Educators can profit from 'lessons of the past'

December 21, 2006

Scholars from Australia and New Zealand gathered in Armidale earlier this month for a meeting that contributed to the future of education by preserving memories of its past.

More than 30 delegates attended the annual meeting of the Australian and New Zealand History of Education Society, held this year at The University of New England. It was the first time since the 1970s that the Society's annual meeting had been held at UNE.

One of the delegates, Associate Professor Craig Campbell from the University of Sydney, said UNE had "a long and honourable tradition in the study of the history of education", and placed the convener of this year's meeting – Dr Susan Davies from UNE – within that tradition. (Dr Davies is pictured here.)

Dr Campbell (who is the Secretary of the Society) explained the importance of the enterprise. "Institutions are constantly being 'restructured'," he said, "and are losing their memories of where they came from. If we lose those memories, we condemn ourselves to repeating a lot of the mistakes of the past."

"There's a lot to be learnt from what happened in the 19th century," he continued. "For example, the division between public and private education that characterised that era is back with us again."

The delegates agreed that historical memory was often lacking in responses to "crises" that were really just a periodical focus on chronic problems. (An example mentioned was the relatively poor academic performance of boys at school – the "boy crisis".) The President of the Society, Associate Professor Kay Whitehead from Flinders University, commented: "In the absence of historical perspective we get into panics, and throw millions of dollars at short-term solutions."

The theme of the meeting was "Education, Leadership and Community". Dr Whitehead's Presidential Address was on the subject of "women as leaders" in the first half of the 20th century – that is, when only single women were employed as teachers. "Whereas early in the century single women were seen as 'heroes'," she said, by the end of the century they were regarded as 'problematic'."

THE PHOTOGRAPH of UNE's Dr Susan Davies displayed here expands to include Associate Professor Kay Whitehead (Flinders University) and Associate Professor Craig Campbell (University of Sydney).

Posted by Jim Scanlan at December 21, 2006 04:50 PM