Remote control: a spatial-history of correspondence schooling in New South Wales, Australia

Abstract

In large continental landmasses such as Australia, forms of education, including correspondence schooling, emerged in the early twentieth century that allowed children in remote regions to access education. To make such schooling possible, other ‘technologies’ of state provision were mobilised such as the postal system, rail network, and radio stations. One of the curious, under-analysed features of correspondence schooling – a state sponsored form of home schooling – was the degree to which – as a ‘spatial construct’ – it allowed the education centre to act on its periphery. It did so through enlisting strategies that rendered the correspondence pupil visible not as embodiment but as inscription. A complex semiotic landscape was generated consisting of exercise books, school magazines, radio programmes and film, elements of which are analysed in this paper, which deals with the evolution of distance education (tele-didactics) in New South Wales from 1920 to 1950. It is argued that the example of the Correspondence School and its radio version, the School of the Air, demonstrate that educational space is a protean phenomenon, constantly being transformed and modulated into other forms of space.1

Keywords:

• distance education
• educational remoteness
• educational technologies
• school broadcasting
• semiotic landscape
• space

Notes

A version of this paper was presented at the ANZHES-HES (UK) Conference, held at the University of Sydney, December 8–11, 2008.

Because of the insistence of its teacher and parents, one, the Ivanhoe Travelling School, continued to operate until 1949 (Freeman 1993, 15).

The original buildings, designed by the architect George Mansfield and erected in 1883, on reclaimed land, also provided accommodation, at one stage, for a kindergarten, a teachers' college, and primary school (Edmondson 1966, 10).

Correspondence education was sometime used in times of medical crisis such as the 1919 influenza epidemic in Sydney, when primary pupils were provided with ‘Home Instruction Leaflets’ (The Education Gazette 1919).

Thought was being given as to whether correspondence education needed a more specialised facility than an adapted ‘school’ (The Outpost 1939, 12–3).

Instrumental in addressing this, was Maurice Kellerman, who helped spearhead a public service inquiry into these levels (Ramsland 1992b, 94).

This was not a practice followed by correspondence schools in some other states. Western Australia employed itinerant teachers to undertake such visits (Eakins 1950).

Given the vicissitudes of Australian weather, which meant there were times of the year when mail took months to reach its destination, it would have been impossible to maintain this cycle – something, which was only rarely admitted (Gibb 1986, 38).

German philosopher Johann Friedrich Herbart's ideas (which emphasised moral formation through education) were particularly influential among the upper echelons of the NSW Department of Education.

These words are taken from a circular entitled ‘The Correspondence School’, signed by the Director of Education, J.G. McKenzie. Their import was such that they led to Indigenous communities being excluded from correspondence schooling.

These are taken from Leaflet 3 prepared for the ‘Lower first class’ (Cunningham 1931, 76).

As is clear from the many articles on the subject in Education: The Journal of the New South Wales Public School Teachers Federation, this was not true of some teachers who were relaying radio broadcasts and organising radio clubs from the mid-1920s onwards. In response, the Department used facilities at Farmers’ city store, which owned one of the early radio licences, to begin a series of educational broadcasts, in late 1924 only to abandon them in February 1925.

Trained under John Grierson, Hawes was appointed Producer in Chief of the Commonwealth Film Unit. Before coming to Australia, he had directed a nature film for Julian Huxley (see Lyle, Politis, and Stell 1980).

As part of the nation building function of the Commonwealth Film Unit, Hawes was determined that Australian composers write his scores (Dean and Carell 1987, 99). Antill was a rising star at the time, whose ballet Corroboree was played during the 1946 season of the London ‘Proms’. Indeed, on the front page of the issue of the Daily Telegraph (Sydney) in which O'Neill's article appeared was a story about the composer's London trip, and which O'Neill's paper had sponsored!