teacher whose real name escapes me. He was known to all as ‘Weed’, probably taken from the Flower Pot Men children’s show. An opportunity to push back at the system saw an equally brutal response: that class probably ended a teacher’s career.
Rather than having any number of subject options (I don’t think I selected a subject until year 11) our class streams seemed to set a student’s future in slow-drying cement: you were more likely to drown than change streams.
The first teacher to really have a positive influence on me was a year 11 legal studies teacher, Mr Brewster (I think his first name was Wayne). He used to bring legal studies to life by telling complicated, often humorous stories to illustrate his points, and his black denim trousers and shirt differentiated him from the formal business outfits of the other teachers. On the examination (exams made up 100 percent of many subject grades for the Higher School Certificate, forerunner of the VCE), the defendants in the court included Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, who had stolen from a certain Robert Dylan. Seeing as myself and my best mate had been removed from legal studies for a week for talking music constantly (Dean had argued that Kiss were better than Led Zeppelin, a greater crime than any mentioned by Mr Brewster all year) when we should have been concentrating on the class, this was a very deliberate move on the teacher’s part to get our attention and let us know that he was aware of our outside interests.
Placing our music idols in the exam paper (another villain he included was a certain Warren Bruiser, who had viciously assaulted one Jean Simmons, a lady of the night) ensured our eternal respect and framed legal studies in a manner that a couple of teenagers more interested in the sounds coming from the radio could relate to. This was the first time I can recall a teacher trying to bring together the world that I lived in and the world I inhabited at school.
The humour of Brewster and a senior English teacher (a Miss or Mrs Doolan) who encouraged me to write some music reviews for the school newspaper (I believe one of Cold Chisel’s Swingshift album was the first) really brought education to me, placing it squarely where I thought I could see a space for both of us (for some reason copying the Bible passages had failed to connect). It was probably around this time that I decided to pursue a career in education, with a very loud soundtrack.
At this point music was everything, and most of everything else, too. Apart from being a musician, teaching stood out as a real job, although the fact I didn’t know anyone who had actually attended university (I certainly didn’t know the schoolteachers) left me believing it was not a serious option. Universities were for professors and such, and I certainly didn’t know any of them. I doubt there were any in Sunshine.
My end-of-year HSC grades led to an offer from Deakin University to study education in Geelong. Thanks to the Whitlam Government of nearly a decade prior, the only real costs I had to worry about were those of living away from home and commuting the hour or so it took to drive each day. The decision was made to defer for twelve months and work full-time with the goal being to create a fund to cover the costs associated with uni as my mother certainly was in no position to contribute on this front. For years Mum had told my brother and I that our secondary-school fees were paid for by our father’s life insurance payout, though I later found that this was not true, which explained why she had to work full-time during those years.
I eventually got to uni and for my first teaching rounds I was assigned a Catholic primary school in Werribee, ironically in one of the same classrooms I had built a few years before during my brief stint in the building trade. I should have mentioned that my first plan had been to become a woodwork teacher and get there via the building trade, but that’s another story. It was an unusual feeling to look at the walls and see the very nails I had driven in to hold the plasterboard in place. This was only an ‘observation’ round, so I did not actually teach the class at this stage.
Later teaching rounds included Barwon Heads and Ocean Grove primaries, where I was living at that point (second year of university). Ocean Grove involved working with well-known local teacher-cum-musician Trevor Bishop. Trevor was 33, with long blond hair and a moustache, and was known around Geelong as one of the town’s favourite musicians. From the Queens Head Hotel to New Year’s Eve at Thirteenth Beach or for a private party, Trevor Bishop and the Lost Cruisers guaranteed a great night of fun and dancing. He would ‘rock up’ (as he put it) at 9am to the school music room where a line of excited students awaited. Trevor would wipe aside his wet hair and comment that the waves that morning had been ‘hot as’, while the students chatted about the size and brand of board attached to his car roof. Once they were all in the room and playing away on their instruments, Trevor would describe how the staff at the Queens Head told the band that last night’s show had been bigger than any of the Melbourne bands they had play there this year. ‘It was hot as’, he added, using the adjective with which he’d describe everything from waves to students’ work.
This couldn’t have been further from my own experience of primary school, and Trevor was a huge influence on me as a music teacher. His laid-back attitude made him a hit with the students and I was in my element combining my musical passions with education in a manner I hadn’t previously been sure was possible. This was also an early experience of the teacher working with the students rather than using countless rules to gain compliance. Trevor was an integral part of their community, and parents also had immense respect for him. These were the days before standardised curricula and Trevor was able to teach music that the students loved and enjoyed playing.
Another teaching round took me to Spotswood, at that time a very working-class suburb—property prices have risen significantly there of late. The students in grades 3 and 4 presented a complex set of challenges. One student found himself in trouble for breaking into the school (this was not a case of a student who couldn’t get enough of school, but a burglary).
Around this time I found myself covered in itching skin blemishes, which I later discovered were scabies, which I had never heard of apart from the punk rock musician with the moniker ‘Rat Scabies’. Neither his music nor the condition was pleasant. The prescribed medications were ineffective and in desperation I removed the pests by spraying myself with Aerogard from head to toe.
University flew by in a haze of classrooms, smoky bars where I was either serving drinks in my part-time job or playing music up on stage and various shared houses and couches (not shared) as I found somewhere to stay, in some cases only to move out when the holiday season arrived and rents skyrocketed.
Each year, of the 120 or so of us who had commenced the education course at Deakin, ten or twenty disappeared, for various reasons deciding that teaching just wasn’t for them. One of my best friends in the Education Faculty would never teach after he failed his final teaching round following a personality conflict with the presiding teacher. He was so dejected he signed up for the police force almost immediately.
After graduation the entire cohort awaited their dispatch to the boondocks, as was the case at the time. I was able to avoid sunny Swan Hill by securing myself a posting as maternity leave replacement at my old secondary school in Braybrook, with a class of thirty-six year 7 boys. Apart from having to break up the occasional fistfight in the classroom (not surprising as they were virtually sitting on top on each other), the most unorthodox of my duties involved working with a colleague who ran a ‘sly grog shop’, selling the alcohol in the school’s science department from his desk ($18 for a two-litre bottle!).
Other teachers warned me, ‘Wait ’til you see the staff meetings!’ They had good reason. The principal, an aged brother, disallowed any questions during the meeting and read from prepared sheets the entire time. He was not to be seen around the school and staff needed to make appointments should they wish to speak with him.
The following year I took a teaching position at Charitz College. I was teaching music, drama, English and humanities, and was head of the Drama Department (not a particularly large faculty, it comprised myself and one or two other teachers).
Charitz College was a school of about 500 boys from upper primary to year 10 (it would later expand to include years 11 and 12) perched on a hill overlooking two Corios, the Geelong suburb and the bay. We could boast that we looked down on Geelong Grammar School, however we were also on the road to Anakie, in this case (fortunately) nothing more menacing than