particular occasion he had lectured on the necessity to spread the word of Christ, for without that word people would perish. So, I asked the question: what happens to all those people in Africa – or wherever else – who have not yet heard the word of Christ. Astle’s answer was: “They burn in hell.” This put me off Christianity forever; and, indeed made me an enemy of the church.

Tucker

I recall a sense of no respect for Tucker. I can’t remember the act of learning any French, either.

He narrowly escaped death. I suffered from hayfever, and would often blow my nose. On one occasion he admonished me, shouting STOP THAT! That night I reported the episode around the dinner table at home. Now, my father was not one know to be sentimental, but hi did have a short fuse when it came to oppressing children with handicaps. It was all my mother could do to suppress his rage and prevent him the next day from going to the school to tear Tucker into pieces.

Japanese

Dalgleish

Those who did not take Japanese would not have know much about Dalgleish. However, have read reports about him, I gather he did a lot of good work bringing the teaching of Japanese into the Schools system. Leith Morton would know more about him.

Ono    

Known only to the Japanese students, he went on to become something at the University of Sydney; but was soon overtaken by Leith Morton, who catapulted into the Chair of Japanese at the University of Newcastle, and then to a Chair of English in Tokyo.

Latin

Latin teachers would be known by only those few who took Latin.

Fox

Struck me as good scholar, who knew his subject. I remember him once showing me the Latin terms for 64 separate parts of a plough.

He was the first – let me say – true Christians that I had met, and remains only one of two that I have encountered in nearly 60 years. The distinction was that he had found personal peace, but did not evangelise or proselytise. I read their textbook, and that was the message that I saw. He went off to be a missionary in the Hebrides.

Parbury

A decent chap, probably tolerant of rebellious mischief because he was young. He lived in an attractive sandstone house Balmain, which was basically one room with annexes for a kitchen and a mezzanine bedroom. He was probably more interested in completing his Masters degree than in educating high school boys. I was competent in reading Latin but I never established the ability to compose it. I retrospect, I imagine that I could have benefited from more guidance in that respect.

West

He was a Latin Teacher of the old school. He would have had a part in Harry Potter movie. In fact, he did get such a part. He left FSBHS to become the Latin Teacher for Prince Charles when he came to Timbertop.

Anther evangelical Christian. Does that come with being a Latin Teacher? Maybe it fits with reading the Bible in Greek. Better would have been Aramaic.

Mathematics

Bell

I could never work out Bell’s ethnicity. He did not appear to be white. That went well with his enigma.

He seemed to be of high intellect. As a result, he had no affinity with the bulk of the class. Perhaps those from the bulk can remember their perceptions. Instead, he ended up teaching about four guys. Would it have been Yip, Bogduk, Peak, and Colllett?

He had some sort of access to the University of Sydney. Univac – the first computer – had just been installed. So, Bell taught us computer programming. In retrospect I recognize it as Basic.

Cox     

Poor Mr Cox. He was a clever enough chap. He certainly knew his maths. I heard that he was surviving on one lung. Yet he was good-humoured. He tolerated the high-jinx that Barry Peak invented. I have photographs of an escapade to his home, which was somewhere in Burwood or the like.

Hohne

Was this the guy who came from Melbourne, and introduced Australian Rules Football to House sport?

Moalem

The teacher who commanded my highest respect. Then and now, it means something to me that this was the fellow who wrote the textbook. His books are still used for the HSC today. They are rare as hen’s teeth to get. All the second hand copies are kept by the schools.

He is one person whom I would sincerely – maturely – want to revisit.

I feel somewhat guilty that I did not do as well in the HSC as he might have expected, but there are explanations for that which I address in my article entitled “James Ruse?”.