At No Charge: Gordon Jones

Gordon Jones

with mathematics, physics, and chemistry in the upper school. I just started back on my second year there when the Principal received a phone call from the Director General of Education asking me to go in and see him one afternoon after school.

Interviewer: Did he tell you what it was about?

Mr Jones: No, he didn't, just that the DG wanted to see me.

Interviewer: Did you really not think you had any choice there?

Mr Jones: I don't believe I had any choice at all. In those days you did not have choice.

Interviewer: You presumably could have gone out to a private school. I should think with your science background in those days you could have gone anywhere you wanted?

Mr Jones: Oh yes, in fact, at one stage I looked at a position at Brisbane Grammar School. Of course, I had a six-year bond, which by that stage I had pretty well worked out, so I could have got out - but I was prepared to accept it and lectured in very low level science. I enjoyed it because I was taken under the wing of Dr Bob Squire, who is well known in Brisbane, and I began to enjoy taking the science with primary classes - going out to the schools and seeing what science was taught there. I felt that if I was going to make a career of teacher education, and that had never occurred to me before, that I ought to do some further studies in education - so I enrolled to do a BEd as an evening student - not that I was terribly interested in the subjects, I have to admit that. I did it basically for the qualifications and to give me a background in sociology and philosophy.

Interviewer: Let's go back to teaching science to prospective primary school students. How did you decide what you were going to teach them - was that laid down or did you have to make those decisions, too?

Mr Jones: No, I didn't really have to do that because Dr Squire had been there for a fair while and had determined a sort of a curriculum, though very little was put down on paper. There were no handbooks for the College in those days. The students came and did whatever was given to them - there was no set amount of subjects or choice of subjects - it was all compulsory.

So we really followed a pattern, with a degree of liberty given to the individual lecturer as to how deep they went into certain topics. So I had that flexibility. I was able to take some classes in science with the home economics students who, in addition to being prepared at the College, took some Tech College subjects as well - I taught physiology, organic chemistry,

and some elementary physics with the home cc girls, along with the Junior science.

I was appointed as a lecturer in science in 1960 and I remained as a lecturer in science until 1967. Fortunately, during that period (1964/65) I gained an Academic Y car Institute, as it was called, sponsored by tlzc National Science Foundation of America. It was largely to upgrade tlzc qualifications of science and maths teachers following the advent of sputnik and Americans losing the race to get the first satellite into orbit. It was a scholarship for teachers in America basically, but they tried to make at least one space in each course available to an overseas student.

Interviewer: That was very generous of them!

Mr Jones: It was very generous really. It came to my knowledge through our State Education Department. I remember mowing the lawn one Saturday afternoon and receiving a phone call from Mr Black, the Director of Secondary Education, who Jzad given me a good report when Jzc inspected me as a high school teacher; he asked me if I would be interested in going overseas to study for twelve months. I went in to sec him, made the application, and didn't think much more about it. Then I received a phone call from America inviting me to San Diego State College, now California

Kelvin Grove Science class, 1960s - Gordon /ones presiding.

Courtesy of the Educational History Unit, Department of Education

State University San Diego; I think I had about a month from that date in which to be there - which meant sorting out finances and taking out a loan.

Interviewer: How generous was the funding of the scholarship?

Mr Jones: Well, I got a Fulbright Scholarship to pay the air fares for myself, the tuition fees were waived, and I had an allowance which was enough to barely live on with a family if you were very careful - but of course I had to pay the air fares for my wife and three boys. It meant that I had to rent our home to ensure that I could pay off the loan. If we had taken sick over there and had to come back early I would have been in trouble. We were relying on being there for the full time so the rent on the home could cover the cost of the fares. But we were prepared to take the risk. We arrived on a Sunday at lunchtime. All we had was a motel booked and I was due to start lectures at Sam on Monday morning. Fortunately one of the professors lent me his second car-and I remember just driving off, leaving the family in the motel.

But by the end of that week we had moved into a flat which lasted us for a month and at the end of that time another teacher moved interstate and we moved into his house - so it worked out exceptionally well. I managed to buy a car and we had a great year.

Interviewer: Did you get a Master's degree out of that?

Mr Jones: Yes. The course was not designed basically to give people higher degrees, it was an upgrading course. We did a summer programme of eight weeks, followed by two semesters. There were twenty-five in the course and at the end of the summer programme quite a number had given up all hope of ever getting a degree. I would like to have done a few other subjects, particularly in computing that were just coming in then; but there was a possibility of getting a degree so I thought that perhaps I should try to do that - so I was not able to do some of those subjects. At the end of the whole course there were two of us who managed to get the Master's degree in the time. It was fairly hard work!

Interviewer: Yes, it must have been, with a young family, too.

Mr Jones: It was really eleven months rather than twelve and, I think the course finished on the Wednesday, we flew back on the weekend, straight back to College - no breaks or anything like that but it was a worthwhile experience. Looking back it was obviously the right thing to have got the degree because, as teacher education and higher education expanded, it was important to have higher qualifications. I could have gone there and just enjoyed myself more, perhaps taking less rigorous subjects and not getting a degree and seeing things, but in terms of my future career it would not have counted anywhere near as much.

D Block

I came back to the College having got right up in modern mathematics -and these were the days when the so-called modern mathematics was corning in, sets and logic and all that abstract algebra - to lecturing in science, exactly the same as wizen I left, except that in the interim secondary teacher education had started to come into the College - and one year Dip Eds were coming over for some s!lbjccts as ·well. But it was largely still science, zicry little 111athematics.

I ran a course in modern mathematics and ended up ru11ni11g it several times.

We had a tre111endous response a11d had to limit the numbers that came; then the Catholic Education system asked me to ru11 a similar course for them - I think I ran a couple for them as well. So in that way I felt I was at least using the knowledge that I gained overseas. I guess I was certainly unsettled in that I was lecturing in scie11ce and l lzad mathematical k11owledge that I felt zuas going to waste. At the same time a lectureship came up at tlze

University of Queensland i11 Maths Education. I actually applied for it and

·was offered the position, but out of conscience I turned it down. Knowing the Education Department, as it was in those days, I felt that

if

I took another job so soon after coming back, probably they zuould not allow anybody else to go over to do similar courses.

Interviewer: Had they replaced you in your job while you were away?

Mr /ones: That I am not sure of. I don't think so.

At tlze College people just took in those days. My decision was vindicated in that subsequently Graham Jones (in 1990 Director of the Gold Coast CAE) was released by tlze Education Department to do tlze same course at the same institution. I am sure that

if

Thad left the Department and gone to tlze University he would not have had that opportunity.

Instead ofgrumbling, we got stuck into it to make the best of the situation. And so I stayed 011;

fortunately it was not too muclz later than this that they started to restructure positions at the College. I was just a Lecturer Grade 2 in science, although I had more experience in the College than tlzc other science lecturer who had replaced Dr Sqllire as a Lecturer Grade 1. Not long after

that the Department recognised that there were a great many anomalies in lectureships at the College and created senior lectureships.

In April 1967 I became senior lecturer in mathematics, but only until November of the same year because, when Dr Greenhalgh retired Mr Crowder took his place as Principal and I became Deputy Principal. Now that attracted me because in those days the Deputy Principal did not have a really onerous job in terms of administration. He did the timetable, he looked after all the secondary school teaching practice arrangements, which I was interested in anyhow; and he looked after graduation ceremonies and things like that. But he was still able to lecture - at least half a load - so it did not mean losing touch with teaching and that is what I liked about it. I really enjoyed the time that I had from 1967 until 1975 as Deputy Principal of Kelvin Grove Teachers' College which later became the College of Teacher Education - it was during that time that the College became a11tono111011s and free from the State Education Department.

Interviewer: What practical differences did that make?

Mr Jones: Well, it had benefits and it had some deficits as well. I think the benefit was that it enabled us to determine our courses a bit more than previously, it gave us funding which we were able to spend on needs as we saw them, rather than wait until the Department saw a need and had Public Works come to do the job.

Interviewer: Who was your funding body once the place became autonomous?

Mr Jones: Really, it was the Commonwealth Government through the State.

Money was channelled through the State and a Board of Advanced Education that was set up to administer all the Colleges of Advanced Education - each College had its own College Council and it was really the governing body determining the policies for the development of the institution. And of course we went in to triennial funding and triennium submissions, where all proposals for courses and student numbers, for funding, for building requirements, had to be put up for three years ahead.

Interviewer: So it was a big increase in paper work?

Mr Jones: A big increase, and really in those years it was quite horrendous.

I guess I copped a fair amount in the first part in that Mr Crowder had to retire somewhat earlier for health reasons- I think the pressure of autonomy coming upon him near the end of his career was a co71tributingfactor. I was suddenly landed with being Acting Principal right at the time when the triennium submission for 1976-78 had to be prepared in a very short time.

E Block

We did not have the sort of staff to do a lot of the work and it meant a tremendous amount of work for me. I will always remember writing that submission, which went to hundreds of pages. Fortunately we had Dr Sam Rayner, the University of Queensland Registrar, on our Council and I recall doing the first draft of that submission and getting Sam to have a look through it and it came back smothered in red ink.

Interviewer: Well, he must have known a thing or two about funding submissions.

Mr Jones: Well he did, but he was very gracious and said basically it was a good submission and I was encouraged by that.

Interviewer: Just attend to the red ink!

Mr Jones: Yes, I attended to the red ink and then, of course, you had to go and defend it at the Board of Advanced Education. In those days Mr Bill Wood was the Chairman and he was known for not being the most sympathetic kind of person; yet I never minded Bill in the sense that, while he was abrupt and aggressive, I found that

if

you treated him the same way you got on all right. We had a few tussles as we talked over the submission with him but I think he was reasonably happy with it.

Another thing with regard to autonomy, and I enjoyed being involved with this, was that it gave us the opportunity to plan our future buildings. Just before we became autonomous I was given the job of looking into a master plan for the College. The former Principal, Dr Greenhalgh, had wanted to put up another general purpose classroom block, but it was my view that we

needed that like a hole in the head-what we needed were specialist buildings.

As the College was going to grow into a higher education institution, we needed each department area to have specialist facilities. Social studies had different needs from science. Language had needs for language laboratories.

We needed a proper library, not a couple of classrooms. With a very good Public Works architect who had some initiative I was able to come out with the first master plan. So that when we became autonomous and I had to do the first triennium submission, I was able to use a lot of that master plan, even though I did not have the costings on it. We had to employ an architect to help us with that. And significantly, if you look at the subsequent buildings that came in the golden years of the College, the late sixties/early seventies, you will find that it followed that master plan very closely - it gave me a great deal of satisfaction to feel that I had been able to put effort into something that brought about satisfactory results for the College.

Interviewer: Those are the pluses of not being part of the Education Department - what were the minuses?

Mr Jones: I guess the extra involvement in committees - buildings committee, finance committee, legal committee, to set up our own by-laws, regulations, and the like - a lot of time and effort involved in those sorts of things.

Interviewer: Were you able to expand your staff quickly to help you do that?

Mr Jones: Fortunately we were, because funds flowed fairly freely with the advent of autonomy and we were able to start recruiting staff from outside our own State and overseas. I was a firm believer that we needed to bring fresh blood into the system and while I was acting as Principal, even before Dr Batsman came, the Department had adopted a policy of advertising overseas. Mr Black from the Department of Education, would go and interview people in London particularly, not so much America, and then they would tell the Principals about these people and we could select them for our staff; in this way we were able to get some good overseas candidates

even at that stage.

When we became autonomous we had complete free reign to advertise; while I was Acting Principal, and once it was known that Dr Batsman was coming from Cornell, we advertised for positions and he was able to do a lot of

interviewing on his way back to the College. So we picked up a lot of valuable staff, both from America and England and that really helped Kelvin Grove, I believe, to be the pacesetter among the autonomous colleges. Without being in anyway derogatory, Kedron Park tended to stay more with the local product, Mt Gravatt to some extent got people from overseas, but Kelvin

Grove really pushed and got people in who really made a difference to the College. Some came for a contracted period and some came and have gone to other institutions, so they have not been completely lost.

Interviewer: You were Acting Principal for some eighteen months - you did not apply for the principalship?

Mr /ones: No, I didn't. I made it clear to the College Council that I would prefer to be the Deputy. I had been there for quite a number of years at this stage. I had the opportunity of introducing a lot of my ideas, including the master plan for future buildings - I did not feel that I had been restricted in any way in implementing and trying things out. Mr Crowder had given me that scope. But I felt that the College would be better off

if

we could get somebody from outside who would come with fresh ideas as a leader and I would be happy to work with that person. No, I was not at all interested.

The Council undertstood that. The other factor was that I was hoping to retain some teaching. I still liked to teach and, while I could see that under autonomy the amount of teaching time a Deputy could give would get less, I wanted to retain it as long as I could.

So Dr Batsman came in 1975 and once the appointment was known, we corresponded. They flew him out here and before he accepted the position he wanted to meet me. Obviously he wondered why the Deputy would not have gone for the top position. I remember inviting Peter home for dinner one night and he saw the genuineness of my situation and was happy to accept it. Peter and I seemed to click right from the word go and I believe we complemented each other for the good of the institution. Peter was an excellent upfront man, PR, brilliant mind, new ideas - which is what we wanted. Perhaps because of my science background, I tend to be more the meticulous kind, ensuring things are done. I don't mind being upfront

if

I have to be, but am equally as happy being behind the scenes and getting things done. He knew that he could be out and away and I would be looking after what needed to be done at the College. Quite often for several days he might be tied up with meetings, or be interstate, and he would leave me to make the decisions. When he came back we would just tell each other what had happened. We did not have a strict separation of duties, whereby he did this and I did that - we just shared the role and we never got uptight. If he made a decision and I did not know about it because I had not had a chance to talk with him and

if

it was contrary, perhaps, to what I thought it should be, we just accepted it and went on - it was a great working relationship.

I think the staff recognised that they had this kind of leadership at the top, where there were new ideas and people were encouraged to try new things, and yet there was a regularity and a systematic implementation of what was