Phil Cullen grew up in Ipswich, attending St Mary's (now St Edmund's) Christian Brothers School. After Junior he turned down the offer of a job with an accountant to take the scholarship to become a teacher- "it was a burning desire" based on the life of an older brother who was a teacher. For two years he attended the Brisbane State High School, and in 1945, at the age of 16, came to Kelvin Grove.
In 1946 he went out into the teaching service, and did the rounds of several schools before becoming Regional Director, Northwest, in 1969, and Regional Director, Northern in 1973. In 1975 he became Director of Primary Education, retiring from that position in 1978. In 1982 he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia and in 1987 awarded the Gold Medal of the Australian Council of Educational Administration.
He is now in the process of establishing a new home in the Tweed area and doing quality control tests on local jazz venues and golf courses.
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What I remember of the first day is being spoken to about our expectations, and what was expected of us - and the rules. One of the important ones I remember was wearing a tic.
Really then our routine became one in which we were "taught", I think a full programme - I don't remember any spare periods - for three days of the week and two days were spent at prac school. I had not done Junior geography so it meant that I had to come down from Ipswich early in the
morning and attend a special course run by Jack Greenhalgh.
I travelled down by train -had done so to State High, too - there was a little group of us who used to get in the same carriage, the same row of seats - it was the second carriage from the back of the train, and as a mad group we used to do silly things. There was a statue of a naked woman somewhere near the railway line, and every morning, as we passed her, we stood up and said "Good morning". If there were girls they did not sit in our compartment!
In our year there was one class of men and two classes of senior women and the juniors were being phased out, I think. And I think it was in that year they started to pay more handsomely. For instance, my brother- eight years older - had received about five shillings a week and I was on two pounds which rose to two pounds ten shillings. As most people probably did, I gave my monthly cheque to Mum and she gave me a few shillings
if
I was going out. I think in those days when you went working you were expected to contribute towards the family.I was wearing my brother's hand-me-downs because he was in the Army. I can remember when he came back from overseas on one occasion, I met him at the train and he remarked that it was a surprise to see his young brother greeting him in his own clothes. In fact I existed in his hand-me-downs for a year or two of teaching, also.
We didn't have much in the way of studying to do so I decided to do Philosophy I that year at the University. I used to go down after classes to the Gardens and I would do a bit of study there. Then I would go to lectures and catch the 9.30pm train home. In those days the subject included philosophy, ethics, metaphysics and psychology-I was already taking psych at College and it was just the same sorts of things basically. Professor Kyle and the other lecturers handed out external students' notes so I decided to stop going to lectures altogether.
At the end of the year I can remember sitting for the philosophy exam in the woolsheds at the Exhibition Grounds - hundreds of students, old rickety chairs, big long trestles, and the smell of sheep!
Anyhow I passed. Well of course the next year everybody did Philosophy I, because they reckoned that
if
I could get through anybody could.We were supposed to be the first of the group that did a two-year course, but most of us were appointed at the end of year and a half. My first appointment was on the first Tuesday in May. There were no May holidays in those days and I was appointed to Proston the day after Labour Day. So I really did a year and a couple of months.
I was kept very busy going to dances and surfing and playing football. I was playing Rugby Union for the College on Saturday- and League on Sunday at home in Ipswich. I can remember one day spraining my ankle playing Rugby League and I was not game to limp anywhere in front of Rocks Robinson, in case he discovered that I was playing that brutal League!
Well, the Students Advisory Council had started in 1944 and its first President was a chap called Kevin (Kanga) Kennedy - an outstanding footballer - he was playing Queensland Rugby Union when he was at College and was quite a charismatic sort of guy. Then in 1945 Abby Rowe was elected as President, but didn't last long because he had done first year medicine at University and was called up because he was an 18-year-old. So we had to have another election and I was elected as President.
That year, through no fault of mine, we lost access to St Finbar's hall in Ashgrove, which was where the students held their dances every Saturday night - the main money spinner for the Students Advisory Committee. So
I did do a lot of work trying to find a replacement dance hall. I found halls in Newmarket and all sorts of places where we ran occasional dances but it was not until we finally got a regular Thursday night booking at the Blind Institute hall in South Brisbane that we had another permanent home for the dances.
That year Sydney and Armidale teachers' colleges, the only two in New South Wales at the time, invited representatives from Brisbane Teacher's College to visit their inter-collegian sports. The invitation really came to our Committee but we decided that the staff committee should make the decision as to who should go. I was selected, probably because I was President and my sporting involvements, and Howard Baker, and the two girls were Marion McNeish and Jessie Sneddon, a well-known sportswoman in those times. So the four of us, in company with Charlie Hall, music lecturer, attended the inter-collegian sports between Sydney and Armidale at Armidale in August 1945.
They played each other Rugby Union, tennis, hockey, basketball (I'm not too sure about basketball), and they debated with each other. We went down as observers and I had to make a speech or two at the various functions.
I also became friendly with two chaps from Armidale College who introduced me to my first beer - a memorable week!
We used money raised at dances to finance the SAC, particularly the publication of Spearhead, the annual magazine, and we had picnics at Mandalay, Redcliffe, and other places from time to time. We mostly bought sporting gear. See, we had a B grade Rugby Union side, the girls played netball, and we had a cricket side; we would have bought all the gear for those teams.
There were times when things got a bit serious. There was one occasion in the second year, the weather was "a 100 degrees in the waterbag" and we had decided (not a Student Council decision, mind), that we would not wear ties one day. It was right at the beginning of the academic year and, low and behold, there was a bigger influx than they could cope with, so we were sent out to prac schools - some of us without ties! Well, that was embarrassing, because we had to explain our lack of a tie at whichever school we went to.
But there were no other repercussions.
Another difficulty arose from our art classes. One of the options in what you had to draw was an abstract work and some of us decided that this was the easiest way out for those with little artistic talent. Well, one chap - we all had a pretty limited idea of what abstract art really was - had the idea that
Students' Advisory Committee, 1944, Sprnrhrnd, 194S.
Standing: Miss W Collins, f iVkComwck. Mios S Corder Seated: C Poslwrsky. Miss f Sneddon. C Cullrn. !vfos /Wood,, D/ Tmnr
it was something rude or crude, and drew a woman's breast with a lzuge dagger stuck in it, blood flowing everywhere.
Well, there was a hullabaloo. Mina Laing, the art lecturer, took it to Rocks Robinson. The student in question was the nicest chap and the last person to be suspected of crudity. Eventually Van Homrigh intervened, common sense prevailed and the student was excused - probably on the grounds of ignorance.
l don't know how adequately I could talk about teacher training but it did seem that at prac school, and in some of the schools where I worked, we used a limited bunch of teaching strategies - kids had to be coaxed, pushed, or belted, through scholarship.
I suppose there would be a lot of students who would now say they did not learn much at College - but it certainly taught a different philosophy to the Department.
I think that one of the biggest steps taken in my time was when they unscrewed the desks, and rearranged the geography of the classroom. This was an admission that there were more interesting ways to teach children other than by the old routines of putting slates in by numbers - "1,2,3 ...
anyone drops a slate and you start all over again!" Then "Stand behind your desks, lift the form!"
I've remembered another time when I crossed Rocks Robinson. You see, the desks we used at College were the desks being used in the North Brisbane Intermediate School. So for us young men, having to squeeze into them was somewhat difficult. That is probably why Mr Radcliffe used to say "Don't stand, chaps".
When I went to Armidale College, for that one week we were introduced to a college that had been purpose-built and really it blew our minds. It really did, there was a college with special lecture rooms, tutorial rooms, comfortable chairs, student's canteen, student's this, that, and the other thing -- a library that was worth millions of dollars - playing fields that seemed to go forever, tennis courts, swimming pools.
And when we returned at the end of the August vacation we, of course, were asked to give a full report to the school assembly, all the College. Well, we just eulogised the college at Armidale-we couldn't help it. Unintentionally we drew comparisons with Kelvin Grove and well Rocks, man, didn't he give us the rounds of the kitchen, for daring to deprecate publicly the standard of facilities that were provided at North Brisbane Intermediate.
And he tore us to shreds -publicly! It had not been our intention to make a negative comparison and I think probably we were disappointed that he had thought that we were attempting to do so.
It was our first experience really of a tertiary institution in action down there. We were more like secondary school students and there we were mixing with our peers. Perhaps that made Mr Robinson uneasy, but he really gave us a heavy serve!
Later I was invited to attend a University conference being held down at the old University in George Street and I really felt like a fish out of water with students from universities. I was there only in an observer status and they made me feel quite welcome and I sat at the end of the table - there were not all that many of us because there were not all that many universities in Australia at that time. But to see these young men mostly (I think there were a couple of girls) in action in an arena that I had never witnessed before, of debate and discussion - and somebody moved a gag and I didn't know what the hell a gag was - was a real eye-opener.
It didn't occur to us to try to forge links with, say, the Student Union of the University.
I am really impressed by the quality of today's student teachers, the ones I am involved with at Mt Gravatt - I really am - I think they are people who think about the sort of world they are going to move into and whether they can reform it.
Student teachers all are we Male and female as you see
From the Teachers' Training College far renowned.
We're the powerhouse of the State Working early, working late
Busier folk than we are nowhere to be found!
Chorus: Blackboards, duster, pens and pencils, Inkwells, copybooks, and pads
Charts for this and charts for that Then perhaps a little chat
Touching all the prac schools Latest little fads.
Then we wander to the Prac Where we soon acquire the knack
Of concocting Notes of Lessons, wonderous neat That combine to make a Teacher's job complete.
To the Tune: "Jesus loves the little children of the world"
This material is derived from an interview with Susan Pechey in 1990.
Valerie Cocksedge