Our mentors and our studies

Ian Francis: We had some great lecturers. Jack Bana was a source of inspiration as was Bruce Sinclair and Jill Westwood.  Len McKenna was a wizard.

Ruth Shean:

I have very fond memories of many lecturers, chief among whom was Sybe Jongeling. Mr Jongeling was a superb lecturer, with a dry sense of humour and an enduring belief in our capacity. Others for whom I had tremendous admiration included Lew Eborall, Len McKenna and Addy Hayes — later Addy Carroll. Addy was a compassionate phys ed lecturer for us, and especially welcomed by me for whom my academic strengths did not include phys ed. I remember Addie teaching us the song Bingo and despairing — with good humour — at the folk dancing capability of us all, but especially one classmate who could not skip! Most of all, I remember swimming lessons with Addy at the Inglewood pool. We had to do various strokes and other things to pass swimming. The only one that filled me with utter terror was the diving board dive. A dive for me — a good Aussie kid — was to jump in the water holding my nose. The compromise — jumping from the 3m diving board holding my nose. I am eternally grateful to Addy for this gesture. She remains a friend to this day.

Bobbie Smith:

I undertook Music studies with the very dedicated Jean Farrant who organised & inspired our intimate Recorder Ensemble. Due to Jean’s positivity & role modelling, I later became a Primary Music Specialist & excelled with my Recorder Bands, Ensembles & Consorts in many of the schools throughout my teaching career. I had the privilege of performing in our Recorder Ensemble at Colin Kenworthy’s wedding. I really appreciated the depth of knowledge & practical instruction I received in my Junior Primary Method course, run by Jean Connolly. She gave me a solid foundation upon which I then built upon & extended my teaching skills over the next 40 wonderful years. I fractured my finger playing footy during Physed lessons.

Neil (Robert) Kidd:

There was a fire drill and those in Film & Television were to record it. There were flashing lights and fake smoke. I recall Colin Kenworthy rushing out then going back to his office to rescue his artworks while I was filming! Colin Kenworthy also once made us wait for him to appear and then surprised us with a grand entrance as we were considering leaving.

Rivka Finley:

To work in primary education, you needed to be an all rounder. Unfortunately, I was not. My mentors were largely in areas, which I was good at. I was in the advanced English group with Glen Phillips, who was an excellent mentor and encouraged us to extend ourselves. He operated out of a big office near Bob Peter, which was very handy for groups to meet. I enjoyed the Oral English crew, particularly Colin Kenworthy, who was a lovely, gentle, creative master of his craft. Despite the squeaky recorders, I really enjoyed working with Alan True and Jean Farrant, who were wonderful.

Maths was never my thing and I ended up in the remedial group, which was absolutely wonderful. I had sat through 5 years of high school maths and could not understand it at all, except the basic operations. In the remedial class, we had a textbook, which broke down all the mathematical concepts and could be worked through at your own pace. There were answers in the back too. As a result of working through this book, many areas of complete incomprehensibility, suddenly became clear.

However, the “new” subject Educational Psychology really engaged me. I remember a film about autism, which I found fascinating. Needless to say, my mentors in this area were Phil Smith (not a popular choice) and Mike Lee. I had many fruitful discussions with Phil Smith and was interested in pursuing a course in psychology. I left for Secondary Teachers’ College at the end of 1971 (as I would have failed Phys Ed) and ended up at WAIT, where I continued with psychology in my English degree. I also found linguistics. Needless to say, I also wished to pursue a career in linguistics. (After the many hours of working on continuous assessment in about eight subjects at a time, the demands of university were inconsequential –  a mere 15 hours of contact per week.) Later I attended the Mount Lawley WACAE, which introduced me to another exceptional mentor, in the form of Toby Metcalfe. To make a long story short, this encouraged me to become a PhD of Applied Linguistics.