Kay Whitehead

Middle years teacher education: New programs and research directions

Teacher education programs focussing on the development of specialist teachers for ‘the middle years’ have proliferated in Australian universities in recent years. This paper provides some insights into middle years’ teacher education programs at the University of Queensland, Edith Cowan and Flinders Universities with regard to their: philosophical underpinnings; specific educational context; scope and nature of the program. In addition, some of the research directions and efficacy strategies utilised in conjunction with the programs will be shared, along with some early findings from a longitudinal study in one of the programs. We propose that the pattern of programmatic growth heralds a new time for teacher education, and we speculate about the production of new kinds of teacher identities as graduates take their place in the profession.

Women's leadership of ‘much needed national work’ in wartime education

ABSTRACT While there is a wealth of feminist research on womens educational leadership and policy-making in the interwar years, this article extends the discussion into the Second World War. My focus is the educational leadership of Dorothy Walker, head teacher of St Peters Infant School and the youngest head teacher in Birmingham, and Lillian de Lissa, longstanding principal of Gipsy Hill Training College (where Walker trained) and national advocate for early childhood education. I highlight Walker and de Lissas ongoing challenges to patriarchal authority and their continuing commitments to progressive education, as well as many war-related issues they encountered in their lives and work. Working at different levels of policy-making and contrasting in age, Walker and de Lissa invested their leadership with a national significance during the war.

Transnational connections in early twentieth-century women teachers’ work

Using a transnational framework, this paper focuses on four graduates of Gipsy Hill Training College (GHTC) for nursery school teachers in London, United Kingdom, in the early to mid-twentieth century. Firstly, I explore GHTC’s progressive ideals and highlight ways in which its principal, Lillian de Lissa, encouraged students to “think internationally”. She was especially proud that a handful of students from countries such as China, Turkey and Canada studied at Gipsy Hill. These included Nevin Nouri and Bek Keng Chui, whose experiences are explored in the second section of the paper. Likewise, British graduates “who carried Gipsy Hill to the ends of the earth” featured prominently in the college magazine, the Gipsy Trail. Finally, I examine reports from Marjorie Sanders and Barbara Boal for the ways in which they represented their lives and work overseas to readers of the Gipsy Trail. Together, de Lissa and GHTC graduates constructed the college as a progressive educational institution whose influence transcended national boundaries. However, they exposed a range of social divisions in their portrayals of people and places “in the uttermost parts of the earth” in the process of articulating their ideals.

Gipsy Hill Training College graduates: once, always and everywhere a modern woman teacher in the interwar years

This article examines the ways in which Gipsy Hill Training College’s (GHTC) graduates represented their lives and work in the college magazine, the Gipsy Trail. The so-called ‘Wraggle Taggle News’ featured snippets from married and single women teachers at every stage of their lives and work in Britain and overseas by the late 1930s. It will be shown that graduates integrated discourses of the modern woman and Gipsy Hill’s modernist ideals of individual autonomy, and educational and social progressivism into their paid work and domestic situations, leisure and propaganda work across their life course. Indeed, it was a case of ‘once a teacher, always a teacher’ and everywhere a modern woman teacher in the interwar years.

British teachers’ transnational work within and beyond the British Empire after the Second World War

Abstract Focusing on British graduates from Gipsy Hill Training College (GHTC) in London, this article illustrates transnational history’s concerns with the reciprocal flows of people and ideas within and beyond the British Empire. GHTC’s progressive curriculum and culture positioned women teachers as agents of change, and the article highlights the lives and work of married and single graduates overseas after the Second World War. Some migrated to the dominions of Australia, Canada and New Zealand, while South Africa and Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) were popular destinations for short-term teaching contracts. A few graduates went to the colonies as missionaries and colonial servants, and a handful taught in extra-imperial sites. Wherever they were located, these British women promulgated the college’s progressive ideals and shared their experiences with people at home in Britain, thereby shaping understandings of the Empire and constructing a world that was differentiated by class, gender, race and nation.

Democracy’s angels: the work of women teachers

the book relies primarily on edited sources (BFSS annual reports), or such that are either quite recent or lack credibility (especially those composed by Heard or his sons). Therefore Muckle’s research, which points to the problem as well, cannot draw a complete picture of the man and his work. Moreover, some sections, in the absence of contemporary sources relating directly to Heard, include quotations that do not mention him by name, or other, later and more general reviews. The result is a book that summarises and displays, though quite well, prominently existing works. Third, the book’s structure is rather confusing and not entirely systematic. Consequently, the reader does not receive the historical background necessary for understanding the topic when beginning to read it and encounters numerous repetitions. Lastly, the author’s identification with the book’s protagonist is highly apparent, and he often uses a preaching tone and critical expressions. Indeed the book was written as a tribute to J. A. Heard, but since Muckle claimed that he intended for it to be read by teachers and students who specialise in Anglo-Russian relationships, he should have maintained more critical distance and objectivity. Nevertheless, and despite the aforementioned weak points, the contribution of this study is not to be underestimated. It succeeds in shattering the rigid image of Tsarist Russia, and presents the Western reader with another Russia – one that is intellectually and pedagogically vibrant and open to innovations – while adding an important element to our knowledge of the history of education for the poor. When presenting Heard’s personality and work, not only does the book provide an example of a gifted teacher, but also bequeaths his vision to everyone who works in education today.

Kindergarten teachers as leaders of children, makers of society

Purpose – In Australia as elsewhere, kindergarten or pre-school teachers’ work has almost escaped historians’ attention. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the lives and work of approximately 60 women who graduated from the Adelaide Kindergarten Training College (KTC) between 1908 and 1917, which is during the leadership of its foundation principal, Lillian de Lissa. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is a feminist analysis and uses conventional archival sources. Findings – The KTC was a site of higher education that offered middle class women an intellectual as well as practical education, focusing on liberal arts, progressive pedagogies and social reform. More than half of the graduates initially worked as teachers, their destinations reflecting the fragmented field of early childhood education. Whether married or single, many remained connected with progressive education and social reform, exercising their pedagogical and administrative skills in their workplaces, homes and civic activiti...

James Greenlees’ school garden and the suburban dream in colonial Australia

This paper focuses on the work of a late nineteenth century headmaster, James Greenlees, who earned the reputation as the ‘pioneer of school gardening’ in the British colony of South Australia. In addition to manual training, school gardens served multiple purposes internationally during this era. For example they were promoted as a resource for teaching and a way of supplementing teachers’ incomes. School gardens were used to teach older students the technical skills of gardening as well as reinforcing connections between nature, hard work and moral improvement. They were also integral to the progressive education of young children along the lines suggested by Rousseau, Pestalozzi and Froebel, for example who promoted nature as a template for understanding the world. Developing students’ sense of beauty and aesthetics was another goal alongside the beautification of school grounds and other public spaces. However, the aims of school gardening were frequently differentiated by class, race and gender. Gardening for white middle class girls was oriented towards the ornamental and aesthetic, for example whereas the focus was more practical in the case of working class and immigrant children. School gardening was designed to expose rural and indigenous boys to agriculture and thus its purpose was vocational. And in co-educational schools there was likely to be a gendered division of labour if girls were included at all. The popularity of school gardening waxed and waned over time in countries such as the United States and Australia. Trelstad and Kohlstedt explore the rise of American school gardens from the 1890s and nominate the nature study movement and progressive education as providing the impetus for this phenomenon. Often sponsored by civic organisations, productive flower and vegetable gardens were established on or near school properties and supervised by teachers or garden directors. Trelstad states that ‘by 1905, the gardens had gone from being occasional experiments to common sights in most large cities’. While they were initially promoted to make learning more interactive and teach about natural phenomena and life processes, Kohlstedt adds that they addressed very different educational intentions in diverse settings. Many American states mandated agricultural instruction in elementary schools in the early 1900s, and so the purpose of school gardening became distinctly vocational in rural and also Indian schools. In common with the United States, the small amount of historical research on Australian school gardens focuses on the early twentieth century and points to intertwined progressive education and nature study movements as catalysts. Robin, Hunt and Mirmohamadi have studied the school garden movement in the state of Victoria, and all argue that Frank Tate, the progressive Director General of Education, played a leading role in initiating this outdoor activity. Although Tate enlisted sponsorship from civic organisations, teachers were primarily responsible for establishing gardens in their school grounds in the Australian context. Australian historians also highlight the multipurpose nature of school gardens: Robin states that ‘district beautification was an important driving force’ and Mirmohamadi proposes that ‘the state school garden was seen as a nursery for

British Women Education Officers and progressive education for an independent Nigeria

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the work of three British Women Education Officers (WEOs) in Nigeria as the colony was preparing for independence. Well-qualified and progressive women teachers, Kathleen Player, Evelyn Clark (née Hyde), and Mary Hargrave (née Robinson), were appointed as WEOs in 1945, 1949, and 1950 respectively. I argue that the three WEOs endeavoured to reconcile their British cultural values, progressive education, English language instruction, and the intricacies of Nigerian cultures in order to prepare students for life and work in an independent Nigeria. Their roles were diverse, encompassing administration and teaching, teacher education, and leadership of girls’ boarding schools and residential training colleges where English was the language of instruction. Following an outline of the WEOs’ prior experiences, I compare and contrast their approaches to progressive education, beginning with Clark’s endeavours to make girls’ education “a graft that would grow onto and into their own way of life” at the Women’s Training College, Sokoto, in far Northern Nigeria. Then I discuss Robinson’s work in a men’s elementary training college at Bauchi where she dispensed a “down-to-earth practical” progressive education to prospective primary school teachers. Finally, Player gave girls “as complete an education as possible for life as a worker, wife and mother” at Queen Elizabeth School, the first government secondary school for girls in Northern Nigeria. Each situation illustrates the complex social relations involved in realising WEOs’ commitments to progressive education as an emancipatory project.

Marjorie Caw’s transitions from city teacher to leading citizen in interwar rural Western Australia

Abstract This article explores Marjorie Caw’s (née Hubbe) transition from her professional work and active citizenship as a young, single, kindergarten teacher in Adelaide to her multi-faceted married life on a farm near Kojonup, Western Australia during the interwar period. Besides engaging fully in domestic work, Caw taught her children at home and maintained her commitments to nation building by leading the Kojonup Country Women’s Association. Issues of gender, class and race relations mediated her domestic work and relationships with her husband and children, successive white maids and the Noongar people on the farm as well as her civic commitments in the interwar years.