During the same period that Ernst finished her schooling, began work as a pupil teacher and attended the Pupil Teachers School in Adelaide (1904) educational ideas in Victoria were also evolving under the direction of Frank Tate. Tate was determined that teachers should be well trained, cultured and championed the reform curriculum using the ideas of the ‘New Education’ movement which had its roots in Europe (Gregory, 1997: 14). With the aim of establishing universal literacy and minimising crime through improved social and personal life, subjects were taught using formal methods of rote learning, silent work and drills teaching. Curriculum included the basic elements of reading, writing and arithmetic and geography, grammar, history, singing and, for girls, needlework (Long,1908; 130,155,159). Frank Tate, Director of Education, argued against the old painful ‘unintelligent memory methods that weren’t true teaching’ and suggested that the new programme should aim ‘at training self reliance and ability to acquire knowledge at first hand’ ((Long,1908; 130,155,159). Tate also declared that teaching methods, ‘must be such as to give children opportunities of exercising thought and independent expression at every stage… there is no reason why the teacher should neglect his most potent aid, namely, natural interest’. A visionary!
I am always thrilled to be contacted by those who by chance find my blog. I have been blogging for three years and am hoping to complete my first draft by the end of the year. I thought it timely to re-publish what has already been published. The following is from my presentation at the University of Kassel, Germany. In 1904 Olga Ernst, a pupil teacher, wrote Fairy Tales from the Land of the Wattle. Although she was just sixteen years old, Ernst was one of a small group of writers in Australia who attempted to nationalise the fairytale towards the end of the nineteenth century, signalling quite clearly that they intended to affix the elves and fairies of Europe onto the Australian landscape aiming to fill a void that was keenly felt by the children of emigrants and the Australian-born children of emigrants. (Walker, 1988) The beginnings of the Australian bush fantasy genre can be linked with the desire to bring the comfortable and familiar into the new and distinctly non
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