a pdf of the Research Report

An Affective Pedagogy Success Story: Sovereign Hill Museum School
Research Report
Margaret Zeegers
Associate Professor
School of Education
University of Ballarat
An Affective Pedagogy Success Story: Sovereign Hill Museum School
Research Report
Margaret Zeegers
Associate Professor
School of Education
University of Ballarat
June, 2011
Dr Margaret Zeegers is Associate Professor in the School of Education at the University of Ballarat. Majoring in
History in her Bachelor of Arts degree, she taught Australian History and English and English Literature in
Victorian state secondary schools before turning to primary teaching and teacher education in her graduate,
postgraduate and academic work. She coordinates the English and Literacy courses in the Bachelor Education
(P-10) and supervises a number of PhD students at the University of Ballarat. She has written and researched
extensively on various topics in Education, Literacy and History.
Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of the people involved in the Sovereign Hill
Museum School and its activities, and the willingness of visiting school teachers. I am
particularly grateful to the children who have so generously responded to requests to film and
audiotape them, and to interviews in which they have freely given their evaluations of their
experiences of the program in which they have participated. The staff who play the roles of
Headteacher, Headmasters and Headmistresses, as teachers of their respective schools that
make up the Sovereign Hill Museum School, have been similarly generous with their time
and expertise:
Mr Michael Ward: Headteacher of Sovereign Hill Museum School and Headmaster of the
Red Hill National School, who has been unstinting in his advice, and in recommending,
identifying and assisting in providing sources of information for consideration;
Mr Jack Adams: Headmaster of St Alipius Diggings School;
Mr Jeff Fyffe: Immediate Past Headteacher of Sovereign Hill Museum School, Acting
Headteacher of Sovereign Hill Museum School and Acting Headmaster of the Red Hill
National School;
Ms Sheryn Mitchell: Headmistress of St Peters Anglican School;
Ms Marion Snowden: Headmistress of the Ragged School.
Others associated with the schools’ operations, playing their allocated roles to contribute to
the authenticity of the children’s experience, have been similarly most helpful in providing
insights to the parts that they play in supporting the program:
Mr Jim Bond: Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD),
Grampians Regional Office, and School Councillor;
Mr Ian Burton: Actor and Doctor at the Ragged Hill School;
Mr Roger O’Connor: Actor and Fr Dowling, Inspector at St Alipius Diggings School;
Mr Barry Kay: Actor, Interpretive Theatre Development Manager and Vicar, Inspector of St
Peters Anglican School;
Mr Tim Sullivan: Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Museums Director, Sovereign Hill,
School Council member and District Inspector at the Red Hill National School.
The children from participating schools and their teachers, who graciously allowed
themselves to be interviewed, have provided insightful comments on their experience of the
Sovereign Hill Museum School. In similar vein, the CDs, posters and letters the children
produced after they had completed their time at Sovereign Hill amply demonstrated not only
that they had learned, but also what they had learned from their experience. At the same time,
the unknown children whose response sheets have been stored in the Sovereign Hill Museum
School archives over the years have been so much more helpful than they will ever know, for
their carefully considered responses have provided a rich source of material for people like
me to work with in relation to the success or otherwise of the program that they engaged.
Mr Brad Beales, former Honours student in the School of Education at the University of
Ballarat, acted as a Research Assistant to the project.
Mr Duncan Dewar, also a former Honours student in the School of Education at the
University of Ballarat, provided research assistance in the compilation and tabulation of
numerical data.
The School of Education at the University of Ballarat funded the research through its School
of Education Small Research Grants Scheme.
Foreword
Tim Sullivan
Deputy CEO and Museums Director
Sovereign Hill
The Sovereign Hill Schools program has been an unforgettable experience for more than a
generation of visitors to Sovereign Hill’s Outdoor Museum. In its 32 years of operating,
almost 200,000 upper primary students have been a part of an extraordinary story in
education, and demand for places continues to grow. We have grown from two classrooms to
four operating at capacity throughout the year.
There was genius in the original concept to create a unique museum education experience.
The Department of Education’s support for the Schools by including it in the gazetted school
system is testament to the educational innovation of the program which has been realised
many times over in the ensuing years. More recently the Catholic Education Commission has
provided invaluable support for the growth of the program.
The conversation about the program has for years reflected on the apparent enjoyment of the
students, the imagination and pathos in the stories they write in their pre-visit letters, the
spontaneous and often wickedly funny wit of many students put on the spot in applying new
understandings of 1850s goldfields life, and the discovery of self we often see in the postvisit student evaluations.
We have observed the intense levels of engagement in the program, the effectiveness of the
immersion in the Outdoor Museum derived from wearing costume, and the apparent ease
with which students accommodate the manners and etiquette required while in costume.
We have seen the patterns of mid-Victorian dialogue mimicked in the students’ speech after
the two-day experience, and the confidence with which they orientate around the museum
because of the structure the program provides.
We have regularly seen children with problems in social interaction thrive in the structure the
program provides—with everyone in the class learning about an entirely new place, new
curriculum requirements, new learning tasks, with interactions subject to the ‘code’ of 1850s
etiquette in interactions in the classroom and in the environment around it, those students
have found confidence within the group.
But we have not had an adequate understanding of the pedagogy that underpins the
educational outcomes achieved, and particularly the attributes of affective learning in the
program. In proposing the focus of this study to be in that under-examined area, I believed we
would find out something new about the impact on learning of immersive experiences like
those offered at Sovereign Hill, and to explicate the emotional depth of the program so that
we could have more purposeful conversation about the educational value of the program.
More than that, I was inspired by what I saw in the success of children who often come to us
with problems in social interactions in school and which are constraints on their capacity to
learn in school environments which are increasingly group oriented. With so much focus—
quite properly—on the importance of emotional wellbeing of children as learners in their
early years, it seemed to me an interesting hypothesis that structure—the time spent in
providing explicit instruction and definition of task—makes a huge difference to those
children.
This study will provide us with the tools to better communicate the unique attributes of
learning that underpin the success we observe. It will enrich the discussion to include not
only the charming insights of students and teachers, but also an intellectually rigorous
framework for appreciating the innovation in learning outcomes.
The program adds something very special to the interpretive environment of Sovereign Hill’s
Outdoor Museum. Research with visitors is showing how impressive the schools program is
in promoting rich learning experiences of Australia’s history. Visitors respond to the natural
interaction of the children with each other and with other costumed staff and volunteers—
they are subtle agents of interpretation because of the skills they learn of mid-Victorian
interactions and their rapidly acquired deep knowledge of the Outdoor Museum. Many
visitors are learning about the period we interpret at Sovereign Hill from their observations of
students in the Schools program.
I am greatly appreciative of the enthusiasm for this project from its original conception by
Michael Ward, the School Principal, and for the work he has done in supporting the field
research and in contributing his remarkable insights. So too his team of teachers who surely
have one of the best jobs in education anywhere.
In Margaret Zeegers we were blessed to have such a gifted thinker and researcher on our
doorstep. Margaret’s capacity to weave the theoretical and an astute intuitive intellectual
framework with the often disarming insights of the participants in the program has produced
a work which is simultaneously intelligent and charming.
Tim Sullivan
Deputy CEO & Museums Director
The Sovereign Hill Museums Association
June 2011
1. Situating the Research
History is a disciplined enquiry into the past that develops students’ curiosity and imagination —ACARA
The Sovereign Hill Museum Schools (2010) Web page succinctly describes its program:
Students attend the schools for two days of costumed role-play, which highlights the
vast differences between schooling on the Victorian Goldfields of the 1850s and
education today. Students are taught from the Irish National System of Education,
which was used in mid-19th century Australian schools. They use slates, sandboards,
dip pens, copybooks and facsimile editions of original textbooks. Sitting on wooden
benches at long desks, the students must observe the manners and demeanour of
young Victorian ladies and gentlemen. Visiting teachers are also costumed and given
a role to play—much to the delight of the children.
Any visitor to the Sovereign Hill Museum School is immediately struck by the enthusiasm
and the dedication of participants of all involved. The children from the visiting schools
assiduously embrace the experience presented to them. The teachers in the schools that make
up the group within the Sovereign Hill Museum School, itself a smaller part of the larger
Sovereign Hill Museum, approach their work as 1850s Sir or Ma’am with a professionalism
informed by a profound understanding of the educational possibilities of their activities. The
teachers from the visiting schools take up their allocated roles with a well developed sense of
the pedagogy drawn upon to benefit their classes, having been briefed via the Information Kit
provided for them (see Appendix 1). The management of Sovereign Hill supports the
program down to the last details of its operations, such as providing authentic reproductions
of costumes made from the patterns of the era and providing staff to perform the roles of
extras in the program. The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development
(DEECD) not only provides teacher salaries but is also represented on the School Council,
and the Catholic Education Office in the Ballarat Diocese is a partner that provides ongoing
funding to the program.
In 2008, the Headteacher of Sovereign Hill Museum School, Mr Michael Ward, approached
the School of Education at the University of Ballarat to suggest the possibility of conducting
systematic research on his school, which provides a unique costumed school experience for
over 6,000 Grades 4-6 primary school children, noting that in all of its 32 years of existence,
no research had been done on its operations, in spite of its status as the only school of its kind
in the world, and its being in operation in a city that is home to the oldest university in
Australia. The School of Education at the University of Ballarat funded the ensuing research
project, conducted over two years at the Sovereign Hill Museum School, focussed on four
schools: Red Hill National School, St Peter’s Denominational School (Anglican), St Alipius
Diggings School (Catholic), and The Ragged School.
The picture on the cover of this report is that of a drawing by a primary school child, possibly
from a Grade 4 group, possibly from a Victorian school, done at some time within the last ten
years. This child had responded to the suggestion on the response sheet that they had
completed at the end of their visit to Sovereign Hill Museum School: ‘You may like to draw
some pictures or make some comments on the back of this sheet’. This is what he drew. It is a
simple enough drawing by a child at this level, selected precisely because of this. It is in the
eloquence of its simplicity that a whole world of pedagogical endeavour is represented—the
children in orderly lines; the size and starkness of the school building; the narrow door
providing entry; the no-nonsense caption correctly using capital and lower case letters; the
corrected spelling, presumably by the class teacher from his own school, and the absence of
any figures of adults—a child-centred perspective indeed. All the simplicity of the drawing
belies the complexity of the experience which has inspired its artist. In my research into the
Sovereign Hill Museum School program, I have explored that complexity.
The data generated has led me to take as my starting point the idea of affective engagement
by children in a teaching and learning program offered to them by more knowledgable adults
scaffolding their learning. I have done this because the written responses to their experience
of the program indicate what children felt throughout their two days at the school to which
they have been allocated, and because of the lynch pin of the program being not only a
costumed experience, but also one of role playing of characters developed by children
themselves. This happens over two days on an historically accurate set in the form of the
Sovereign Hill Museum itself, built across 25 hectares for the purpose (see Fig. 1: Map of
Sovereign Hill Museum). The children interact with others similarly role playing the
characters that they have developed, without any scripts, creating the dialogue as they
progress, and performing this in front of an audience of tourists from all over Australia and
the rest of the world.
Fig. 1: Map of Sovereign Hill
Because of the focus on emotional engagement by children, I have drawn of concepts of
affective learning to inform my research into the program. At the very time that children in
Victorian schools were able to reach Year 10 without ever having attended a History lesson
(Taylor & Clark, 2006, p. 26), the Sovereign Hill Museum School program was providing
attending children and their regular classroom teachers a taste of Australian History that
would explore dimensions not canvassed in those classrooms. While I acknowledge that this
has been part of the program since its inception, it is only the more recent curriculum
documents in Victorian schools that articulate this attention to affective learning. The schoolbased curriculum that was in place in schools at the time of the establishment of Sovereign
Hill Museum School’s operations did not address affective learning, and neither did the
Curriculum Standards and Frameworks (CSF) I and II. Sovereign Hill Museum School would
arguably be one of the few places in the education field that did. Indeed, it was with the
introduction of the CSFII that History was subsumed into a new discipline area called Studies
of Society and the Environment (SOSE), with an emphasis on measurable learning outcomes.
As Shepard (2000) points out, this sort of influence has been a pervasive one that colours so
much of what is done in the pedagogy of the humanities that educators find it hard to move
from objective testing, measurement and grading and into areas of enjoyment and pleasure,
let alone the affective areas of understanding and empathy, in such things as History. The
Victorian Essential Learning Standards (VELS) (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment
Authority (VCAA), 2005) established three Strands and sixteen Domains upon which the
whole of the curriculum would be based, with History making a comeback as a Domain
within the Discipline-based Humanities Strand. VELS did more than address discipline areas;
an important new feature was the incorporation of the domain of Thinking Processes:
The Thinking Processes domain encompasses a range of cognitive, affective and
metacognitive knowledge, skills and behaviours which are essential for students to
function effectively in society, both within and beyond school (VCAA, 2005, p. 14).
Not only is this specified, it is represented as being interwoven throughout the whole of the
schools’ curricula:
Fig. 2: VELS Curriculum Diagram
In my examination of the data that have been generated, I have drawn on this new focus in
schools curriculum as informing my own focus. I have done this in relation to the learning of
the children as incorporating that affective dimension that has emerged in current thinking
about that learning. I have turned to Emmitt, Zbaracki, Komesaroff, and Pollock’s (2010)
view of learning as ‘a process of making connections, identifying patterns, and organising
previously unrelated bits of knowledge, behaviour or activities into new (for the learner)
patterned wholes’ (p. 219). In a further elaboration on this I have drawn on concepts of
knowledge and ways in which it is generated, as knowledge does not just happen
automatically. It is generated by the learner themselves, from information that may have been
encountered from a variety of sources. Information is not knowledge, even if there is a
tendency to conflate the two in designations of our own age as The Information Age at the
same time as it is called The Knowledge Society. I have underpinned my analysis of the data
with a conceptualisation of knowledge as being quite distinct from concepts of information,
that is, knowledge as intensely private and meaningful. Information is essential facts, perhaps
data, gathered by means of reading, watching a film, perhaps a documentary, listening to
others, and so on. It is a very public thing. Knowledge is when information or data is filtered
through a learner’s own experience and applied as a meaningful thing to that experience
(Pennell, 1999, cited in Zeegers & Barron, 2010), so that it is internalised and becomes the
learner’s own. It is a very private thing, and it must ever be so—once it is articulated,
explained, written down, made into a film or a CD-ROM or whatever, it becomes information
again. It is then up to whoever encounters it to internalise it and turn it into their own private
knowledge (Zeegers, 2007, p. 244).
Children in the Sovereign Hill Museum School program engage data and information, but it
is data and information to be mediated by organisation and transformation through some sort
of action on the students’ part, scaffolded by the more knowledgable adults who work with
them in their regular schools and at whatever school they attend at Sovereign Hill. There is a
further emphasis on the private and personal nature of the experience, as readers’
engagements with literary works tend towards that same sort of private and personal
response. They do not only engage the primary sources of the letters and diaries of the time,
and the school history textbooks; they also engage the historical fiction written for children
and young adults as part of their regular classroom preparations for their Sovereign Hill visit.
They have made their own preparations that are consistent with current VELS curriculum
documents and the projected new ones of the National Curriculum for Australian schools in
relation to History as ‘a disciplined enquiry into the past that develops students’ curiosity and
imagination’ (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), 2009,
p. 1).
The Sovereign Hill Museum School program has developed its own approach to teaching and
learning that has preceded modern curriculum advice and stipulation, indeed anticipating
modern developments. As indicated by the data, it has been an extraordinarily successful one.
Introducing children to an affective response to the scope and variety of print and visual texts
in relation to goldfields history in Australia as this has been played out in Ballarat, it has put
into effect a child-centred basis for its program that has been canvassed in a body of
professional literature which has grown enormously since Rouseeau’s (1762) Emíle centred
the child in theories of education. It is a body of literature which stretches from this to other
great scholars in the field: Dewey (1933), Vygotsky (1978), Piaget (1979 ), Bruner (1986),
and so many others, who, even if lesser known, contribute a good deal to the field. This of
course is part of what has become the truism that teachers have consistently encountered:
‘Good theory makes good practice’. Good theory is the metacognitive dimension of
professional practice that grounds it firmly in the context of relevance, timeliness and
appropriateness. It is a principle upon which much of the program under discussion is based.
The practice that costumed, role playing children interacting with more knowledgable others
at Sovereign Hill as part of reproduced 1850s classrooms thus is positioned on a solid
theoretical base from which participants in the program may explore any number of options
that open up to them. By such means is their understanding expanded, deepened, and
enhanced. The program builds on cognition-based engagement to develop the affective
dimensions of their learning.
The research confirms the impressions that all concerned with the Sovereign Hill Museum
School program have developed over the years in relation to its unqualified success. As I
have explored the data, I have drawn on Rosenblatt’s (1976) notion of an aesthetic-efferential
continuum as an appropriate basis for considering what has presented. Affective reading is
constructed as aesthetic reading, that which is engaged for experience, and feeling, and
thought. Like the concept of knowledge, it too is a very private thing. Efferential reading is
engaged for more public purposes—predominantly for the acquisition of information to be
retained after the reading has finished, perhaps for an assignment or a report or some such
thing (Rosenblatt, 1991, p. 445). Rosenblatt (1991) is at some pains to represent these as
being on a continuum, and to stress that there is overlap; that these don’t operate separately
from each other. Experiencing the aesthetic-efferential continuum offers the possibilities of a
‘unique transaction’ (Rosenblatt, 1976) between the reader and the text, where, ‘A novel or a
poem or a play remains merely ink spots on paper until a reader transforms them into a set of
meaningful symbols’ (p. 25) that touch the emotions and stimulate the imagination. The point
to be stressed is that the children, engaging this experience, are better positioned to engage
both kinds of reading as they develop their understandings of their own rich heritage of which
the 1850s is a major part. In effect, the texts that they read, and the texts that they write
themselves based on these, take on a form of narrative to be explored for personal as well
discipline-based understanding.
It is in this area of the narrative that all the affective threads of the Sovereign Hill Museum
School program become interwoven in much the same way as the VELS diagram of Fig. 2
suggests. Each child creates a narrative to be played out on the larger stage of an outdoor
museum, described as a living museum because of its entire focus on a reproduction of
goldfield diggings life. That narrative is the culmination of child-centred, affective
approaches to learning adopted by all involved. It acknowledges the need for narrative as one
of the strongest of human needs, evident even in primal records of human existence
(O'Donnell & Wood, 2004). The young goldfields schoolchildren comprise a group whose
need for and joy in narrative and story has not left them, even as that need is dealing with a
lot of competition from other sources (Ericson, 2001). The dimension of that pleasure that
extends and inspires, evident in the data, needs must come from an engagement with
narrative based on understanding and empathy that disavows prejudice and unfeeling
distancing from other characters and their situations, be they actual or fictional. The children
that participate in the program are active in the processes and procedures developed for them
by adults, deliberately seeking out the experience for themselves. Their own dynamic role
playing of the children they have invented in their narratives are charged with intensely
personal responses to character, context and situation as their shifting interpretations and
understandings of each of these develop. In the following pages, I have presented the data
that I have generated and my analysis of these, based on the concepts that I have outlined
here. None of it is as simple as the child’s drawing on the cover might imply.
2. DATA
In this life, we want nothing but Facts, sir; nothing but Facts!—Charles Dickens’ Mr Gradgrind in Hard Times
I have begun with a quantification of the various responses given by the children in the
responses sheets they completed at the end of their experience of the program. All children
have been asked to respond to a series of questions on a sheet that has been given to them by
their Sir or Ma’am. These questions are themselves based on affective dimensions of the
experience, and focus on the children themselves. I have compared these with the letters that
the children have written, unsolicited, to their Sir or Ma’am upon their return to their regular
classrooms, and have found there to be no real discrepancies in what the children report.
What are represented in the following pie charts are:
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A review of 1,052 responses sheets completed by children participating in the
program collected over the last ten years, and selected at random from the
School’s archives; and
A review of 72 unsolicited letters from children after their Sovereign Hill
Museum School experience (apparently organised and sent by the regular
classroom teachers of these children).
The first one, given below, is a summary of the total numbers of sheets examined.
WHAT I DID NOT KNOW BEFORE
CHILD ON THE
GOLD FIELDS
DISCIPLINE
8%
AND
PUNISHMENT
9%
MANNERS
AND GENDER
8%
HARD LIFE ON
THE GOLD
FIELDS 31%
SCHOOLING
44%
HARD LIFE ON THE
GOLD FIELDS
SCHOOLING
MANNERS AND
GENDER
DISCIPLINE AND
PUNISHMENT
CHILD ON THE
GOLD FIELDS
Fig. 3: What I Did Not Know Before
Note: Manners and Gender, Discipline and Punishment and Child on the Goldfields are
closely associated with the bigger fields of the Hard Life on the Goldfields and Schooling.
The letters written by the children to their Sir or Ma’am after their visits, letters which had
not been solicited by anyone involved in the Sovereign Hill Museum School program,
identify similar things learned as part of the program. They did not offer anything different
for consideration.
FAVOURITE PART
LUNCH TIME
AND RECESS
5%
STRAP/CANE
3%
ALL GOOD
ALL GOOD 1%
GAMES AND
TOYS 3%
SEWING/
CROSS STITCH
8%
ACTING/
COSTUMES/
TOURISTS
17%
GOLD
PANNING/
PRODUCTION
22%
DOING THE
LESSONS 20%
SOVEREIGN
HILL 15%
INSPECTOR/
VICAR/
DOCTOR 6%
ACTING/ COSTUME/
TOURISTS
DOING THE
LESSONS
INSPECTOR/
VICAR/ DOCTOR
SOVEREIGN HILL
ATTRACTIONS
GOLD PANNING/
PRODUCTION
Fig. 4: Favourite Part
Note: These figures suggest highly idiosyncratic responses by children to their experiences
within the bigger field of a generally enjoyable time. The letters written after the visit follow
similar lines to those given in the responses sheets.
PARTS NOT LIKED
NO PART NOT LIKED
SCHOOL
WORK 10%
CANE/STRAP
NO PART NOT LIKED
18%
HOMEWORK 16%
GENDER/MANNERS
CANE/STRAP 10%
COSTUMES/TOURISTS
VICAR/PRIEST/DOCTOR
COPPER PLATE/RIGHT
HAND 13%
GENDER/
MANNERS 4%
COSTUMES/TOURISTS
10%
STRICT TEACHER/
DISCIPLINE 10%
STRICT TEACHER/DISCIPLINE
COPPER PLATE/RIGHT HAND
HOMEWORK
SCHOOL WORK
VICAR/PRIEST/
DOCTOR 9%
Fig. 5: Parts Not Liked
Note: The tone of the responses needs to be considered in relation to these figures, for they
are given in the form of most respectful suggestions, recalling a certain mindfulness of the
importance of manners in doing so. At the same time, the same children that had said, ‘It was
all fun’ nevertheless responded with suggestions on this part of the sheet, almost as if they are
still being obedient in responding to Ma’am or Sir’s instructions as they fill in a sheet.
Indeed, it is most noteworthy that no child left any section of the sheet blank. They responded
to each one. It is worth noting, too, that not a single one of the letters written by children to
their Sir or Ma’am after their visit suggested anything that they did not like. They are
consistent in their enthusiastic praise for their Sir or Ma’am, the school they attended, the
activities they engaged, the things they learned, the costuming, learning about the
1850s...everything, in fact. Only 18 of the children who filled in the responses sheet said they
were ‘bored’, because of there being no computers or computer games and the like, and this
number is not big enough to have any impact on the figures.
EMOTIONS
SAD: 1850s
PEOPLE'S LIVES 3%
WEIRD 4%
NERVOUS TO
EXCITED 12%
EXCITED: ACTING/
COSTUMES 12%
EXCITED:
ACTING/COSTUMES
EXCITED: ALL THE FUN
SCARED: CANE
NERVOUS/
EMBARRASSED/
ANNOYED 12%
EXCITED: ALL THE
FUN 28%
SCARED: VICAR/
INSPECTOR 15%
SCARED: CANE 14%
SCARED:
VICAR/INSPECTOR
NERVOUS/
EMBARRASSED/
ANNOYED
Fig. 6: What Emotions Did You Feel and When?
Note: This section of the responses sheets is most telling, mainly because the children’s
responses suggest a high level of emotional engagement throughout the whole of the
program. Children identify a range of emotions, such as starting out ‘nervous’ but becoming
‘excited’ as they proceed into the program. The ‘annoyed’ response features in relation to
having to use the right hand when being naturally left handed and having to sit up straight all
day. Boys were annoyed about having to have girls go before them, and girls felt this way
because of the restraints on their movements. One particularly articulate child summed up
their feelings this way:
I think this is a great experience that only some come across, lucky enough, I did.
This amazing program showed me, that not only was the olden days like that, but how
lucky I was to be a child living on the goldfields in the 1850s (verbatim statement,
including the punctuation).
I have supplemented this data with those from a number of other sources.
Other Data Sources
Other data have been generated from a number of other sources:
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A review of a selection of 63 ‘letters’ written by children to the teachers of the
Sovereign Hill Museum schools, over two different years, in which they
assume the role of a gold fields child requesting admission to that school,
chosen at random from the School’s archives.
Two separate days of videotaping in two different years, with two different
Sovereign Hill Museum teachers (Sirs), of two different cohorts of children in
classes at the two day attendance at the at the Sovereign Hill Museum School;
Four separate days of audio taping, in two different years, with four different
Sovereign Hill Museum School teachers (Sirs and Ma’ams) of six different
cohorts of children in classes at the two day attendance at St Peter’s School, St
Alipius’ Diggings School and The Ragged School;
One group interview of children prior to their participation in the program in
each of the Sovereign Hill Museum Schools;
Three group interviews of children, over two different years, after their
participation in the program in one of each of the Sovereign Hill Museum
School schools;
Two individual interviews with a participating school’s teachers prior to their
participation in the program in the Sovereign Hill Museum Schools
Four individual interviews with participating schools’ teachers over two
different years after their participation in the program in one of each of the
Sovereign Hill Museum Schools;
Six individual interviews with participating schools’ teachers over two
different years after their participation in the program in one of each of the
Sovereign Hill Museum School schools;
Individual and group interviews with each of the Sovereign Hill Museum
School teachers;
Sovereign Hill Museum School’s Analysis of Teacher Evaluation Forms,
produced in 2010 for the years 2001-2010;
An interview with the Sovereign Hill Museum School inaugural Headteacher
An interview with the Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Museums Director
of Sovereign Hill in his role as part of Sovereign Hill management and the role
played as Red Hill National School Inspector;
An interview with the actor playing the part of the St Peters School Vicar
Inspector;
An interview with the actor playing the part of the St Alipius Diggings School
Priest/Inspector;
An interview with the actor playing the part of the Ragged School Doctor;
An interview with a member of the Department of Education and Early
Childhood Development from the Grampians Regional Office in this role and
that of the one played as a School Council member;
Six interviews with tourist visitors to Sovereign Hill who attended and
observed classes at each of the Sovereign Hill schools;
Sovereign Hill Museum School Council meeting minutes over two different
years;
Material from the 25th Anniversary of The Sovereign Hill celebratory book,
Silver Threads Among the Gold;
a survey of post-Sovereign Hill Museum School activities undertaken by
children in two different schools;


a CD-ROM of their Sovereign Hill Museum School experience productions
made by teachers from one school;
a CD-ROM of their Sovereign Hill Museum School experience productions
made by two children that they presented as part of their end-of-year activities
at their school.
3. THE SOVEREIGN HILL MUSEUM SCHOOL PROGRAM
History is who we are and why we are the way we are—David C. McCullough
The Public View
The children line up in two orderly rows: girls on the right, boys on the left; smallest at the
front, tallest at the back; no talking, no movement; no initiative taken on anything until Sir or
Ma’am gives an instruction or a signal.
Picture 1: Orderly rows
Being given permission, the two rows move in yet more orderly fashion to one of the four
schools to which they have been assigned: Red Hill National School, St Peters
Denominational School, St Alipius Diggings School, or Ragged School (the charity school
supported by the Benevolent Asylum for the basic education of the poor). They will be
dressed in costumes that have been provided for them: pantalettes, ankle-length dresses,
bonnets and capes for the girls; knickerbockers, shirts, neckerchiefs, jackets and caps for the
boys. The quality of the costume will depend on the status of the school they will be
attending, and the school fees vary, unless they are attending the free Ragged School, from
one shilling a week for the lower grades in the lower status schools, such as Red Hill National
School and St Alipius, to a top rate of two shillings a week at St Peters, which caters to the
elite Anglicans of the diggings. As Tim Sullivan, Deputy CEO and Museums Director of
Sovereign Hill points out, the costume ‘is also, in itself, an exhibit – a very powerful
interpretive device for communicating what life was like on the goldfields, and how fashion,
morality, etiquette and social structures have changed over time’.
Attired in the costume suitable to their assumed rank and status, they will engage the sort of
education that the more wealthy and thus influential gentlemen of the goldfields town of
Ballarat have deemed to be important for the economic and social development of their town,
even if they are under the patronage of the Benevolent Asylum which supports the Ragged
School. This education will comprise Spelling, Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, with
Needlework for girls and Draughtsmanship for boys. What the gentlemen patrons want are
not just miners trying to get rich as quickly as possible. What they want is a labour force
generated from among the miners’ and other locals’ children, and when they say labour, they
mean labour. The boys, if they are lucky, will be apprenticed to blacksmiths, carpenters and
other tradesmen. The girls, if they are really lucky, will be apprenticed to milliners and
dressmakers, but they will generally be employed as domestic or shop help. One employer
visits the school looking for a housemaid, which sounds reasonable enough until we hear that
she is to undertake this employment in a household which has to date produced 15 children.
Even so, girls will only have to do this for a little while, until their imminent marriage (at
around age 15). The sort of education presented to them will have them complete basic sums,
learn up to the 18 times tables, develop a passable copperplate hand, sing some songs and
recite some poetry, and become skilful needleworkers and technical drawers. Their morals
will be attended to as well, for they will engage a basic, even pithy, philosophy to inform
moral behaviour, given an almost slavish devotion to proverbs exhorting conventional forms
of goodness and virtue.
One that will be coming up time and again is ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’, and it is this
one with which 21st century children will have the most trouble. What is a rod? Why is it to
be spared? What is wrong with spoiling a child...isn’t that what parents and grandparents are
supposed to do? The idea of hitting a child is abhorrent to them, and they do not associate it
with spoiling. In session after session children wrestle with the alien concepts embodied in
this apparently simple saw. One teacher tells of a child who interpreted it as, ‘If you have a
spare rod, you should spoil your child by giving it to him and take him fishing’. Another
given some importance is ‘Manners maketh the man’, the 14th century motto of Winchester
College and New College, Oxford, still given a measure of currency in the 1850s. Others dot
the walls of the various classrooms: ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’; ‘A place for
everything and everything in its place’, ‘Empty vessels make the most sound’, and so on.
Even the scheduled play time is almost apologetically described on the basis of ‘All work and
no play make Jack a dull boy’.
They are met at the door of the classroom by Ma’am or Sir. These will be dressed as a
version of a Victorian gentleman and gentlewoman, despite the low pay, derived in part from
the school fees the children will pay, and in part from a meagre salary determined by the
relevant Inspector for the school: the District Inspector for State Schools, or St Peter’s
Anglican church Vicar, or the St Alipius Parish Priest (Ragged School’s Ma’am is not subject
to the same sort of inspection, but the Doctor will visit to inspect the health of the children).
All Sirs nevertheless dress in top hats, waistcoats, frock coats and cravats, and Ma’ams
conduct their professional duties in lace caps and bonnets and crinolines. All teachers pay
attention to details of their clothes, and the conventions of their doffing and donning, just as
they expect the children to. A monitor, one of the boys, is appointed to take care of Sir’s top
hat and silver-topped walking cane (for helping to deal with dogs running wild about the
town, and the odd belligerent drunk), for these are not worn or used indoors. That same
monitor will attend to any gentlemen visitors’ top hats and walking canes. Ma’am’s reticule
and cap will remain under her own personal care. She will not be removing her lace cap
indoors, but she may don her bonnet when she appears in the public thoroughfare and shops.
She will carry her reticule only when she is not professionally engaged. The school program
has its variations in the various schools, but it proceeds on similar lines in each. The teacher
greets the lined up children at the door, admits the girls first (one of the mannerly things that
makes the man) and organises the duties of the various monitors. Some girls, but not boys,
will be the classroom cleaning monitors, duties to be completed at play time and lunchtime
with duster and broom at hand for the purpose.
Ma’am or Sir will also establish the conventions and rules of classroom behaviour. Children
are to put up their hands when offering to answer a question, but they must only do so when
they have the right answer to offer, for there is no time to waste on wrong answers. They are
to stand when the teacher speaks to them, or indeed if any other adult in the room speaks to
them. What is more, they may only speak when they are spoken to, the old saying, ‘Children
should be seen and not heard’ being applied in this case. They will refer to all adults as Sir, or
Ma’am if this is a married lady, or even an unmarried lady of advanced years (say around 40
years old), or Miss, if the lady in question is young and unmarried. They will sit up straight
all day on their backless benches at their desks, shoulders back, feet slightly apart on the floor
(‘Good posture makes for good handwriting’) and will treat the teacher with the utmost
respect. That respect will by no means be a reciprocal thing, and many of them will be called
knuckleheads, a term applied liberally in all the schools by the Sirs and Ma’ams to
individuals in their rooms. They will have their manners, or lack of them, soundly and
publicly criticised. Notwithstanding the general state of poverty and deprivation on the
goldfields, they will be patronisingly reminded that their ‘poor mama’ and/or ‘poor papa’
have not made it rich and that somehow the resulting low economic status is to be deprecated.
They will be constantly and curtly reminded to stand when speaking to a teacher or another
adult, and the girls especially will be subject to disdainful teacher predictions of the poor state
of their future homes. Their language will be constantly corrected and even ridiculed, as with
their use of ‘Okay’ (‘What is this “ock” word? What does it mean? I have never heard of such
a word!’), or what they might have reasonably expected to have been a polite enough request
for a tissue (‘Atishoo? Atishoo? Are you sneezing child? What on earth are you asking me
for?’). They will find themselves being forced to resort to a dependable sleeve in the absence
of any provision of the item they so politely (they thought) had requested, with probably
accompanying aspersions on their mama for not having provided them with a handkerchief or
a nose rag before leaving for school that morning. A general comment on the dubious state of
their personal hygiene habits will likely be added, just to round the whole episode off.
In spite of all of this, they will be obedient, a term as well as a concept which seems a little
unfamiliar to these cohorts of children, and that obedience will extend to learning their
twelve, sixteen and seventeen times tables for homework. They will do that homework, for
most of them will be tested on these times tables with the imminent arrival of the Inspector.
The reason that they are given is this: the old money of pounds, shillings and pence is based
on units of twelve as far as pennies are concerned (even if twenty shillings make a pound, this
is not the sort of money with which children in the goldfields in the 1850s would be dealing),
and the weights and measurements system is based on units of sixteen (sixteen ounces in a
pound). The wives, servants, apprentices, needlewomen, and perhaps even tradespeople that
these goldfields children are to become, all need this knowledge, and so it is to be drummed
into them at school. The mantra for this learning is ‘disciple and repetition’. The children will
hear it over and over: ‘Discipline and repetition. That’s what education is. Good discipline
and repeating and repeating it until we get it correct’. That discipline will be applied to all
areas of their experience at this school. Boys will not wear their caps indoors but must wear
them at all times that they are outdoors, girls may not run anywhere at any time, and the
water in the water butt outside may be used, for the dead possum will really not affect the
sweetness of the water itself in any way.
The classrooms themselves are distinguished by a level of pedagogical opulence or
otherwise, depending on the status of the children in attendance. A reproduction of a Queen
Victoria portrait is hung in all but one of the schools, for it is in St Alipius and its Irish focus
that a portrait of Pope Pius IX graces the wall instead. The walls are decorated more
generously in St Peters than any of the other schools, but the basic tools of the teacher trade
are very much in evidence. In Red Hill National School, for example, the 60 foot by 30 foot
(the measurements of the time) room has the Queen’s portrait, a map of the world, one of
England, one of the state of Victoria, and one of the Americas. In a curt nod to aesthetics
perhaps, a framed completed needlework sampler has been hung on one of the walls. It also
has its function as a teaching tool, though, for it may serve to show the young needlewomen
the standards expected of their own work in this area. Separate letters of the alphabet are
strung along one wall; numbers up to ten are strung along another. A black metal pot hook
(shaped as an ‘S’) hangs on the wall at the front, near the blackboard. The blackboard has the
date neatly and clearly written at the top: April 28, 1854. The metal triangle that will be
sounded by the bell monitor to summon children in from play and lunch times hangs
conveniently at child level by the door. There is a press that contains precious teaching and
learning materials: copy books, slates, slate pencils, some text books, as well as costly paper
and ink (‘Do you know how much ink COSTS lad? One pound twelve shillings per pint!’
yells Sir at a boy who has been a little too generous in his application of this expensive
commodity to his costly paper).
The Catechism of the Rudiments of Knowledge (see Fig. 7) has a tantalising appeal, not only
in its being ‘specially adapted for Australian Beginners’, but also for its being ‘A First or
Mother’s Catechism and an Elementary Geography specially prepared for our use as
necessities of our position as inhabitants of the Southern Hemisphere’. It is worth noting that
the role of mothers in contributing to elementary education is quite clearly anticipated in this
description given in the frontispiece, as it is in so many of the books produced for the
education of young people of the time.
Fig. 7: Text books from the classroom press.
The Books of Lessons contains invaluable information, such as what to do ‘When a female
discovers her dress to be on fire...’(p. 98).
Both St Peters and St Alipius schools double for church services, with the areas for these
purposes being curtained off. The furnishings are pragmatically considered...a high teacher’s
desk and stool, a chalkboard, a chest, a stove (but not in St Alipius...the Irish apparently do
not need warming in a Ballarat winter), a wood box filled for immediate use, another desk for
visiting (or assistant) teachers, a rack for hats and canes, and the children’s desks and
backless benches. Once herded inside, the children take up their positions on the benches,
according to their grades: Preps (or Bubs) and Grades 1 to 6. They will then engage lessons
as a single group. Bubs will have sand boxes on their desks for their practice in handwriting;
the older grades will have their slates and slate pencils. Rags serve as their dusters, but they
are also advised in no uncertain terms: ‘Spit on them!’.
Fig. 8: Slate, slate pencil, sand trays
They will learn that a fine copperplate hand is what is most desired of them, and valuable to
employers. To do this, they will take the example before them of that pot hook, with all the
serpentine glory that a pot hook can suggest. Not only is the pot hook shaped like an ‘S’, it
will also serve as the basis of the mantra for a fine copperplate hand: Size, Slope, and Shape,
all based on the symmetry of that ‘S’ of the pot hook.
Picture 2: Size, Slope, Shape
Sir or Ma’am will demonstrate with an expertise much to be desired, and they will watch and
learn in silence, mindful of their posture at all times. That is part of the discipline, after all.
Picture 3: Sit up straight, shoulders back, feet flat on the floor
Even as they work diligently over their letters on their slates or in their sand trays, some of
them will receive a rather rude awakening as the teacher, horrified, asks them why they are
writing with their left hand: ‘Do you know what the word for the left hand is? Sinistra! Evil!
Hand of the Devil! No-one writes with the left hand!’ This takes all the left handers
completely by surprise for they have never heard anything like the force behind the
perorations on left handedness. To make matters worse, they are told that from that point on
they will write and draw using only their right hand (‘the proper hand’), without any easing in
of the new conditions or any sort of sympathy as to how this sort of change might affect the
child or children coming into any consideration. Right handers might have felt smug were it
not for the forceful denunciations of left handedness that they had just witnessed. They might
have felt a little safer than the left-handers, but a teacher who can explode over such a
seeming trifle to which nobody had ever drawn attention before can just as easily be
provoked by another such thing that might just apply to right-handers as well. One cannot be
too sure about the vagaries of teachers, even in the 21st century, and it is always best to be on
one’s guard.
These teachers have the added dimension of a cane at the ready for the flogging of children,
with no suggestion that any child is safe from this eventuality. There is that proverb once
again: ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’. Indeed, children are brought to the front for what
could only be considered misdemeanours, and flogged with the cane. The child is told to
bend over, to present his backside in the most effective position for the inflicting of pain, and
the noise of the connection of the all too solid cane with something else all too solid, sends a
little thrill of horror through the rest of the class. Anybody watching this would swear that Sir
or Ma’am had actually flogged the child (indeed a number of the children’s response sheets
record a certain measure of glee in particular members of the class having been flogged). It
might disappoint these children to know that the child concerned has been previously worded
up by Sir or Ma’am, and the solid object with which the cane connects is not the behind of
the child, but the corner of the desk behind that child. Another way of doing this is described
by Maxine Berry, the first Headteacher of Red Hill National School:
You’d take the child by the ear out the back. There was a big water barrel there. So
you’d have the child really yell loudly so that the children could hear the beating of
this child’s backside, but you’d be bashing the strap against the water barrel of course.
Then he would come in and you’d have to get the child to pretend that he was still
sobbing his eyes out, couldn’t sit down properly, and all those things.
Left handers and other offenders having thus been summarily dealt with, all may eventually
proceed to the more formal aspects of developing a copperplate hand. There are teaching aids
for this too, to be brought into use when the children have practised long, hard, and carefully.
They may move on to working directly with the Adair’s Excelsior Copy Book, adopted by
‘The Commissioners of National Education in Ireland, the Edinburgh School Board, &c’, just
as it says on the cover, with the further advantage that it has been ‘Examined and Sanctioned
for use in the Public Schools of New South Wales by the Department of Public Instruction’
(see Fig. 9).
While boys and girls of all grades will have common literacy and numeracy lessons, boys
will be engaging the training in Draughtsmanship that is desirable for apprenticeship
positions when they leave school.
Fig. 9: The Writing Copybook
The girls at that time will be practising their needlework skills. They have been prepared for
this, the girls once again having been horrified by the initial assertion from the teacher that
they will be expected to be married in a few years, possibly very soon after having completed
Grade 5. 21st century Grade Five girls are particularly horrified by this idea. There is no
questioning of this, though, for if Ma’am or Sir says it, it must be so. The information is
topped up with the likelihood of having given birth to many children by the time they are 25
years old. The girls may have a little time as seamstresses or house servants to fill in the time
between leaving school and marrying for all this childbearing, and needlework is one of the
accomplishments expected of them. It is also an indispensable skill for wives and mothers.
They will be taught to develop a fine hand in needlework as part of their curriculum. The
boys will be the very young men that these girls will marry in few years’ time, and be the
fathers of all those children that will have to be provided for. The boys are similarly horrified
at the suggestion of imminent marriage to one of these girls.
They will need to have employability skills in the services offered by tradespeople in the
town, or as labourers on the surrounding farms. If they are lucky, they will be apprenticed,
and their draughtsmanship skills are to be developed to increase their chances of this. It is
called Drawing, but it is not with an art focus. While such drawing may be considered to
have the aesthetic appeal that such well executed work has in its attention to planes, angles
and gradients, it is not taken up for any artistic merit attached to it. Teachers have the
materials at hand, again, preciously guarded because of the expense that provision entails.
Fig. 10: Vocational preparation materials
There is an extra dimension to the needlecraft that helps to explain the sort of feminine
devotion to developing the skill. It is practical, certainly, and it may be aesthetically and
artistically pleasing to those who produce it (one of the Sirs interviewed said that he was
often surprised by the way that the girls take to it, working their samplers during their breaks
to ensure they got them finished before their time at Sovereign Hill Museum School was
over). The Books of Lessons has almost a homily on the subject, quoting Johnson:
Whenever chance brings within my observation a knot of young ladies busy at their
needles, I consider myself as in the school of virtue...(p. 101).
Picture 4: ‘In the school of virtue...’
It is a disciplined program that the children engage. The official Report Sheet of the time
lists ‘Reading, Writing, Spelling (from Dictation), Arithmetic, Geography, Grammar,
Geometry, Algebra, Singing, Drawing’ as the base curriculum, with five empty columns that
presumably the teacher might fill with elective subjects according to whim and/or expertise.
It is unequivocal in its stipulations of what will be taught and assessed (see Appendix 2).
During all of this, lefthanders will soldier on, using their right hands only. They will get some
respite in this, though, for Ma’am or Sir, with the point having been made, will incorporate a
reason for writing with their right hands in the role play, by suggesting that an injury while
milking the cow or attending to the horse quite understandably would prevent them from
using their right hands. On this prompt, they may continue with their left hand preference
without adversely affecting the authenticity of the role play.
The lessons proceed in an orderly sequence, covering the set syllabus for the National School
system of the time. Longfellow’s poem, The Village Blacksmith (see Appendix 3) is engaged
with some gusto by the children, spurred on by Sir or Ma’am, with the wood provided for the
fire also useful for the creation of a pleasingly resounding thump to help reinforce the line:
‘You can hear him swing his heavy sledge’, again the job of a monitor to perform. It is almost
an act of delinquency, albeit demanded by Sir or Ma’am, to behave so boisterously in an
otherwise orderly context. There is another dimension to this, though, as the whole poem is a
celebration of a strong, worthy tradesman and the dignity of his trade and almost noble life.
These children are to learn to respect tradespeople, after all.
A similar respite will present itself with the singing: London’s Burning. It is a nursery rhyme
that might have perhaps been considered juvenile for this age group were it not for the fact
that it presents delightful possibilities for singing in the round (a number of children
commented on this in their responses sheets). At the same time, it promotes that ‘discipline
and repetition’ approach to education that choral singing, especially choral singing in the
round, demands. They will do all of this with the background sounds of a busy diggings:
people pass the door calling out to each other, or indeed start loud altercations; horses and
stage coaches trundle by with their riders and passengers; redcoats set up a licence hunt and
shouts issue from this; guns are discharged for the raising of the flag; the mine hooter sounds;
tourists walk in and out of the room to watch the performance and take photographs and
videos; and the general traffic of the town moves in a continuous stream past the classroom
door. A quiet and contemplative experience it is not. The only thing quiet about it is the
children themselves being seen and not heard, and speaking only when spoken to.
There will also be a number of interruptions in the school day in the form of visits from
potential employers. The regular classroom teachers will role play these. A captain of a ship,
for example, may visit the school looking to take one of the boys as a cabin boy. The children
hear the conversation between Ma’am or Sir and the captain...a cabin boy is needed as the
last one was swept overboard and drowned during a storm. There is a perfunctory expression
of the sadness of the loss, but a brisk mater-of-fact tone in relation to a replacement boy being
required, one to face a possibly similar fate, and as soon as possible to enable commerce to
continue with as little disruption as possible. There is no dwelling on any sort of emotional
features of the death of a boy, or any prevarication on the part of Sir or Ma’am in providing
another such boy from among the number on his classroom benches. Any one of these boys
may be plucked from the school to go to sea at this very moment. Another such employer
may be the proprietor of the confectionary factory, who has had a boy disfigured and
incapacitated by severe burns to his arms. That boy is no good for work, and another is
urgently needed. Perhaps Ma’am or Sir could provide one? Of course they can. Again, the
horrific nature of the injury is not glossed over, nor is the possibility that the replacement boy
may be similarly hurt. One boy may be plucked from this class to fill the gap in this
commercial proceedings as well.
Girls may be given the opportunity for such employment: housemaids, apprentice milliners or
dressmakers, shop girls. All that is required is that they are clean, not given to gossiping (for
that would seriously disadvantage business proceedings if the private details of lady
customers were to be tattled across the diggings), and able to read, write, and total their
numbers. They, after all, do not need to be educated as they will soon enough leave that
employment for the life of domestic drudgery that their own large brood of children to be
supported on a labourer’s wage in the spartan conditions of the diggings that looms.
There will be the visits of the Inspectors, or their equivalents, as far as each school is
concerned. For Red Hill National School, the District Inspector is a top-hatted, frock-coated
and high-booted man with a severe demeanour and a loud voice. The Vicar of St Peters plays
the role of the Inspector for that school. Similarly attired to the District Inspector, he
harrumphs and bullies both Ma’am and the children:
... we provide a good, sound, Christian education, unlike the Godless education
provided at that one down the road there. I’m not one to gossip, I leave that to the
ladies, but that sort of tumbledown school is one of the less reputable schools on this
diggings. Now we start every day with a prayer, do we not Ma’am? And then we do
the afternoon prayers as well. Can’t pray enough. Let’s hear them. From the heart.
Sit! Sit up straight. Shoulders back. You can’t get through life without good posture,
you know lads. You look like you’re asleep lad. You know what I am thinking
Ma’am? I wonder if they understand the meaning of the prayer. They’re mumbling it,
reciting it without any feeling, as though they don’t even know what a prayer means.
What do you say to that? Do you know what the prayer means: Love one’s neighbour,
one’s neighbour? What does the prayer mean when it refers to God and our
neighbour? Everyone? Well you’re easily satisfied. So who is your neighbour? Who
is your neighbour? The one who lives opposite to you? So the prayer means duty to
God and the person opposite to you? That’s what the prayer means, is it? No, not its
meaning. The subtleties have escaped you, sir.
There is no respite from being harangued by adults in the diggings schools, it would appear.
That is, unless one is attending the ‘tumbledown school’, St Alipius. Here Sir or Ma’am will
supply instruction, discipline, proverbs, admonition and exhortation in as authoritarian a
manner as in any other of the schools, but they will be at some point interrupted by their
Inspector, in the form of Father Matthew Dowling. His demeanour and behaviour, even as he
imparts similar messages as the Vicar, provides a different experience. Having inspected the
work held up under chins, and given advice in a kindly tone on not pulling the stitches on the
sampler too tightly and so on, he too concludes his visit with a prayer:
We know the building is named for St Alipius, our saint. He was a disciple to the
good saintly St Augustine, and our good bishop has Alipius as his middle name. He
was quite honoured to find that I suggested that we name this building after him. But
what use is this building? As a school, yes, but it’s a church, the first church on the
diggings. ...Many thousands of miners come to Mass here, every morning and
particularly on Holy Days of Obligation. And what do we do in church? We pray.
That’s what we’re going to do now. We’re going to say a Hail Mary together. When
we do that, we offer up this Hail Mary for yourselves, and your teachers, that you may
be blessed and that our Good Lady will watch over you and through the intercessions
of our good St Alipius you will receive at least an adequate education, and go on to be
good mothers, wives, just like out Good Lady was. And also the boys, you need to
think about your futures and your professions, and go on to be good husbands and
fathers, and workers. Please God you will also have long lives. Let’s put our hands
together now, bow our heads and close our eyes as we say together: In the name of the
Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Hail Mary....Keep your heads bowed now and
your eyes closed and I will bless you... (Blessing in Latin). Thank you, boys and girls.
The blustering and bullying of the other Inspectors is quite foreign to Father Dowling, as it is
with the Doctor at Ragged Hill School on his visit. He is not there to inspect the work of the
children or of Ma’am. Nonetheless, it is quite an experience for these children, as the health
advice and expertise is meted out to them. The usual inspection of hands, with particular
attention to fingernails (‘This one is a gardener, growing vegetables under these nails’), hair
and eyes is completed before individual health problems are addressed:
Put your hands away. Now, as I call your name, you will stand. Come out the front to
have a quick look at your eyes...Stand up Master J. Now Ma’am might have a
wheelbarrow? Now, up behind [the school] there is an apple tree, and when you go
past there you will see the apples on the ground. Bring me rotten apples back...we’re
going to cut them into halves and you’re going to place them on your eyes in the
evening. Master J and Miss J have both been observed scratching vigorously. Stand.
Bend down there. You know he’s infested with lice, don’t you? Lice! Shave their
heads. It’s going to get worse, because I want the whole row shaved. And it’s your
fault, Ma’am. Master J. Stand. Is that him? Has been coughing and sniffling. You
know what cows are? I want you to go and get a shovel and go and follow a cow, and
get some cow manure. You know the green, runny, smelly one. The fresh one, but
don’t eat it. You’re going to have to make it into a poultice and you’re going to wear
that on your chest for the evening. It’s called cow pat poultice...well advanced
medicine. Master J, please stand up. All the other children stood, didn’t they? Not this
Master J. Oh dear me, he’s not going to stand. All the other children were nice
children. They stood when I asked them to stand, but not this one (the boy had stood
up, but the Doctor is poking fun at his small stature, pretending the boy is still
sitting). Small, pale, rather scrawny. Arms like chickens’ insteps...You know what’s
wrong, don’t you? I bet you like potatoes. You know what’s going on in your body? I
believe there’s a tape worm. Now tape worm, it likes potatoes too. When you eat your
potatoes, it’s getting bigger, this worm, and you’re getting smaller. You know what
you have to do, don’t you? No potatoes. I like this boy...nice boy isn’t he?
The Inspector interruptions to the lessons will affect Sir or Ma’am at the other schools the
most, for their stipends will be increased, reduced, or remain as they are as the result of that
visit. Again, this fact is openly discussed before the children. If they think that they have a
hard time of it, they have an unequivocal reminder that Sir or Ma’am does as well. If they do
not perform as a class in relation to the syllabus that is set for them, Sir or Ma’am will suffer.
Given the importance of their being able to perform, with what little education aids available
to support them beyond the exhortations of the proverbs constantly before them, and the little
time available to attain that level of seemingly impossible excellence required, they are under
a good deal of pressure. Not for them knowledge for its own sake; there are to be tangible
results for the teacher to be taken into serious consideration as well. When they hold their
copybooks, drawing books and samplers under their chins for inspection, they have their Sir
or Ma’am’s livings in their hands. The exception to this is Ma’am at the Ragged School, for
her stipend is seen to by the Benevolent Asylum and she is not so dependent on performance
indicators gleaned subjectively from work held up under children’s chins.
Father Dowling’s behaviour to Ma’am or Sir is as gently exhortative as it is to the children,
but Red Hill National School and St Peters’ Sir and Ma’am are not so fortunate. They are
reduced almost to grovelling in the face of the bullying they receive at their hands, and all of
this in front of the children. These Inspectors treat the modest stipends paid their staff as
coming out of their own pockets, and show outright repugnance at the very idea of any
increases being in the offing. The Vicar is the more extreme in his reaction to suggestions of
pay increases. Having previously stressed the importance of regular ‘thrashing’ of the
children as conducive to sound learning, he reacts to Ma’am’s humble request regarding a
raise by discussing this with one of the boys in the class:
Stand Master H. What do you think of Ma’am? Is she good? Is she kind? Gentle?
(‘Yes’ to all of these.) Doesn’t beat you too often? (‘No’ to this.) Thank you Master H.
Be seated. Thank you Master H, because that is terrible! (Turning to Ma’am) He
LIKES you! You’re soft. You’re gentle. Aaagh! Children should not LIKE you. You
should terrify them. You should beat them all the time. Thank you Master H. Thank
you. You have taken a penny or two, two pennies I think, off Ma’am’s stipend. All
thanks to you. Thank you Master H. Well done Master H. Good lad, good lad. I would
see more discipline.
Leaving the poor Master H, who was trying so hard to do the right thing by his Ma’am,
completed astonished by this reaction to his very innocent report of the good Ma’am, the
Vicar strides out. Ma’am is crestfallen, certainly, but the whole of the class simply cannot
believe what has just occurred. It offends their child’s sense of fairness.
With the resilience of youth, they register the incident as yet another of those unfathomable
adult events of which they have no understanding, especially as gold panning is in the offing.
They will experience this as part of a skill to be developed on a gold diggings, just as they
will visit the blacksmith, the wheelwright, the canvas tent maker, the gold pourer, and the
various other commercial establishments to which children of the 1850s might have egress
(so no hotels or other sorts of adult establishments). The gold panning is particularly popular,
as some really do find gold in the creek below the school. The picture below is of a group of
young gold panners with Ma’am, who has just been denied her rightful due by the Vicar,
thanks to Master H. She may have to strike it lucky herself to make up for her decreasing
income.
Picture 5: Panning for gold with Ma’am
There are still those times of the day that appeal most to all schoolchildren, regardless of the
century. There is playtime and there is lunchtime. Even so, gender roles are carefully
established and maintained. As girls are not allowed to run at any time, the most physical
they can get is in the skipping, with Ma’am or Sir guiding them through the skipping songs.
They may play at Jacks, but with real animal knuckle bones, not the plastic ones of today.
They may learn to enhance their hand-eye coordination with a number of traditional toys,
made from wood and rope, but they may not play at marbles (‘Now of course girls don’t play
marbles. It’s not ladylike to bend over in my playground in undignified positions’). One of
the Sirs, though, is particularly enlightened on this gender business in relation to play:
Horse shoes. It’s a wonderful game, horse shoes. There was a time when I did not let
young ladies play horse shoes; I used to think it was unladylike, but I pride myself on
being devoted to equality. Before long the Grade 5 girls will have their own families.
They’ll be married; they’ll have a babe under one arm and a bucket full of washing to
do in the other. We need to build up strong muscle, so I now let girls play horse shoes.
He even goes a step further to extend this to girls playing at quoits:
Picture 6: Strengthening the arm muscles for the carrying of babies and the washing
Boys do not have such restrictions. They may use the shoulder bone of a cow with a
shuttlecock, spin tops, toss, bat and catch balls, and run as they please. Even so, there is a
price put on all of this. Free education, secular or otherwise, is an alien concept to all adults
and children involved. Stipends are paid, certainly, but the children are to present payments
of fees to their Sir or Ma’am as a top up of these, and to pay these on a weekly basis.
Children bring food, offers of needlework by mamas, of free labouring by papas, and such
payments-in-kind, for it cannot always be money, or even gold, on a diggings where only
some ever strike it lucky. One Ma’am, St Peter’s Sheryn Mitchell, did not have a detachable
hem to her gown. A detachable hem to a gown is a most valued commodity in the mud and
dust of diggings streets, and she was pleased to find that:
...one school, for their school fees, made me one. They made it from calico, all
embroidered. Each child made a panel in it, and they put the panels together and they
are detachable... And I still have that skirt to this day.... It was wonderful.
Picture 7: Sir receives the school fees
They will encounter the bark and mud huts with the canvas roofing, and the rather more
inhospitable tents. They will distinguish between these as housing not only for their own
diggings families but also for Ma’am or Sir. By the same token, they will see the more
permanent residences of the prosperous on the diggings, mansions by comparison but in
reality only weatherboard cottages with small vegetable and herb gardens and clutches of
ducks, chickens and guinea fowl. The donkey, they find, will bite, and for the benefit of those
who can afford more than the occasional warm cowpat poultice, they will be introduced to
the apothecary, which is both a new word and a new concept in health care for them. They
will learn of the night cart and the night man, an earthy detail of the living narrative that they
are role playing as they are creating it for themselves. They will turn up their noses, and they
will laugh out loud. They will be appalled and enthralled at the same time. Each day is a big
day, with much to learn, much to remember, and much to be able to reproduce at the whim of
any adult who chooses to demand it of them. There are seemingly impossible times tables to
learn, samplers to complete and angles to be drawn, copperplate hand to develop, monitor
tasks to be attended to, and, most of all, manners to be minded.
At the end of it all, one lucky child will receive the medallion, a token of their exemplary
behaviour, academic achievement or diligence. It is a different medallion in each school:
The medallions have different wording for each school. For Red Hill National School: RED
HILL NATIONAL SCHOOL is printed around the edge and in the middle, For general
proficiency and good conduct. St Peter’s has ST PETER’S DENOMINATIONAL SCHOOL
printed around the edge and in the middle are the words, Effort, Obedience, Demeanour. St
Alipius has its own as well: ST ALIPIUS DIGGINGS SCHOOL is printed around the edge
and in the middle, Devotion, Manners, Excellence. A poor child of the Ragged School will
also receive on: RAGGED SCHOOL is printed around the edge and in the middle Diligence
and Good Behaviour. There is no suggestion that this is anything but as it should be, for it is
a class system based on elites upon which the schooling is based, and concepts of reward for
an elite among even these children reflect this.
Picture 8: Receiving the medallion
The stick figure drawing on the cover has captured all of it with exquisite simplicity. In the
following sections, I have examined some of the complexities that underlie that apparent
simplicity.
4. OPERATIONALISING THE VISION
Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in
the world—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Maxine Berry was the first Headteacher of the Red Hill National School, the first of the
schools that now make up the Sovereign Hill Museum School group. She took on the task of
operationalising the vision for that establishment late in 1978, just before the school building
itself was opened in February, 1979. In the little time that she had before the actual opening,
she worked through the many problem-solving exercises that operationalising the vision
entailed. She was Headteacher of the school until March, 1981, when she left. Setting up an
authentic educational experience for visiting school children, she was in effect a victim of her
own careful attention to the details of the very authenticity she had created. She was pregnant
at the time of her departure, and, as even later 20th century teachers would appreciate, she
could not be seen in public, let alone in a professional capacity, in what would delicately have
been referred to as ‘her condition’.
Picture 9: Maxine Berry, the first Headteacher
In the relatively short time of her tenure at the school, she achieved a most remarkable set of
outcomes, stemming largely from her own decision to base the experience on role play. The
role plays are engaged by all associated with the Sovereign Hill schools in the program, with
teachers, inspectors, vicars, doctors, and visiting potential employers all taking up their roles,
reinforced by costumes worn, demeanours adopted, manners displayed, and historical details
attended to. As one of the actors, Roger O’Connor, playing the role of St Alipius Inspector,
Fr Dowling points out, ‘...It’s like walking onto a movie set, some huge move movie set
where everything is so authentic, unlike anywhere else in Australia. It’s absolutely authentic
here, and you soak up what is around here, the environment and the atmosphere of the
place...’. Maxine Berry had not only her school, itself carefully designed and built to original
specifications, but also the whole of Sovereign Hill in which to establish her role play
program. She says herself that she was drawn by the idea of the creation of a school within
Sovereign Hill being ‘a magnificent way to involve primary aged children in such a vibrant
exciting way as to give them living experiences in understanding the life and times of our
forebears more clearly’. The role play decision alone may be considered as an inspired
response to the challenges posed. At the time, the subject called Drama was not an official
part of school curricula, even if it was being used in schools by teachers who had recognised
its suggestive possibilities for pedagogical purposes, and it was not until the 1980s that it
became a recognised Year 12 subject. As one of the actors, Barry Kay, who is Interpretive
Theatre Development Manager at Sovereign Hill and who plays the role of the Vicar at St
Peters puts it, ‘We give the children a costume, we give the children a set that is Sovereign
Hill and the school, and the children provide the script’.
As a qualified teacher, Maxine Berry had been able to draw upon her professional knowledge
and engagement with the pedagogical influences of the time. This was when school-based
curriculum was the policy that informed pedagogical decisions, before the curriculum
documents, statements and policies with which teachers are now familiar: CSFII, (Board of
Studies, 2000), VELS (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA), 2005), the
e5 Instructional Model (Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, 2009),
and the National Curriculum (Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority
(ACARA), 2009). The love of history that Maxine has identified as a major motivating force
in her activities had its respected place in schools’ curricula when she embarked on this
project. History was marginalised in subsequent curriculum considerations, being
incorporated into the new SOSE with the advent of the CSFII, and effectively subsumed in
that discipline by the time that VELS was introduced. It has a resurgence in the National
Curriculum, a thing which history lovers anticipate with some joy. At the same time,
Geography lost its standing in the various curriculum documents, with the prospect of a
similar resurgence as National Curriculum developments proceed. The teaching day at the
Sovereign Hill Museum School experienced by groups of children has reinforced traditional
curriculum values not yet quite part of their current school experience, but even so, current
Headteacher and Red Hill National School Headmaster Michael Ward has articulated the
enduring relevance of the program as he has identified the inherent e5 characteristics of the
program, engaged by visiting teachers as they explore the possibilities for their children’s
learning via the information posted on the Sovereign Hill web site (see Appendix 1B).
A love of History (or Geography, or Literature, or any other discipline area, for that matter)
and an understanding of the content area of the discipline is not enough to qualify a person
for the important job of teaching, let alone teaching in such a specialist area that Sovereign
Hill Museum School presents. An understanding of what underpins the discipline and the
teaching and learning of the content is what is required. When Maxine Berry took up the idea
of role play, she was exhibiting a profound understanding of the pedagogies involved. As she
puts it, ‘I just wanted to be sure that the children really, really went away from this two-day
experience having a much better understanding of what the comparison of their current
education in real life was compared with what children had the chance of back in the 1850s’.
For her, it was not just a matter of getting it from books, or a film such as Oliver:
You could read a book, sure, but if you’re called a blockhead to your face, or a
nincompoop or whatever, it’s not very nice...[They] need to understand that was what
children of those days really did put up with and that their feeling were often not very
well cared for. They were very fortunate to be at school at all. That was the other
thing too, that they had to pay their fees and all those things were set down and
whatever, and they had to be very, very aware of what mama and papa did before they
came so they could actually speak of what mama did in the laundry and papa in the
blacksmith’s shop or whatever it might have been, so you really were trying to make
them live the role for that two days.
The regular classroom teachers are quick to agree, as one says, ‘The teachers are really
getting into the role-play and it’s really good fun. So they’re actually giving an experience
that’s far better than just reading about it’. It is this idea of living the role that embodies the
strength of the pedagogical underpinnings of the experience: ‘You know very well that as a
kid yourself you love being involved playing the role, and being involved, not just being told
things, really, and that’s the way you remember. And that’s what it’s about, this
involvement...as memories of your own childhood where you loved doing, not just listening’.
Most adults would appreciate this, but a teacher knows that a pedagogy based on this requires
sound underpinnings. Vygotsky (1978) devotes some attention to the importance of the roles
that children play and the objects they use when engaged in play. In extension of this, play as
public performance, making use of the symbols and representational features of performance
conventions may be seen as significant ‘speech’ by the children concerned as they internalise
the knowledge they are developing. It is a point taken up by Heathcote (1984), in her writing
on the importance of role play in relation to excellence in teaching and learning. People such
as Heathcote were informing the work of teachers at the time of the establishment of the
original program. Maxine Berry herself says:
I had a friend in the Social Studies department, writing a book, and role plays were a
very important part of what they were doing there in the 1970s. I thought about it
through her, talked about it a lot, and I thought, that’s fantastic. That’s the way. To be
involved and to play, which is part of a children’s’ being. ...It said to me, even before
I got involved in Sovereign Hill, that this was the way to go, rather than have people
come along and tell them this stuff. And it hasn’t altered, at all.
Indeed it has not. Interviews with past and present teachers in the program constantly invoke
the learning possibilities of the role plays in relation to subject matter, certainly, but
especially in relation to the affective dimensions of the learning experience of the children. It
is a pedagogical dimension introduced to the program by its first Headteacher, and it has only
relatively recently found its way into later curriculum documents for schools across Victoria.
The program Maxine Berry envisaged and then implemented has anticipated such documents
as VELS by almost thirty years. In similar vein, the program may be seen to have anticipated
the e5 Instructional Model. As current Principal of Sovereign Hill Museum School, Michael
Ward, writes, the 5 Es of the model (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate) may be
traced right through the program offered by his schools for 32 years now. He himself says, ‘I
sat down and tried to see where we fit in the e5 Instructional Model of engaging kids,
exploring, explaining, elaborating and evaluating, and it fits in all of that’. Indeed his
response to current developments in pedagogical approaches may be found on his own
framing of response sheets completed by the children (see Appendix 4), and which constitute
the bulk of the data examined in the research, is based on affective responses from the
children—What did you learn that you didn’t know before? What was your favourite part?
Which part didn’t you like? What emotions did you feel during the program? ”— again is an
instance of the School anticipating VELS in its affective pedagogy approach and the e5
Instructional Model in its delineation of processes involved in effective learning. Further to
this, as children write the application letters of the characters that they have developed, and
whose roles they will play in their time as part of the program, they themselves set the scene
from which e5 features will be generated (see Appendix 5).
Sovereign Hill Museum School conducts its own surveys of visiting teacher responses (see
Appendix 6). The consistently high percentages of ‘Strongly Agree’ teacher responses in all
categories over the seven years of the survey, and the very low ‘Disagree’ responses, as well
the absence of any of these last across the items of the survey, is a telling indication of
teacher approval of the program. Of particular note are the items that deal with the
pedagogical underpinnings of the program, and I have reproduced these here.
A chart to show that the program assists the children in gaining an
understanding of the era
Year
Strongly agree
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
99%
95%
99%
97%
97%
96%
97%
98%
Mildly/Moderately
Agree
1%
5%
1%
3%
3%
4%
3%
2%
Disagree
Fig. 11: Visiting Teacher Responses: Understanding
In this aspect of developing children’s engagement with history, not only is there a strong
indication that teachers respond positively to this aspect of the program, but there is not a
single ‘Disagree’ recorded by the teachers. In similar vein, teacher responses to affective
engagement show strong endorsement of the program, as shown in the following chart:
A chart to show that the atmosphere created in the classroom encourages
children to participate in role- play
Year
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Strongly agree
97%
91%
90%
90%
83%
89%
88%
92%
Moderately agree
3%
9%
10%
10%
17%
10%
12%
7%
Disagree
1%
1%
Fig. 12: Visiting Teacher Responses: Role Play
Teachers further indicate a strong response to the suggestive possibilities for their own future
work in their classrooms. I have included a letter from a group of teachers and parents, or
teacher-parents, which refers to parents and children ‘talking and role playing for weeks’
after participating in the program (see Appendix 7). This letter is from a group of parents who
home school their children, and it points to the pedagogical success of the program as being
more than a one-off experience for the children with whom they are concerned. They are not
the only ones who take up possibilities of follow up activities. The surveys conducted by
Sovereign Hill Museum School of regular classroom teachers point this up as well, the results
of which are shown in the chart below. Only 2% of these teachers have found that this is not
the case for them as far as their classrooms are concerned:
A chart to show the program provides a good basis for follow up activities
Year
Strongly agree
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
96%
91%
90%
93%
77%
83%
87%
89%
Mildly/Moderately
agree
4%
9%
10%
7%
21%
17%
13%
11%
Disagree
2%
Fig. 13: Visiting Teacher Responses: Follow Up Activities
These results, especially when coupled with the overwhelming positive responses by the
children to the program as evidenced in the interviews, responses sheets, letters to their Sirs
and Ma’ams, and their drawings, indicate that it has proved to be a most effective way to
operationalise the vision of the originators of the program. The sophistication of the
education philosophy drawn upon sits in some contrast to the unsophisticated drawing of the
stick figures on the cover of this report.
5. DETAILING THE EXPERIENCE
History, although sometimes made up of the few acts of the great, is more often shaped by the many acts of the
small— Mark Yost
Sophisticated education philosophies notwithstanding, the details of operations need careful
consideration and practical attention to ensure the success of the program. The costume
department of Sovereign Hill took on the responsibility for the costumes being made, based
on patterns of the era, and continue to do so. A new problem has emerged as the years have
progressed, raised in early 2011 School Council meetings. This is one of the children now
tending to be taller and larger than those of previous years, and costumes having to be
adjusted to deal with the issue. In 1978, though, Maxine Berry started out with a bare
physical space as well as blank pedagogical slate. The items that furnish that space that I have
detailed above would have to be sourced somehow. Visits to the Public Records Office and
the State Library of Victoria would help identify what was required, but in 1978, where does
one get such things as 1856 slates, slate pencils, workbooks, maps, samplers, ink, pens, and
that most important of the teachers’ tools, the cane?
Maxine Berry tells the story herself, having already started with finding the desks for the
room:
And my slate was blank. It really was. Even talking of slates, I didn’t know where
you’d buy such things, and it just happened that I happened to be...married into an old
family, a Ballarat stationery family... .They’d been in the stationery business here
since 1856. And it was just so interesting (Berry Anderson is the name of the
company) [for] I was talking to one of their employees in the shop one day and she
said, ‘There’s this old bloke in Flinders Lane down in Melbourne. Go and have a look
at what he’s got’. So we went down, and I couldn’t believe it. You went down below
the street level in Flinders Lane, a bluestone cobwebby sort of place and this old bloke
out of Charles Dickens, I’m sure, he came out and I went away with 4,800 inkwells,
and I bought sugar bags—two big sugar bags—full of India rubbers, still probably
used at the school now, pens galore, and slate pencils, 6,500 slate pencils. And I
bought the lot because I thought, ‘If I don’t get these now...’. Most of those slate
pencils are in this building now, I suppose.
It ought to be noted that none of this came cheaply, and that while the Education Department
of the time funded the Headteacher’s salary, the cost of provisioning the school was borne
entirely by Sovereign Hill itself.
Laying one’s hands on such items in such a fortuitous way, is almost like a windfall, solving
one of the supply problems in one fell swoop, but I have also referred to the books in the
schoolrooms. Again, ways in which the problem of sourcing these was overcome is best told
by Maxine Berry herself:
I took a photographer from Sovereign Hill back with me on several of these trips [to
the State Library of Victoria], and they locked us in this room with the original texts.
The reading books we started with, and, Max was his name, he photographed several
chapters of these books because rather than make a Grade Three book, a Grade Four
and whatever, we made an amalgam of one book so that a current reproduced book
has, I think, Year Three stories, Year Four, Year Five—it went to Year Five—all
suitable for a range of interests. So that was very exciting and it took some months to
reproduce those. We also did the same thing with the Geography book, but the one
that I really, really wanted was the writing copy book. I knew there was an Irish
National school book, [but] could not find it anywhere. I don’t know how many trips I
spent looking for it at the Public Records Office and the State library. So in
desperation I went to the Head Children’s Librarian at the State Library, and got an
appointment with her. Actually she was a much older lady as I recall, a dear old soul,
I remember, a grandmotherly type person. I put this story to her and said, ‘Look I’m
desperate. I really, really need a copy book; you can’t have a school without a copy
book’. She said, ‘Oh, I don’t know dear, I don’t know’, and walked over to her
cabinet, unlocked it and said, ‘Is this what you’re looking for?’ Oh! I was so
delighted. So she let me borrow that, in this locked room, and that’s now the copy
book that we now still have in use at all of the schools here...and it’s a brilliant book.
With that book I also didn’t want it stapled, so what I did was go to McCallum House
which is an institution for disabled people in Ballarat, and they had a workshop type
place there and I got them to sew them together, which they went to a lot of trouble to
do, but we paid them and they did thousands and thousands, but I think they’ve
reverted to stapling now because it’s more convenient. So those are the sorts of things
that happened.
Another problem to be solved was the acquisition of the maps, authentic to the period, and no
longer produced in 1978 as the political boundaries of countries had changed since the 1850s,
some countries having disappeared and new ones having been created. Given the uniqueness
of the schools’ purposes, there was no possibility of working with current world or individual
country and state maps. Maxine Berry once again applied her problem solving skills:
The maps that are currently on the walls look very tacky because they [got] there
when I put them there. I went to the map section of the State Library, we found the
original atlases of the period and this photographer that I was telling you about, he
photographed them in bits and pieces because the wall maps are obviously large and
the photographs were only allowing them to be done in about six photographs for one
map. So they are still there and they are all assembled and made here at Sovereign
Hill. So those maps of, I think the world map, American map, not sure about
Australia, I can’t remember, but all the maps that are on the wall are still the original
ones that we did and had for our very first opening in 1979. The maps, the reader, the
copy book, the Geography book, they came very soon after the first opening, in June
1979.
The attention to details of authenticity is to be appreciated, for it is such attention that makes
the totality of the experience authentic for the children. This problem of sourcing authentic
materials, if it was a difficult one in 1978, is even more so in 2011, as it is highly unlikely
that the Dickens’-type characters and the grandmotherly curators of the State Library are still
around to help out. Current Principal Michael Ward takes up this point:
Nearly all rubbers today have writing on them so you have to find the rubbers that
don’t have writing on them. Canes was another classic example. We used to buy our
canes from sporting goods [shops]…schools would buy them for little hurdles, now
they’re all plastic. So I couldn’t find any, and I ended up finding a marine suppliers
place in Collingwood in Melbourne and I had to buy twenty-five kilograms of five
metre lengths of cane which had been cut up into I think about three hundred canes,
which means we’ll be able to thrash the children for the next two hundred years.
6. THE KNOWLEDGE
There is a history in all men's lives—William Shakespeare
Teachers in the Sovereign Hill Museum School program all say that they have been attracted
to it because of their own love of history, not only as a field of knowledge but also as History,
a discipline to be taught in schools. Each considers that its marginalisation in curriculum
documents and resulting curricula has been a loss to generations of schoolchildren. None is
on a crusade to restore it to its former place in the curriculum, but each sees the National
Curriculum as the source of some satisfaction to history lovers in this country. They hold a
similar opinion about Geography, again, looking to see this discipline restored to a more
prominent place in future iterations of the National Curriculum. In the meantime, their daily
engagement is with the traditional curriculum as set out by the various school boards of the
1850s, and while they may be teaching 1850s Reading, Writing, Spelling, Arithmetic and so
on, they are in effect teaching an affective engagement with History. As Maxine Berry puts
it, for her in 1978, ‘This was a unique adventure involving students in hands-on learning in an
exciting, fun, enjoyable history experience’. What these teachers in the program are teaching
then, is History, with all the affective teaching and learning tools they have at their disposal.
Teachers in the program comment on what they see as the demise of History in schools:
...It’s not important for schools at the moment but schools see this as a way of dealing
with it, that they’re timetabling [their History] through their experiences with us.
2011-2012 are fully booked for what schools want. ...There’s less being done in
schools – perhaps there should be more being done in schools. They come here and
see what the children can get from it and what they can take back to school from it.
Maxine Berry has a particular point to make on engagement with history in the program that
she developed:
The history of Ballarat in particular, but more particularly I suppose, of general
education in the 19th century and how difficult it was that, you know, you might go
home not to a nice cosy house such as you might now but you were perhaps going
home to a little old shack or a tent, or whatever, where you might not have even had
enough to eat, or you’ve got to go home and help papa doing chores or mama doing
chores etcetera, coming along in raggedy old clothes, quite often. Maybe you’re cold,
and you’re not well fed. And that was the reality. And I think a lot of children will go
away with a much better understanding [of that history].
Another teacher refers to the history they teach as being so much more than the discipline that
has featured in school curricula:
It’s not just the gold rushes that you’re teaching, you’re teaching geography of the
time, yes, and you’re teaching The Rebecca and all that but you’re teaching poems,
you’re teaching social mores, you’re teaching genderisation, you’re teaching girls
who are going to get married in the next year or so.
Again, it is an approach that has anticipated the curriculum documents of the present day by
thirty-odd years. The National Curriculum for History (ACARA, 2010), in its opening
paragraph, says:
[History] develops understanding of cultural, social and political events, processes
and issues that have shaped humanity from earliest times. It enriches our appreciation
of how the world and its people have changed, and the significant continuities that
exist into the present (p. 1).
The teachers themselves have expressed this in their construction and implementation of their
program with an eloquence that curriculum documents cannot hope to achieve. It is
something which the child who did the cover drawing also has captured.
7. AFFECTIVE DIMENSIONS OF THE HISTORY
History itself, whether bad or good, should not be forgotten— Chen Zhiyong
The children will learn the history of the gold fields, with various facts presented to them, but
they will also learn what the human side of this history entailed. Their own evaluations show
the affective dimension of what they learn of diggings history: the dangers are explicitly
detailed, the figures of child mortality are built into the classroom discussions, they
themselves take up roles they play as orphaned children with no social security networks to
support them. All such things will have their impact. In their response sheets, children
constantly refer to having learned how hard life was for all, and not just children, on the
diggings, at the same time saying that they ‘felt sorry’ for those same people and their hard
lives. Not only that, but they will have done their own preliminary research on the character
they will play in their two days at their school. Before they arrive, they will have read or
viewed or in some way have engaged the stories of people who made the journey to the
diggings. They will then position themselves within such a story, generating a narrative that
is based on historical fact but which includes the character that they themselves have created.
They will generate a narrative of the journey from the home country, and given the migrant
origins of Australian society, they will usually hit upon their own family’s country of origin,
such as Germany, China, or Lebanon, and weave their tale around this. For their own
purposes of historical accuracy, they will have had to find out the conditions on their chosen
country of origin that might have led to their papa and mama’s decision to try their luck on
the goldfields, the sort of sea voyage they might have expected, their point of disembarking,
and the road and means of travel to the Ballarat goldfields. Their character may have been
orphaned on the way, or their breadwinning parent injured or down on their luck, which
would explain their attendance at the Ragged School run by the Ballarat Benevolent Asylum.
Other narratives are woven around more successful mining families or diggings tradespeople
or farmers, which would explain their attendance at St Peters or the Red Hill National School.
The large population originating from Ireland would account for the numbers at St Alipius,
backed by stories of the potato blight, famine, and general debilitating poverty, which would
still not be enough for attendance at the Ragged School, for a Catholic child attends a
Catholic school.
Such letters (see Appendix 5) written by the children indicate a careful attention to historical
accuracy as far as social conditions go. The potato famine in Ireland figures prominently in
applications to St Alipius, as might be expected, but each story is touched with a personal
note that indicates an affective engagement with the material the children have encountered:
My family came to the colony of Victoria on the clipper ship Royal George. Under
deck it was very cold and crowded. Mother became very thin feeding Ivy [the
youngest sister], but apart from that the trip was alright [sic]. We came from a town
called Glasgow in Scotland.
A very interesting thing happened to one child who was part of the class interviews in
relation to this. Turning to the computer to help her in getting material for her personal
narrative, she found not only details about Irish families, but those of her own who really did
come to Ballarat in flight from the potato famine and in search for gold.
In their letters, they do not mince matters when it comes to the ship: ‘The ship was horrible.
There were diseases and my best friend past [sic] away. It was shocking’. They do not shy
away from sickness and death, as well as births, aboard ship, and they add details of smells,
sounds, fears, and hopes. The children add a personal touch of what Ma’am or Sir may expect
of them should they be accepted into the school: ‘I will always be on my best behaviour
while at your school. I will be polite, use my manners and be courteous. So please accept me
to your school. We will pay with our extremely fine gold’. This last would have been a most
pleasing prospect to Sir or Ma’am, no doubt, and this child has created a narrative designed to
show themselves in the best possible light. The child understands that the schooling is not
free, and that certain standards of behaviour will be the only ones tolerated. They have a
certain measure of knowledge that they will bring with them as they take on a role that will
interplay with those of others. Another writes, ‘My favourite games is Knuckles’, indicating a
less than academic disposition to school perhaps, but an authentic child’s focus that sees
playtime and lunchtimes as being the best parts of school, along with a knowledge of what
1850s children would be playing at those times.
They do not always get it right, though, when it comes to appreciating the political
developments that have removed their country from the known register of nations, or have
caused it to be added. Germany did not exist in the 1850s, for example. Along with children
who might represent themselves as coming from Sri Lanka, they may be asked to find that
country on the maps that adorn the walls. It is an extra dimension of history, certainly, but it
straddles politics and geography, and for these children, a very personal feature of their own
family history.
The Ma’ams and Sirs in the program are not removed from affective responses to their work.
One of the Ma’ams says, ‘I knew little about it. I came in, I had a look, and it was in my
blood instantly’. ‘Knowing little about it is something quickly addressed’, for all Ma’ams
and Sirs have engaged the same sort of research as the children who populate their
classrooms. Teachers in the program are similarly well versed in the roles that they play.
They all refer to their own academic and personal interest in history. One was a secondary
school History teacher before taking up a position in the Sovereign Hill Museum School
program. A small but informative reference library is maintained in the staff office, with titles
ranging from general and particular Australian history, to specific stories of the Ballarat
diggings, and scrimshaw and needlework. DEECD Grampians Regional Office and School
council member, Jim Bond, himself a qualified teacher, observes that the teaching staff of the
Soveriegn Hill Museum School take ‘the theories about teaching and learning and gearing it
to what they know interests children, about involving children in the participation’.
Given the affective focus of the program, though, this is not enough to inform daily
professional activities. Maxine Berry says that she took on the role of a remarkable woman,
one Matilda Broadbent, who was a teaching assistant at the actual Red Hill National School
in the 1850s and extended her work to starting up the Grammar School in Ballarat, and then
establishing schools in Hamilton and possibly Melbourne. A most remarkable thing about
what Maxine Berry refers to as ‘a great woman’ was that when she got married she was
allowed to continue as a teacher. Marriage was an impediment to a woman’s teaching career
even up to the late 1960s, after all.
Other teachers in the program refer to their own experience of their own schooling, for, as
one teacher rather tellingly put its it, ‘Oh yes, things didn’t change that much until the 1970s’,
and so was able to draw on the characteristics of his own teacher, ‘...Who has quite a rather
pompous way of speaking and sometimes I find myself going into that mode when I’m
explaining things to the children...’. This is similar to another:
I went to a Catholic school with nuns in the fifties just before Vatican II, which
probably wasn’t much different from the theology of the medieval days. Anyway, so I
find that I draw a lot of my own primary education with Sister…, her Irishness, her
hatred of the British, her theology, the way that she conducted herself and some of the
things she talked about in terms of morality and using proverbs and all that type of
thing. I feel that I drew on my background in that way.
They also have their own family histories to draw upon:
I still draw on that background. My forebears came from Ireland....My great
grandmother died in childbirth and she was a child of the famine and I inherited a lot
of those Irish attitudes from my grandmother who was brought up by her Irish
parents, uncles and aunts. So I heard a lot of stories like that so it’s sort of easy for me
to fit into that role. Also I work in the sectarian nature of society that I grew up in
with Catholics, Protestants, Presbyterians, Anglicans, so I always have the children
say a prayer for the Protestant children, and tell them it’s not their fault, and the road
to get to heaven is rockier for them, so I use lots of those little things as I go...
What is more, they pass these features that emerge from the more indeterminate zones of
their professional engagement on to other teachers, those things that they say they learn on
the job: ‘That’s a skill I think you develop in the job that no matter what a child says, you
have to throw it back into the story and they do throw some funny ones at you...’. There is no
professional development program for the teachers in the program. In their interviews, they
indicate that they draw on their own knowledge of history, their own family histories, and
their experience of their own education (which they represent as being not very different in
the 1970s from the sort offered in the 1850s), and their books, certainly. But they also draw
on each other. Upon their arrival to take up their positions in the program, they shadow other
teachers, they talk to these more experienced other teachers, and they experiment with their
own approaches and style. In effect, they are themselves replicating the sort of teacher
training available in the 1850s, working as assistants to more experienced teachers, in a sort
of situated learning context of the sort described by Lave and Wenger (1994), where
apprentices are gradually drawn in to full professional undertakings in a staged process
towards a masterly standing. One of the teachers describes it this way:
We also, as professional teachers, pass it on to the next person. Like, if we’re
superseded, the next person [comes in and] we will teach them how we taught and
that will be their basis for the future and they develop their program by what they read
and see in other places.
They will also support each other while this is being developed. Jack Adams, Headmaster of
St Alipius, recalls that when he was new to the school, he was mentored by the then
Headteacher, Jeff Fyffe:
See when I first started, Jeff came in to my class for two days and he sat down and
critiqued me with six pages of writing. At the end of the day he said to me, ‘Why did
you do that? That’s not how they would have done it; you should do it that way’, and
they weren’t major things, they were small things but small things are major in a way.
So I felt that I had say fourteen years experience just in two days. So I incorporated a
lot of that, and of course my own personality comes out as well....
It is not an orchestrated and systematic program of education and training of the sort that the
teaching profession now regularly engages as part of their own development as teachers, but
it supports the program that relies on these teachers’ knowledge and understanding of
processes of teaching and learning in professional contexts. This is coupled with their own
acting skills. Jim Bond describes it: ‘From my understanding they’ve hit upon the right
formula: the teaching methodology’. He goes on to say, ‘Now that’s a difference in concept,
because they’re replicating a fairly authoritarian classroom setting...They’re acting. They’re
actors, fantastic actors...’. The data all indicate that, given the success of the program, this
assessment is correct. His comments are echoed by the children in their response sheets, one
of whom compliments their Sir: ‘You were very good, and you were very good at your part’.
Teachers research specific areas of their school’s offerings. The Ragged School
Headmistress, Marion Snowden, plays a different role in relation to these children’s
education from that of colleagues in the other schools:
...We determined that the poor children are as not as bright as the other children,
which we would have believed at the time; poor children will pick up manual labour.
The children of the more privileged will get the work with their brains, and I say that
to the boys. But we don’t have an Inspector, or a Vicar, or a Priest. We have the
doctor come in to do health checks. The visitors who are coming to me are also
coming to employ, but they want someone healthy, of course. So I tell them that I will
call the doctor in. And during that time the doctor goes around and has a look. He
doesn’t touch any of the children but has a look at hands, eyes, that sort of thing. And
I’ve written in the Health Book any child who might have coughed or sneezed, any
child who has the head close to the table when writing; their eyesight might be poor.
And the doctor gives remedies of the time, obviously the cow pat poultice for the
cough or shave their heads for the lice, and don’t drink goat’s milk, for goat’s milk
apparently encourages lice.
This positioning of the children of the poor as future labourers and other menials is not new,
and a well known feature of the 1850s and subsequent years. What is new to the children are
the remedies that are pressed upon them by teacher and doctor in a straight-faced manner,
suggestive of medical knowledge and fact that is in reality quite specious. As this Ma’am
explains it, ‘So we did research on funny little remedies, home remedies of the time, and the
doctor tells the children that. Rotten apples on the eyes for dim eyesight...things like this.
That’s quite amusing’. And indeed it is, for the children and the tourist visitors alike.
Current teachers in the program in their interviews display a wealth of history and education
knowledge in relation to their professional activities. This is part of a tradition established by
Maxine Berry, and carried on by a number of subsequent teachers. Past teachers in the
program have recorded their own responses to the challenges and rewards of teaching in it in
a charmingly clever and aptly titled booklet, Silver Threads among the Gold, produced in
2004 on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the program. It is a booklet which, as then
Headteacher Jeff Fyffe says, provides ‘an outline of the essence of a truly unique school’ (p.
6). A testament to its continuing and indeed growing success is the number of children
passing through the program. In 2008, there were 6,000 such children; in 2009 there were
6,400, and in 2010, the number had increased to 7,000, with the program solidly booked until
2013. The child’s cover drawing does suggest a lot of children as well.
8. POSITIONING THE CHILDREN
History doesn't repeat itself; at best it sometimes rhymes—Mark Twain
With all the complexities associated with setting up the experience for the children before
they even arrive at the Sovereign Hill Museum School and are allocated to the various
schools in the program taken care of, the children are then to be given detailed preparation for
what they will actually do over the next two days. They will play the role of the child
character they have created, and they will do this without ever breaking character while they
are on this large stage that is Sovereign Hill. It will by no means be a private performance.
They will be playing their roles in front of and in interaction with Sir or Ma’am and their
classmates, certainly, but they will also have their regular school teachers in costume and
playing the role of the visitor potential employer looking for a strong, healthy and honest
young lad or lass to employ in a menial role in their establishments. On top of this, there will
be the audience of the tourists, in large numbers, who will watch their performances in the
classroom, on the streets, in the shops, and at the gold panning creek, and who will
photograph and videotape these. Having been the object of authenticity so painstakingly
planned and designed, they will now become the subjects of it, and in a very public way.
They have their character, that character’s narrative, and behaviours and reactions within role
plays, with no rehearsal and no scope for any error, not even a seemingly simple one as
saying, ‘OK’, or asking Ma’am or Sir for a tissue. They are prepared for a two-day
performance in which they will live the narrative that they have created, entwining it with the
narrative that Sovereign Hill Museum School has created for them as well. It is a pedagogical
feat that is most remarkable, drawing on role play, narrative, history, and social interaction,
for public performance on a vast stage that is Sovereign Hill itself, constructed for the
purpose. A dimension of the experience as far as the children are concerned is best described
by Winter (2010), in her consideration of educational historical sites:
Most of the memorials and the landscape are devoid of explicit information, and
tourists visit places for pleasure and not for educational reasons. The use of emotion
through story telling is one technique for imparting information and encouraging
visitors to engage deeply with information at particular sites.
It is their story telling through the narratives of the characters that they have created that will
be instructive for themselves and for the public who make up the audience. They have
engaged a particular genre of reading and writing, that of historical fiction, in constructing
their character, learning as they do so that the success of producing this genre is based on a
depth of understanding of historical fact. The success or otherwise lies in the authenticity of
the materials engaged, and their understanding of it.
The teachers in their regular schools will have scaffolded their efforts in this regard. Prior to
their arrival to the program, they will have had the children engage in dimensions of reading
and writing consistent with Rosenblatt’s (1976) concept of a continuum of reading—
efferential to aesthetic—where efferential reading is for facts, information and data, and
aesthetic reading is for the sheer pleasure of it.
In getting the historical fact for their character, children engage the efferential reading that
non-fiction texts provide. Teachers say that they introduce children to such texts as The gold
fields (through the children’s eyes) (Ciddor, 1995), and Scott’s (1981) Bound for South
Australia, as well as visits to the library and examinations of primary sources, like the gold
licences that so inflamed miners in the lead up to the Eureka Rebellion. This then leads to
further explorations of books, such as those on the Eureka Rebellion produced for classroom
use. Teachers complement such reading with what they consider to most useful sources of
information provided in the information pack received from Sovereign Hill Museum School,
and their Web page (Sovereign Hill Museum Schools, 2009) (see also Appendix 1A).
Teachers turn to the artwork of S.T. Gill as well, for that is really the only authentic pictorial
record available to get a visual sense of life on the diggings. As one teacher puts it, they are
teaching:
Well History, I suppose, History and SOSE, and I do a lot of literacy. We do a lot of
work on the language on elements of change, perspective taking, a little bit of politics.
Some people believe that the Eureka Stockade was the seed of democracy, and other
people don’t. These are interesting perspectives, so we do that.
Another teacher uses a set of resources built up over the years as part of the preparation for
the children’s experience:
I’ve got resource kit that I use...things that I’ve gathered about Eureka and things like
that. Books, and then if you jump on the Internet you’ll get information fairly quickly
anyway. The other thing I do is I read stories to them, letters by people that were
written back then, so we do reading to the kids...to give them an idea of the sorts of
things that they will use when writing their own letters.
Teachers are consistent in their descriptions of the affective aspects of the experience as far
as their classes are concerned: ‘So they’re actually giving an experience that’s far better than
just reading about it’. One teacher, themselves committed to restorative practices in their own
classroom, comments on the importance of this:
...getting the kids really involved in how did the miners feel, how would you feel,
being subjected to having to pay a licence and you can’t even afford to eat and you
have to pay… . But what’s interesting too is they do play-act but I love the fact that
they have to stand up when people walk into the room and they have to tip their hat
they have to use the old fashioned manners and some of these kids would never be
expected [to otherwise]… it’s good, it’s real good.
Giving the children the aesthetic reading experience of reading beyond the facts, teachers use
class novel Read Alouds and independent reading sessions to extend children’s
understandings as they incorporate personal dimensions from the children’s literature
available to them. Schools in Ballarat itself will use local author Coleridge’s (2006) Gold
Fever, as well as a number of other such works, such as A banner bold: The diary of Rosa
Aarons (Wheatley, 2000), The night we made the flag: A Eureka story (Wilkinson &
Ciaffaglone, 2008), Journey to Eureka (Greenwood, 2005), and Fly a Rebel Flag (Annear,
2004). It is in the extension of efferential reading into the historical fiction literature and the
aesthetic reading response to it that the affective dimensions of the pedagogy employed are
engaged. The material in the information kit that clearly identifies suitable occupations for
boys and girls (see Appendices 1C and 1D) are not only factual. They also indicate to
children from the very outset that their characters’ futures will be circumscribed by social
convention, with no suggestion that this is anything but right. There is no suggestion of any
kind that this might be wrong...it just is. The children will also see that there is a different
naming convention involved: girls have ‘occupations’ while boys have ‘trades’. They will
see, too, that there are only two pages for such things for girls, but twice that number for
boys. Based on their efferential and aesthetic responses to the literature read in preparation
for their visit, the children go on to create the narrative that will figure so largely in their
experience of Sovereign Hill Museum School. Before they ever arrive there, children have
been scaffolded by systematic, orchestrated, and pedagogically informed processes and
procedures. They are ready to give their own meaning to those features of this aspect of the
Museum that, as Winter (2010) says, are ‘devoid of explicit information’, and themselves
play their part in the ‘use of emotion through story telling’ that will enable not only the
visitors to Sovereign Hill but also themselves to ‘[impart] information and
[encourage]visitors to engage deeply with information’. All of this complexity will underpin
the apparent simplicity of the experience captured in the drawing of the child that appears on
the cover.
9. PLAYING THE PART
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it—George Satayana
Out of the all the information the children have encountered about historical figures and the
conditions of their experience, a personal engagement proceeds. They have complied with the
Sovereign Hill Museum School requirement of a letter outlining their situation. The Principal,
Michael Ward, explains it this way:
Before they come and visit us, they have to write us a letter and in that letter, they
have to tell us what country they come from, what their mother and father did for a
living, what sort of dwelling they live in and what the journey was like out… so they
had to do some research before they come to us. Now that story differs from school to
school, so if they come to the St Alipius Catholic school then their story is different
because their background is usually poor, Catholic, from Ireland, escaping the
dreaded English or the potato famine, and they have to have a county that they come
from in Ireland. The children that go to the Ragged School have to have a background
of being terribly poor and perhaps orphans and they have to write in a letter about
their terrible circumstances that led them to go to the Ragged School.
From all the ‘they’ and ‘them’, with some ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘him’ and her’ of the historical record,
emerges an ‘I’ and ‘me’ character to develop and enact. They still need to get into the
character, and this occurs upon arrival at Sovereign Hill, in the dressing room in which they
are costumed. The Headmaster of St Alipius, for example, tells the children, ‘You have
already started your parts in the museum when you wrote your letters. Now, in your letters,
you developed what we call a persona, a character. You became someone’. Each of the
Headmasters and Headmistresses of each of the schools prepares the children in similar ways
with similar words in their introductory talk, taking up the roles of directors, and then
dressers, of the costumed role play that the children will engage over the next two days.
Now they are ready to approach the stage upon which to play that someone that they have
already started to become, as they begin the costuming process. The importance of this
cannot be underestimated. The children will find themselves among a number of others
similarly costumed—their Ma’am and their Sir, the troopers, the shopkeepers, the
tradespeople, the professionals, the drivers, the labours, the miners—all members of the large
cast that will support their own performances. The only people not in costume are the
tourists, their audience.
Maxine Berry describes the importance of this part of the process:
Once the children put that costume on, they change. It is that move from being a
2000s child. Suddenly, you can’t speak unless you’re spoken to, suddenly it’s much
better if you doffed your cap should you be a boy, and the ‘Yes please’ and ‘No thank
you’ of the manners. They instantly seem to return, not that they’ve gone with all of
them, so the costuming seems to be a sort of demarcation and once you step outside
that door you’re very much on display as an employee of Sovereign Hill.
This is made explicit to each group of children before they even don the costumes that have
been provided or enter the museum itself, as Sir tells them, ‘This is a living museum. It’s the
only one of its kind in the world, and you are exhibits. In your role as exhibits there are
clearly defined roles that you will play’. This has profound implications that are by no means
lost on the children, and their reactions to this information tends towards invoking a
seriousness that replaces the excitement of just minutes before, when they entered the
dressing room of their set. Their Sir goes on:
The next time you walk out of this building, you are not going to be children of 2009.
The next time you walk out of this little gate, you are going to be young ladies of the
eighteen-fifties and you are going to be young gentlemen of the eighteen fifties and
you are going to be expected to behave in that manner. But I don’t say those words
lightly. You’re going to be expected to behave in that manner because over the next
two days you are going to be watched by people from all parts of the world and
they’re going to be watching you with their eyes and they’re going to be watching you
with their cameras, so you need to know how to walk like a child of the eighteenfifties and talk like a child of the eighteen-fifties and how to be that child.
Details are emphasised: no wrist watches, or bracelets or bands of any kind on the wrists; no
cameras; no money in pockets; no baubles in hair; no nail polish; no socks with cartoon
characters or any other non-19th century characteristics; no jewellery; no additions of any
kind to the costumes being distributed. They are told that tourists will ask to take their photos,
and that these photos will be part of visitors’ records of their travels in Australia. Children are
immediately positioned as full time actors on a large stage, and their costumes, demeanour
and behaviour are to be as authentic as the performances they are to give over the next two
days. It is a great responsibility that they are to bear:
Words like ‘OK’ are not to be used. You will say things like, ‘Thank you very much’,
or, ‘Much obliged’. That is your role to play, because people come from all over the
world to see this. And you, no doubt, will end up in their photo albums or their
mantelpieces in Argentina, Canada, the Greek Islands, South Africa. You will be a
part of people’s experience when they come here. ...You will be very respectful.
Reasons for the costumes add to the effect on the children in their preparation, especially as
Sir or Ma’am adds some of their own character’s script to the process, and especially as far as
the girls are concerned:
Girls, if you look over your shoulders you will see your costume. Once you put your
costume on, girls, you will feel like a child of the diggings. You will walk like a child
of the diggings. Now look this way girls. This is your dress. You would have one
good dress for your Sunday best, to wear to Mass where you would say your prayers
and worship the Lord. You would meet outside the church with the congregation and
the older girls, you would meet up with your young man, and so you would have your
good dress on for Sundays. But during the week you wear your other dress, one like
this one. Of course, things are going to get a little bit dirty in this building, so I’ll give
you a pinafore, so you can wash this out of a night time and by the morning it would
be dry. You can’t wash this dress out because it would be damp in the morning.
Next are your pantalettes. Now boys, you need not pay any attention to girls’
undergarments. Your pantalettes are there not for warmth, girls, but they make a big
difference to how you walk. They’re there for modesty, because we cannot show skin
that is not absolutely necessary. If you were a grown woman, such as Ma’am here,
you would wear a dress down to your ankles. Now, there’s a reticule here for you
girls, and you carry it on your arm. Now this morning, I think I’ll give you a cape. I
don’t think that you’ll need a bonnet today as it’s not very hot and sunny, but on
sunny days a bonnet would keep the harsh rays of the sun of your face to keep your
peaches and cream complexion.
The boys’ costumes are a matter of shirts, trousers, and caps, with appropriate details given
for the wearing of them:
Boys, you’ll see your trousers. On top of your trousers there is a shirt. It is a miner’s
shirt. Notice it is buttoned up at all points, at the sleeves and at the collar .You do not
have your sleeves rolled up or your top button undone at the collar. Now underneath
your shirt you will see your knickerbockers. This is a short pair of trousers. Next to
your trousers you will see your neckerchief. That goes around the collar of your shirt.
You tie the ends in knots and you’ll start to look like young gentlemen of the
diggings. But there’s your cap, and your cap is to be worn out of doors at all times. It
is never worn indoors. The cap is also not worn when speaking to an adult.... Now
boys I’ll also give you jackets this morning as it’s a little chilly.
This stepping into the costume is more than dressing a part, as Roger O’Connor, who plays
the role of the St Alipius Priest/Inspector, points out, ‘...You will find that every time an actor
puts on a costume he will walk the part, he steps in it himself, and he will walk the role, he
will walk that character’. Observing the children go through the process of dressing, the
words of the actor ring true. It is a comment that runs throughout the interviews with adults
and children alike. One thing that helps in achieving this result is Sir or Ma’am stepping out
of the role as dresser and into that of director, adding stage instructions to the process:
Girls, your education is not highly regarded. Yes you must learn how to read so you
can read letters that come [from the home country] to find out about your relations
back there, and your sums and your tables so that you know the right change when
you go to the grocer’s to buy your supplies to cook with. Because your brains aren’t
as big as boys’, your fate in life is to be mothers, bring children into the world, new
life into the world, but your education is considered a waste after Grade 5. Money is
short, not to be wasted on girls’ education.
Boys, your education is highly regarded. Perhaps your parents back in [the home
country] had no education at all, some of them. Some of them spent their lives trying
to survive cold winters. Now they see this as a chance for you, the future. You have a
chance to make something of yourselves, so your education is prized.
The girls’ inclination to object has already been muffled by the costume and the instructions
so far, but they have not been asked to speak, so they content themselves with looks of
outrage directed at Sir or Ma’am, and exchanged with each other. The boys look rather smug.
The caveat that follows does not really help, but the girls are somewhat mollified:
Girls, you will be treated with the utmost respect at all times by the boys. You are
ladies. You will always enter a room first as you did this morning. You will be shown
preference by the boys. Now boys, you may be thinking that this is going to be a bit of
a challenge...not at all. You in fact will enjoy becoming a young gentleman. You will
enjoy stepping back so that girls may go first, and if you see one of your friends who
does not show good manners and courtesy to any one of the young ladies, you will
remind that person to stand back, as any young gentleman would. You will enjoy
becoming a gentleman.
They do not really seem to believe this, but again, their opinion has not been asked for. There
is no discussion of any of this, as they might expect to have occurred in their regular schools,
and the dressing continues in disciplined fashion until they are lined at the little gate, ready to
do exactly as Sir or Ma’am has instructed, until they find themselves lined up in orderly rows
at the school door, just as the picture on the cover suggests.
10. THE EXTRAS
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination—Albert Einstein
Imagination is not part of 1850s schooling if Dickens’ (1907) representation of it in his 1854
publication, Hard times is anything to go by, but it is integral to affective engagement with
learning. Abrahamson (1998) makes an important point about affective learning:
The best methodology for education is not simply the use of didactic instruction, for it
needs to be an awakening and moving experience in order for the content to have
meaning for the learner (p. 442).
The children, having been addressed and dressed in the ways I have described, have engaged
just this sort of ‘awakening’, and the words used by their Ma’am or Sir at the very outset has
set the stage for that type of ‘moving experience’ to which Abrahamson refers. The days of
the Sovereign Hill Museum School experience has yet another dimension to its program to
build on what has been established at the outset. As in any large scale theatrical production,
there are the stars, the supporting cast, and the extras. In the case of the performance the
children are to give, they have not only Sir or Ma’am in their role plays but also the District
Inspector, a role play taken up by the Deputy CEO and Museum Director of Sovereign Hill,
professional actors playing the roles of the Priest, the Vicar, and the Doctor, and the
children’s regular school teachers playing the roles of employers coming to visit to select a
child from the school to enter a trade or service of some kind. Several of the people involved
with the program refer to the whole of Sovereign Hill as one big film set, an enormous stage
in which the role plays are performed. They are not teachers themselves in the sense of a
school-based profession, but enter the school room that is part of the larger set to play their
parts, and to enable the children to interact in an extension of the role plays they have already
developed. Just as the children have received their set of stage directions from their Sir or
Ma’am, so too have the actors that play the cameo roles in this particular production. So too
do they engage in unscripted and undirected performances. I have already referred to these,
and their own comments on what they do are illuminating.
The District Inspector of Red Hill National School is played by the Museums Director and
Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Sovereign Hill, Tim Sullivan. As a School Council
member as well, he has taken a keen interest in the school not just as part of the living
museum concept that is Sovereign Hill, but also the suggestive possibilities of affective
learning, that emotional engagement that presents itself to the children involved. As he puts
it:
That’s empathy. What I hope that they get out of it is that they understand that people
in the past have had to make decisions about their lives. Some of those decisions they
got right, some they got wrong. Some we would not make today, some we would not
even think about today, parameters for making decisions, such as what happens with
girls? What will they find to give some useful purpose to their lives? All of that is so
different. So it’s empathy that I hope they will build up for other people who basically
created the heritage...that defines our identity.
In doing this, he has adopted the role of the bullying, blustering District Inspector, without
any of the kindliness that the actor, Roger O’Connor, has brought to his role as Fr Dowling,
the Inspector at St Alipius. Tim Sullivan, as the District Inspector, browbeats Sir, and he does
this in front of the children. He questions Sir’s competence and devotion to duty. He inspects
the children’s work as it is held up under their chins, and they sing the song, do a poem, show
their writing and the girls show their needlework—‘So it’s almost like the whole of the
program coming together with that District Inspector’—and the children are left in no doubt
about the level of his dissatisfaction. The point he makes clear is that he is not dissatisfied
with them, but with Sir: ‘...You can just see that kids start to identify with somebody who’s in
trouble... actually start to see others who are also in trouble, like the teacher’. Asked what he
draws on to help to create the role he plays, he says:
...We’re briefed pretty well by the teachers about what they’re expecting, and the
District Inspectors of the day were quite characters, you know. You read about some
very stern disciplinarians and setting exacting standards for the teachers that the
teachers could never quite measure up to. I mean it’s the poorest form of management
that you could do today. So the teachers have asked the District Inspectors to be quite
hard on them, because during the course of the program the teacher will have brought
that up, so that when the District Inspector arrives, this is the moment that everybody
is striving for. It does provide something of a peak in the visit, because it’s always on
the second day and it’s always towards the end. It’s also the means where the students
are then able to demonstrate what they’ve learned, things like memorising the 17
times tables.
Then, of course, the Inspector throws everyone off balance by asking for the 18 times table,
which nobody has learned, but the children rally as best they can, for they can see that Sir is
in trouble, and they want to help. They have themselves been publicly upbraided for being
wanting in the standards of ‘discipline and repetition’ and now Sir is being similarly treated,
with the very real prospect of his stipend not only just not being increased, but reduced, and
he with Mrs Sir and their large brood being reduced to penury. The audio and video tapes of
these episodes do not show any child responding with any sense of glee or satisfaction that
Sir is being publicly chastened by his boss. Rather, the opposite is the case, suggesting that
Michael Ward’s comment on that part of the program rings true: ‘I think they feel empathy
for poor old Sir’. And they do. When asked why they reacted in such a supportive way to Sir
when he was being so badly treated by the District Inspector, one child explained, a little
hesitantly as they tried to find the words in which to phrase this feeling: ‘So he wouldn’t be
that worried because we, cause like I was shocked at how worried he felt. I just wanted him
to be how he was…cause we wanted to help him to get his pay…’.
It is the stated intention of Tim Sullivan to engage the children on this sort of affective level,
and the children’s response sheets show that he and the Vicar, at least, have achieved the
intended outcome. One of the children, taking up the invitation to draw their responses to the
experience of the Sovereign Hill Museum School, chose to draw the District Inspector. I have
reproduced his picture below, not only because it suggests the impact that this, of all the
things experienced by this child at his time at his school, has had on the child, but also
because of the uncanny likeness of features and personality that the child has managed to
achieve.
Picture10: The district Inspector
Actor Barry Kay, playing a similarly hectoring role as the Vicar who is the Inspector for St
Peter’s, has a similar view of his role as that of Tim Sullivan:
For me the chance for these children not just to read about it or watch on a screen...to
be able to have a chance to get inside of it and get something out if it...is what’s
important.
He has been briefed by the teachers on the role he is to play, and how to play it, but he also
draws on his own knowledge of theatre and acting, with a depth of knowledge, as he says,
based on the works of such people as Bertolt Brecht and his Mother Courage and Augusto
Boal and his Theatre of the Oppressed. He draws on his own knowledge of the behaviours
and manners of the period:
Dickens and all of that sort of thing. Absolutely. Absolutely. Just love Dickens and
those fantastic BBC productions of Dickens and Trollope and so on. They are
fantastic because they are always incredibly well researched and the actors and set
designers and so on are working very enthusiastically to try to create a world.
The Vicar also browbeats the teacher, and Ma’am is publicly chastised for various remissions
in the ‘discipline and repetition’ area. The Vicar, though, adds the little detail of a child’s
praise for Ma’am being a major contributing factor to his displeasure with her, resulting in a
reduction of her stipend, and the audio tapes capture the sense of outrage among the children
for such a patently unfair action. This Ma’am, Sheryn Mitchell, says that the reaction is a
common one, and tells the story of one child in particular:
When he left the Vicar said that he was going to reduce my pay. And the boy who had
caused the disruption, he got up and he said, ‘Sorry Sir, look it is all my fault. Ma’am
is a very good teacher’. So you get those emotions coming out.
Actor Roger O’Connor, the Fr Dowling of the piece, has taken quite a different approach. He
has been briefed by the teachers, certainly, but his performance is based on the real Inspector
Priest, Fr Matthew Dowling, and the research into this character, as he says: ‘From the
history books. Oh yes, on the records. Yes, through the archives, the public records office of
Victoria and through the church’. In his interview, Roger O’Connor starts his description of
his character with the pronoun, ‘he’, and slips effortlessly back into his role as his description
proceeds, with the use of ‘I’:
He was the first priest here in Ballarat. He was responsible for building this church
and forming this school. He also was responsible for St Pat’s Cathedral, here in
Ballarat later on, 20 years later. He was also here for the Eureka uprising and Fr
Patrick Smyth, who was the new parish priest, albeit a very young one and
inexperienced, as you may imagine, he was only in his, well he’d barely come out
from Ireland from the seminary. So when the bishop heard of the troubles forming
here on the goldfield, he knew Fr Smyth would need some assistance. I’d been sent to
Kilmore after here. And I was brought back to assist Fr Smyth during the troubles that
we had here, but I was the first priest and then, would travel great distances, on
horseback.
Having researched his character in some detail, Roger O’Connor simply could not play the
role of a hellfire and brimstone priest, ‘Because Father Matthew Dowling, of the role that I
play, was not that kind of priest’. The attention to details of authenticity in the case of the
extras in the cast is not lost.
The Ragged School does not come under an inspectorate, being funded by the Benevolent
Asylum, but as that school’s Headmistress, Marion Snowden, points out, that makes the role
of the Doctor one of some importance. The ill health that accompanies the very real poverty
and the squalor of the 1850s diggings is the focus of that character. Ian Burton is the actor
who plays that role, and he draws on his own 40-odd years of experience in public
performance as well as the research that has been done in relation to ailments and their
remedies. His role is patched together in a combination of teacher briefing and consulting
such books as are available on 1850s ailments and their remedies. He, for example, refers to
one child as having ‘a touch of the rickets’ with an assumed knowledgable demeanour
completely unsupported by any reference to anything legitimately medical, and the children
and Ma’am play along with all of this. Asked what he was drawing on for the development of
his character, Ian Burton says, ‘Well the teacher, she helped me for a lot of the scripts part of
it. And a lot of it I’ve read from the books, the books we’ve got here’. A Sir or a Ma’am will
also go into this sort of medical realm:
Stand up, move over there, sit, sit! I can solve headaches too you know. I fixed your
hiccups yesterday didn’t I and I’ll fix your headache in a minute too...There’s a
huntsman spider in the outhouse and we get the spider and we pull the legs off, put the
body into a glass of water and you drink the water letting the body of the spider bob
up against your upper lip and that will stop your hiccups instantly. Right children, all
eyes to the board as we begin to read this first proverb.
Even so, there is still this character of the Ragged School Doctor to develop, one suitable for
the context of a Benevolent Asylum school for orphaned and poor children, and one that is
different from the more opulent Vicar, the kindly Priest, and the state-employed District
Inspector. Ian Burton draws upon an actual resident of the diggings, a certain Dr Duck, to
help him to round his character. He too slips into ‘I’ in his references to that character:
When they first asked me to play a doctor, I didn’t have much of a clue what was
happening, and I play one of the fellows at the time, who wasn’t really a doctor. They
call me Dr Duck. They say I’m a quack. Dr Duck. I was Quack at the time, you know.
I even tell people that I studied for 6 months, on the boat trip out here.
The children take centre stage with this visitor, being told ludicrous things to do, but the
children respond by staying in character, and not questioning any of it. Marion Snowden adds
her comments:
I tell my children they’re going to be three things. As I go along I explain to my
children that they’re going to be actors, and they’re going to be acting in the role of
the person they have written their letter about. I tell them they’re going to be pupils;
they’re going to learn the three Rs and how important it is for the boys in particular;
and I tell them they are going to be teachers. They are going to teach people from all
around the world how a child of the 1850s behaves and learns.
Perhaps this is why the Doctor can have them agree to do the things that he suggests, which
Ma’am herself seems to find good advice. This is even at the same time as that Ma’am
berates them: ‘Girls, what sort of mothers are you going to make? Poor mothers not only
because you don’t have any money!’. Ian Burton knows that the class he is addressing is a
group of intelligent children, but, as he says, ‘It’s all in good fun...They talk about this, you
know, when they go home. I’ve heard about this...that doctor chap’. Indeed they do, as their
comments on their response sheets show. They record their impressions as responses to that
approach of the actor (‘Did you notice that I patted him on the arm and I gave him a little
wink to let him know I was playacting?’) on their response sheets as being funny and
enjoyable. As one child pointed out on his response sheet: ‘The freckle cure worked. I
haven’t got any freckles. Ha ha ha’.
It is notable that not one of the children refers to feeling scared as far as the Doctor’s visit is
concerned, even if he does enter with a certain swagger and a thump as he drops his medical
bag on the floor on entry. In similar vein, none of them refers to being scared of the Priest,
while the Vicar and the District Inspector are ‘scary’ to them: 15% of the children refer to
this, even as they say they know that these are also actors engaged in role playing. Ragged
School Headmistress Marion Snowden has visited a number of other museum schools abroad,
particularly in England. As she points out, ‘I’ve seen actors used as sessional teachers and
although they’re probably good at playing a role, they are not school teachers’. It is the
combination of school teacher actors and their actor extras that gives this Sovereign Hill
Museum School program the edge. Play acting, hectoring, blustering, humour, and careful
briefing and research mark the role playing of the extras in the performance, grist to the role
playing mill of the children as they engage dimensions of learning and developing knowledge
on affective levels.
10.
Visiting School Teachers Responding
All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players—Shakespeare
The regular schoolteachers enter the role play as part of their engagement with the Sovereign
Hill Museum School program. Women teachers are costumed in crinolines and bonnets made
from patterns of the 1850s by the Costume Department at Sovereign Hill, and men are
costumed in frock coats, weskits and top hats from the same Department. They too are
required to remove watches, cameras and mobile phones while they are in character, and
carry canes and reticules as appropriate. They are briefed by their Ma’am or Sir in similar
fashion to the children regarding their roles, and play the roles allocated in strict adherence to
the demands of authenticity. They cannot show that they know the children, or acknowledge
any 21st century dimensions of their relationship. They are visiting to select a potential menial
for their own operations in the trades and businesses associated with the diggings, and they
do not deviate from their brief:
And I’m not there when some of the girls get changed. When I come back I’m in
character too. So they’ll be looking at me trying to make eye contact...Oh where’s our
rapport? Look at Ma’am...listen to what she’s saying! So I don’t do the eye contact. I
just interact with Ma’am. They do see me on that first day, kind of a little bit of, ‘Oh
my goodness’. They get grounded in it, like they really do get it viscerally, the
experience.
Like everybody else involved in this performance, regular classroom teachers have no script
to follow and must create their dialogue on the run, just as the children are doing, in their
responses to leads given by Sir, Ma’am, and whatever Inspector turns up.
They have done similar preparation to the children as far as researching goldfields history is
concerned, but they have done this with a view of developing teaching and learning materials
and activities for the children in their grades. Each teacher interviewed had a folder or
information pack of materials they have developed, usually over several years, and each
would draw on this for their classes. Where they have found excerpts from history books to
be particularly helpful, they have put together collections of variously-sourced materials for
classroom use: ‘So when they write their letters they have some background knowledge of
what the trip over was like back then and what life was like... and the Eureka Rebellion and
the laws...’. Each refers to the helpfulness of the Sovereign Hill web site, and the information
pack received at the time of their booking into the program being confirmed:
We get a pack from Sovereign Hill that gives us some ideas and we start to talk about
what life was like and sort of read some stories, novels, anything we can get our hands
on to prepare the children so there’s sheets from Sovereign Hill that talk about the
Irish famine and how people lived and with the things like life and that sort of thing.
Their focus is in helping the children, ‘especially in giving background to writing their letters
to explain what it was like at that time’, as one teacher puts it. These classroom teachers
constitute more of those knowledgable others who scaffold the children’s learning, devising
and resourcing teaching and learning activities, preparing the ground for the Sovereign Hill
Museum School experience for their classes. Part of the preparation is an introduction to
primary sources of the 1850s in the form of the letters and diaries that have survived, in a
systematic and orchestrated program of those dimensions of history that are based on
people’s lives and experiences, and not just on significant political, social and economic
events. Teachers pursuing this aspect of their preparations are anticipating the National
Curriculum’s (ACARA, 2010) stated aims for its incoming History curriculum: ‘Capacity to
undertake historical enquiry, including skills in the analysis and use of sources,
communication and explanation’ (p. 1). One teacher describes the preparatory sessions:
They write their letter and they can actually add things in the letter. And we do
mapping and looking at the world and how the children come, what routes the ships
might have taken, around the South Pole and the use the Roaring Forties. So they do a
lot of things like that. We do group work with this book, The Eureka Rebellion, the
Barry Sheppard. Each group of kids had a chapter each and they had to retell the story
in their own words after looking at what happened, you know, trying to get it together,
and in that that’s where we talked about original primary sources and secondary
sources and so they can sort of see how much richer a primary source is and how
you’ve got to apply from other knowledge of the time.
The classroom teachers have taken up the pedagogical approach of the Sovereign Hill
Museum School program, supporting it with their own attention to details of factual
correctness and authenticity before the children ever step into their costumes. This distinction
between and use of primary and secondary sources is being done at a time when the History
of the National Curriculum is still in its formulation stages, and when VELS represents it as a
component of Humanities. Given the attention to detail that has been established, the children
are well prepared for the factual bases of what is to come, but they are still to experience its
affective dimensions. As one teacher says:
It’s just amazing when the kids put on the clothes...it’s like they’re transformed by
putting those clothes on. So they’ll come in all dressed up, being met by Sir or Ma’am
at the gate, quite stern, straight from the get-go, treating them like they’re in the
1850s. And their eyes go wide, and they kind of take it all in....
One teacher, describing the one thing that they found most productive about the experience,
says, ‘I think it’s the authenticity of the experience, that they’re in a similar room, the dress
and the manners [of the 1850s]. That transports them into another world’. There are the facts
about the potato famine, certainly, and the Eureka Stockade and its flag, the gold licence
problems, and so on, but the teacher focus goes beyond the factual events and into the
personal domains of the everyday people that experienced all or any of these things. The
historical fiction, itself derived from careful historical research by the authors and illustrators,
rounds out that factual basis of classroom programs, and supports teacher preparation of
children for the role plays they will be doing out of the narratives they have created. As one
of the teachers puts it:
They’re very aware that it’s a role play, and we’ve had to drum it into them so that
they will see that this is what it was like. That these teachers are not actually being
strict, go along with it, role play, do what she says, but they know that they are not
going to get the strap, so it’s very different.
What is more, they build on this when they return to their schools. The teachers and the
children who have been interviewed as part of this research have allowed me access to some
of the work they have produced upon their returns to their own classrooms. I have been
privileged to have been allowed to examine the posters they have made and displayed for the
edification of others in their school, to read what they have written in their journals and log
books, and even been given copies of CD-ROMs the children have made. One in particular
has the children filmed in full, bright, modern colour, with the film then treated to produce
sepia tinted versions of it as a visual nod to historical dimensions of the recording. Others use
the experience as the basis for their school assembly presentations, and further classroom
work. Back at their own schools, children respond in different ways: ‘We usually do a
reflection’; ‘We have lots of discussion about what was different and how to perceive [this]’;
‘We do a photo story’; ‘They will take photos of it and they create a music with the slides to
go with it’; ‘They create a movie. They put text to it, they talk about it, and we’ll pick a few
to show at assembly’.
What is perhaps most remarkable is the lasting impression made on the children. This was a
constant feature of the interviews with the adults involved in the program. The Sirs and
Ma’ams recount stories of visits from parents of children on current visits who remember the
experience from their own childhoods. Tim Sullivan says:
We now see an intergenerational market where we’ll see parents arrive at the school
with their young children and they’re saying, ‘When I was your age I was in there...’
and there is recall across almost a generation of experience which has been really
positive for us. It is so deep and strong and I believe it’s because of the emotional
content of that visit.
Given the children’s own recordings of just how intensely emotional their visit has been, he
has some grounds for this belief of his. Jim Bond has also pointed this out: ‘There was a
lovely story the other day about how, because it’s being going so long, there’s now
generations of kids coming back as adults, bringing their own families back’. One of the
teachers refers to this as well: ‘It’s such a fantastic experience. And they just want to go back
and do it again, every one of them’.
This applies to what might be described as the naughty children as well. Another common
thread running through the interviews addresses this issue of such children. Tim Sullivan
points this out:
Applying an1850s curriculum in which the teaching method is direct instruction, and
with rules that provide a tight framework for the style and language of interaction
with peers and adults, many students find a safe and predictable environment in which
to shine. Visiting teachers often comment on how they are surprised in their
expectations of students with difficulties in social interactions in the classroom find
opportunity to contribute...students have discovered something of—and in—
themselves in emotional and social resilience...showing that not only does the
Sovereign Hill [Museum] School program achieve significant outcomes in learning
about Australian history, but there are very important personal and interpersonal
learning outcomes being achieved.
The teachers themselves take a professional view of the issue, not singling out so-called
naughty children but representing this as part of a teaching skills package. It is one of those
indeterminate zones of professional practice to which Schön (1987, 1990) refers, that ability
to exercise professional judgment based on the development of a professional eye for these
things.
Sometimes the teachers who come to visit us say, ‘It’s amazing how quickly you have
picked that child out or you picked that child or that child’... It may be someone
who’s noisy who we’re trying to quieten down. It may be someone who’s quiet but
we’re trying to draw out, so that that person can achieve success on their own level.
And the teachers often say that it’s amazing that you’ve picked that child out. It’s not
amazing to us because children always have a sign that they’re horrid. ‘I’m naughty
settle me down; I’m quiet, bring me in’. We certainly are working on their emotions
and we take children out of their comfort zone and we take great pride in being able to
see these children come out of their comfort zone, whether that means that they have
to rein their exuberance in or whether they have to come out of themselves. We take
great pride in each child being able to deal with the situation. I think we’ve all said
that at times.
They have indeed, and not only they. Tim Sullivan makes the same point, based on his actor
role observations of the Sirs and Ma’ams: ‘...Their enormous skill is in reading the children;
reading the individual children, reading the group, reading the teachers that come with them’.
It is the so-called naughty children, though, that are most notable in the comments made by
their regular classroom teachers, their parents, and the Sirs and Ma’ams. Principal Michael
Ward makes this point on a recurring theme:
There’s no open ended stuff at our school, it’s very strict and it’s very straight down
the line and boys who have a lot of difficulty in classrooms seem to appreciate that.
It’s amazing like when we get the kids who are the [worst] behaved kids…
And, as another Sir says, boys, in particular those who have trouble concentrating and
conforming to classroom conventions on the outside, ‘...Thrive in it because the parameters
are so tight, the boundaries are so rigid, the learning is simple and it’s directed’. Staff will
occasionally but rarely have particular children pointed out to them by regular classroom
teachers as potentially posing some behavioural concerns, or perhaps a condition such as
Asperger Syndrome or autism. In relation to this last, one Ma’am says, ‘Autism. I’m not sure
how it works, they’ll be just loving this because it’s so direct and structured and they know
exactly you’re doing, what’s going to come next and how to do it’. Another agrees:
It happens a lot, a teacher gets very frustrated with children with behaviour problems
then they come here and they’re perfect. The only thing you could put it down to or I
could put it down to is, one is that they’re all in the same costume, they all look the
same, and the second thing is there is a structure. They don’t have to be creative, they
don’t have to do anything accept what they are told to do and they can do that.
One of the Sirs has been approached by a parent who wanted his son as a regularly enrolled
student at his school because no other school had up to that point in any way been able to
capture that child’s interest, or to have him act upon it, in the ways he was exhibiting under
the tutelage of this Sir. This was a parent taking the role play beyond its logical parameters,
to the point of forgetting that it was not a real school in the sense that he was taking it, but it
does make the point. Principal Michael Ward says that the selection of the recipient of the
medallion at the end of the program is most illustrative of this feature of the program:
The medallion is awarded to the child who is best at role play during the program.
The visiting teachers and the Sovereign Hill teacher consult to choose the child.
Often the visiting teachers express amazement at some students who are difficult to
manage back at school but in the context of the role play behave impeccably for the
two days they are in a school of the 1850s. Many students who have Asperger
Syndrome thrive in our program because of the rigid boundaries that we maintain
during the two days. We, on many occasions, aren't quite sure who the children with
learning difficulties or disabilities are because they blend in so well and find the
simplicity of the tasks required easier to cope with the diverse range of skills needed
to cope in a modern day classroom. Our adage of ‘You learn by discipline and
repetition’ sits well with them.
Not only parents and visiting teachers, but tourists who observe the role play of the children
and the Sirs, Ma’ams and various Inspectors, respond in most positive ways to what they see.
Observing their responses, one is struck by their knowing smiles, their nods of approval when
a child is called upon to perform or to be disciplined, and their barely restrained glee when
Sir or Ma’am works up to the highest levels of stridency in their demands on the children
before them. Tourist visitors describe their experience using expressions like ‘delightful’,
‘terrific’, and ‘most enjoyable’. Others, while obviously enjoying the spectacle, refer to the
desirability of ‘parts of it’, but ‘I’d rather have the system they’ve got now’. When asked for
details of what produced their reaction, each comments on the attractiveness of children being
so strictly disciplined. Role play or not, they all consider that ‘there should be more of it
nowadays’, as one put it. Perhaps more tellingly, they respond on the basis of their being able
to recognise elements of their own schools experience: ‘My own schooling, it was a little bit
like that because I was at school in England...It was all directed from the teacher’. One
describes an empathetic response to what they observed:
I remember growing up with a lot of anxiety because for probably the first couple of
years of [my] schooling that was like that, and I don’t think I showed a great deal of
initiative because I was always so very conscious of just doing what the teacher
wanted me to do and to do the right thing.
For this tourist visitor, it is not just a matter of an historical perspective on education, but a
matter of reliving their own experience of their schooling, and an unpleasant one at that.
Another tourist visitor said of their visit to St Alipius: ‘The nuns were just like that...they
scared the living daylights out of you and talked to you like that. You were just so scared of
them’. At the same, recollections of such experiences of their own, while they have added
another level of engagement with what they see, have also reaffirmed their endorsement of
more of the ‘repetition and discipline’ pedagogy that they see played out. Jim Bond makes an
important point in this regard:
People my age in Australia, I certainly remember the discipline, people that were left
handed being discouraged. I remember curriculum being different for boys and girls,
and history gives you a greater appreciation of how it changed, and why it needed to
change, to a large extent...these tourists are recalling elements of those traditions.
We’re talking tourists from anywhere in the world. How would they compare their
experiences? People are approaching a point in history very dominated by tradition.
That point is not so very far removed from the reality of tourists’ own experiences. One of
them has a particularly relevant memory in this regard:
I’m not that old, but I remember being in Grade 2 and having a very old teacher, Mrs.
..., and she went so far as to actually tie a child’s left hand behind a chair, so he was
forced to write with his right hand.
They are caught up in the moment of what they too refer to as ‘olden days schooling’, just as
a number of the children are. They are ready for that momentary suspension of disbelief that
is required for enjoyment and appreciation of any good theatre, and in this case derive
pleasure as part of an audience. Their engagement is on an affective level, in similar fashion
to that of the children, but the tourists interviewed are drawing upon their own personal
histories in their responses, even as they say, ‘Ah, this is how schools should be’. What they
see is the parent or caregiver handing over their children to such a system with some
satisfaction: ‘It’s to do with discipline or self discipline. I guess what’s what it’s all about it.
We need more of it now. Oh Yeah’. Just like all those children lined up in front of the school,
in the front cover drawing, perhaps?
10. School Council Reports
It should be known that history is a discipline that has a great number of approaches— Ibn Khalduin
of Tunis
The Sovereign Hill Museum School is a registered school with the Victorian Department of
Education and Early Childhood Development, School No: 5181. It is required have a
constituted School Council, an annual implementation plan, and school reviews (Sovereign
Hill Museum School Annual Report may be accessed at http://www.vrqa.vic.gov.au/SReg/,
and is given in Appendix 8). Reporting to the School Council is a requirement of all
registered schools. How to do this, given the uniqueness of the program, has required a
unique response to this requirement. There is the usual sort of agenda, itemising attendance,
apologies, minutes, business arising, correspondence and reports. There are the finance,
building and maintenance, Headteacher, and individual Headmaster and Headmistress
reports, all minuted by the School Council secretary. Notable events are recorded as well,
such as the visit of Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, being
greeted by the attending children on the occasion of their visit to Sovereign Hill in 2000, and
the actual 2010 Melbourne Cup being brought to Sovereign Hill as part of the 150th year
celebrations of that event.
It is when the meeting comes to the individual Headmaster and Headmistress reports that the
meetings really become interesting, for the method adopted for these is essentially a series of
anecdotes that constitute the details of the larger narrative of the entire program. The power
of the anecdote is not to be underestimated, for as van Manen (1989) argues, ‘...in everyday
life the anecdote is probably the most common device by which people talk about their
experiences [which] allows the person to reflect in a concrete way on experience ...’, making
the argument that ‘To anecdote is to reflect, to think’ (p. 232). Anecdotes presented at the
School Council meetings enable all present to proceed on the basis of shared understandings
of what the teachers in the program are doing, and what success they are having, or not.
These are all part of the public record as minuted at each meeting, and tend to follow similar
patterns each time they are presented to each meeting, so I have not repeated them here. The
anecdotes are generally amusing, as in the following:
...A young recently married Japanese couple arrived in the school yard with their own
photographer. The photographer asked if the couple could have their photo taken with
the group. Always trying to keep the tourists happy, I agreed. The girl took off her
coat to reveal a skimpy little dress and they settled into the middle of the group for the
photo shoot. I told the [children] to avert their eyes because the poor young lady was
still in her underwear. Sir’s eyes, of course, were averted.
This anecdote shows up a number of issues that go beyond those of a momentary, amusing
event. The first is the tourist focus of the experience. The second is the importance of staying
in character as Sir and children of the 1850s. The third is the emphasis on modesty for the
characters being role played, but which does not extend to tourist visitors. The fourth is the
balancing of each of these. The fifth is the quick-witted response by Sir to the situation which
has required him to respond the way he has, without losing anything of the spirit as well as
the details of the authenticity of the program in the face of a tourist action. The final point is
the selection of this anecdote by the Sir concerned as part of an informing narrative for the
School Council members. It could perhaps be considered a trifling incident not worth noting
were it not for the fact that it is part of Sir’s job to report to the School Council in the most
effective way possible. This anecdote carries within it a wealth of information to be
interpreted by the meeting on the basis of shared understandings of the aims and the protocols
of the program by the members present, and of those who will read it in the minutes of the
meeting. They may reflect, they may think, and they will remain knowledgable about the
program and its stated objectives being achieved. The 2010 Annual Report takes up the
suggestive possibilities of anecdote as well. Sheryn Mitchell, Headmistress of St Peters, starts
her section of the Report with, ‘Over 70 groups of children have passed through St Peters this
year, to be threatened and tortured by Ma’am and I might add I have enjoyed every moment
of it’ (see Appendix 8), and her readers will understand the nature of the threats and torments
as being integral to the role plays engaged. The 2010 Annual Report details the whole year’s
activities, events and achievements with the inclusion of such anecdotes as these.
The anecdotes are amusing, certainly, such as those reporting children’s difficulties in finding
the required ‘house poo’ for a poultice for their influenza treatment, or shouting ‘Eu-bloodyreka’ when finding gold in their panning activities, and these tend toward stories of successes.
They also raise issues to be addressed. There are anecdotes about parents who accompany
their children as part of the school camp experience making strong objections to their left
handed children being forced to use their right hands, for example, or not complying with
details of authenticity when they bring paperback books to read in class. There are those of
children wanting to change classes because they have heard that one Sir or Ma’am might be
less strict than the one they have been allocated, or even of unruly children having to be dealt
with using all the severity that Ma’am or Sir’s role play allows, and these are all reported and
minuted as well, as part of an informing and informed position taken by all concerned.
11. Children’s Interview Responses
The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing—Isaac Asimov
The response sheets are designed to enable the brief answers with which a child of that age
would be able to cope. Similarly, the letters are brief. Towards the beginning of this report I
gave a series of pie charts that represented the figures generated out of children’s responses
given on those sheets. I would like to come towards the end of the report with some more
children’s responses, more detailed ones that have enabled them to give a little more
consideration to their responses as they have expressed them in interviews.
The comments on the costuming and the roles that they were playing for the benefit of the
tourists have some prominence in their descriptions of their experiences:
Just the dress and the look of it made me feel younger and back in time.
I felt very excited to be back in the 1850s.
I felt a bit silly. I didn’t like my outfit. The cap wasn’t that bad. I tried to keep it on all
the time.
I felt that we were all a pretty important role in Sovereign Hill because if we weren’t
there then some of the kids might get bored because they might think that it’s just for
the older people, but it’s not. It’s actually a good experience for the whole family.
I felt that there were all these tourists looking at us.
I felt special because we were, like, the kids that went to the school and everyone was
taking pictures.
At first I felt a bit embarrassed but then I kind of got used to it because everyone else
was wearing them. I knew I had to act a part.
I felt a bit odd because I was out of my comfort zone in all the clothes and the
streets...they’re just really different.
‘Comfort zone’ is not only a late 20th century expression this child is using, but also an apt
description of the demands that have been made of them. It is also an expression used by the
Sovereign Hill teachers to describe the situation for the children. Yes, it was enjoyable, it was
exciting, and so on, but it was also emotionally demanding.
There are continual references to their acting and the potential for this to become a bit more
of a reality than a theatrical performance. On the one hand there are comments like, ‘Well it
wasn’t scary because we knew it was pretend and stuff but it was funny at times’. On the
other, there are comments like the following:
It was a bit scary when they talk to you like that because you’re not used to all that.
So you knew that it was acting. I kind of couldn’t believe when she said that one of
the boys in this class, ‘When was your last thrashing?’ and stuff and she said that he
was due for one and it was like really kind of funny because I didn’t expect her to be
thinking about smacking.
Even so, they have their own commentary on the corporal punishment so visibly present in
the form of the cane and the strap. One child says, ‘Getting the cane. I felt humiliated that
they could do this’. This child has perhaps put his finger right on the appropriate word,
‘humiliated’, to use for the strategy underpinning this sort of punishment of anyone, let alone
children. In this case, the child would not be too far off the mark as far as modern adult
attitudes are concerned, but the children do go a little further down this path of interrogating
the idea of corporal punishment:
Back then children were probably politer than we are today, but they got in trouble for
it and it wasn’t because it was making them more kind, it was because they were
scared. If they did anything wrong they were really scared.
They have identified the differences in behavoural standards of children between then and
now, but they are not at all convinced that the means by which the manners that made those
men were effective. Nor are they quite convinced that discipline and repetition is the effective
pedagogical approach that their Sir or Ma’am might have claimed. Each group was able to
chorus the response to the question, ‘How many of you remember what you were told about
how people learn?’ with a ‘Discipline and repetition’ refrain. When asked to repeat their 16
times tables, though, not one group was able to do so, each group petering out at around 16
times 5. They did remember things like what life was like on the diggings, how people lived,
how children were expected to behave, what the jobs were, and how gold was made, though.
The children in each group tended to dismiss the notion of being married and parents in the
next few years as being too outlandish an idea to which to give any real serious consideration.
What did strike them was their Ma’am or Sir suggesting that they were flirtatious, with too
much of an eye for the boys or for the girls. Each group had experience of this. In their
current Grade 4 or 5 group, such an idea strikes them with some horror, for they are not yet at
the stage of their lives when members of the opposite sex have any sort of attraction for them
at all. In each of the groups interviewed, several of the children commented on this as one of
the more outstanding features of their experience, rather hotly denying that this was the case:
‘I felt embarrassed when that man said that I was a Romeo because I was after the girls. But I
wasn’t’. The girls who found themselves thus targeted had a similar reaction with things like
this girl: ‘I felt humiliated. Yes. A lot. Because then all my friends starting saying that.’
While they recognise this feature as part of the role plays, for them to be unjustly accused of
an interest in the opposite sex is just too awful a thing to have to bear.
The question of imminent marriage did not stick in their minds as much as incorrect
suggestions of chasing boys or chasing girls, which was of more immediate concern in the
class to which they had been allocated. They do comment on this, though, with the idea
coming through rather strongly that marriage is a sort of death, the end of a happy life:
I couldn’t imagine that bit about getting married, but it happened.
It was kind of weird how they had to get married after leaving school at that age
because now you can only get married at 20 or so. Now we have other things to do
with our life than getting married when we leave school.
I felt a bit shocked when she told us that how many kids we would have. It is just so
different because we’re, like, kids and I want to experience life.
I felt really too young to be married and it was kind of weird.
I felt really embarrassed because it’s so different to the age that people get married
and have kids now. I never heard that before, getting married at the age of fourteen.
I’m not a girl so I don’t really know what it would be like, so if I was getting married
in four years time I wouldn’t like it because you don’t really get to live your life
before you got married, and you’d be sort of tied down because you’d have to stay at
home.
What they have done in this case is absorbed the information, applying it to their own lives
and finding that there a lot to be said against, and very little in favour of, early marriage. The
very personal response of being too young for marriage is particularly notable for this
filtering through of information that occurs as part of the program.
One of the most striking things that came out the interviews was the children’s sense of
remaining in character, that character being the one that they themselves had created, for the
whole of the time at Sovereign Hill. They were not under the supervisory or instructional
gaze of their Sir or Ma’am for the while time, but they took on the responsibility for their
own role playing even at those times when there was nobody to ensure their devotion to
consistency and authenticity in the role plays:
When the people came to take photos you still have to smile, but when you were
walking around you had to act a bit down, because back in those days you were
hungry and sad, and nothing to do [but work]... You could get a chance where you
could just laugh about it and sometimes children were happy even with death [around
them], but a lot of the time you had to act a bit sad.
This is a rather astute comment from a Grade 4/5 child, an appreciation of the conditions of
the era they had investigated as informing the character they had created to role play.
Children say they went to the Internet, the library, and their own family histories to get the
information that they needed for that creation of theirs, writing at the same time their own
narrative for that character. It is an intellectually sophisticated undertaking even as it is
scaffolded so carefully by their regular classroom teachers before they arrive at Sovereign
Hill, and by their Ma’am or Sir while they are there. They do identify this aspect of their
undertakings, as one of the children said, ‘Well sometimes you forgot what you actually
wrote in your letter but you remembered a little bit of it and sometimes you had to make up
things on the spot’.
All the children interviewed said that it was a good, wonderful, great, and all words of that
kind, experience. One child interprets the experience in very 21st century terms: ‘I think that
the life back there was more sustainable than it is now’.
12. CONCLUSION
History is the essence of innumerable biographies— Thomas Carlyle
The Sovereign Hill Museum School is a unique institution. In many ways, it is a living
narrative, based on a basic human need for narrative, and the joy that humankind has always
taken in this. In previous work in relation to the narratives of the books encountered by
children, I have argued that this joy in narrative is integral to human experience:
It is the vicarious experience of lives in other times and other places; it is a stretch and
exercise of the imagination; it is a means of developing empathy and understanding
others; it is an escape from the reality of our daily lives; it shows how the world is, or
was, or may be; it is a demonstration of how others have dealt with situations that
may be difficult, or similar to, or different from our own; it is a means by which we
may be inspired; it is a way of deriving sheer pleasure as we can laugh, cry, be
outraged, or feel ennobled by engaging others’ human experience (Zeegers, 2006, p.
59).
The Sovereign Hill Museum School program has real value as a complex and engaging tool
for creating learning environments and situations. The historical performance nature of these
experiences are shown by the data to have a strong impact on the children as shown in their
written comments, posters, CD-ROMs and focus group interviews. The details of these
suggest so much more than a representation of figures in pie charts may convey.
One unexpected outcome has been the positive responses, noted by regular classroom
teachers, passed on to the Sovereign Hill teachers, of those children who would normally not
be classed as among the best behaved children in their classrooms, or those with identified or
diagnosed learning disorders. This phenomenon suggests itself as an area for further research,
for none of the data specifically identifies such children. It has not been possible to identify
troubled or troublesome participants from the children’s response sheets, letters and
interviews; they are all marked by a uniform enthusiastic endorsement of the program which
does not permit distinctions of students along problem lines. Without further research into
this area of the program, one can only speculate, as the Ma’ams and Sirs have, on the reason
for this being the ordered and structured nature of a personalised narrative created by each
child being played out in a costumed performance on the very large stage that is Sovereign
Hill.
It is the usual thing in such a report as this to identify shortcomings or failures to achieve
stated objectives as well as point up successes, but this sort of thing does not apply in the case
of the Sovereign Hill Museum School. All the data confirm the outstanding success of the
program, particularly its carefully scaffolded role play by the children and the adults who
support them in this. The teachers in the program have not rested on their laurels, or grown
complacent in their evident success in building on the foundations of which were laid in
1978, but have shown themselves to be responsive to developments in pedagogy and
curriculum as these have occurred over the years. At the same time, they have taken on board
innovations in the educational nature of outdoor museums and similar museum schools
programs internationally while maintaining and enhancing the unique features of their own,
working with the management of Sovereign Hill Museum and their partners in the program to
achieve this.
I have left the last word on teaching to the Principal of Sovereign Hill Museum School,
Michael Ward:
I don’t think good teaching has changed much because I think good teachers will try
and engage students anyway, they will lead kids to explore, they will explain things,
they will elaborate on things and then they will evaluate. I mean, that’s good teaching.
No matter what model you throw up, it will always be good teaching and this is just
such a wonderful way of doing that because of what the kids do: they do sort of
explore it, they do engage in it and that’s the big instructional model at the moment.
I’ve put in things like Bloom’s taxonomies and that fits just all over the place... I
could fit this into any model you could throw at me and show that it would still be
good teaching and learning.
I have left the last word on learning to one of the children:
I had a very fun time and it was a wonderful experience getting to dress up and learn
at an olden dayed [sic] school. Thank you for giving me such a wonderful, fantastic
experience.
If I were to have the last word on research, I could do no more than echo this last child’s
words: Thank you for giving me such a wonderful, fantastic experience.
13. References
Abrahamson, C. E. (1998). Storytelling as a pedagogical tool in higher education. Education,
118(3), 440-452.
Annear, R. (2004). Fly a rebel flag. Fitzroy: Black Dog Books.
Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). (2009). The
Australian Curriculum. Retrieved August 15, 2009, from
http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au
Board of Studies. (2000). Curriculum and standards framework II. Carlton: Board of Studies.
Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds: Possible worlds. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University
Press.
Ciddor, A. (1995). The gold fields (through the children’s eyes). Sydney: Macmillan.
Coleridge, S. (2006). Gold Fever
Melbourne: Lothian Books.
Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. (2009). The e5 instructional
model. Melbourne: Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.
Dewey, J. (1933). How we think. Chicago: Henry Regnery.
Dickens, C. (1907). Hard times London: Dent.
Emmitt, M., Zbaracki, M., Komesaroff, L., & Pollock, J. (2010). Language and learning: An
introduction for teaching (5th ed.). Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Ericson, B. O. (2001). Reading in high school English classes: An overview. In B. O. Ericson
(Ed.), Teaching reading in high school English classes (pp. 1-22). Urbana Ill:
National Council of English Teachers.
Greenwood, K. (2005). Journey to Eureka. Sydney.
Heathcote, D. (1984). Excellence in teaching. In L. Johnson & C. O'Neill (Eds.), Dorothy
Heathcote: Collected writings (pp. 18-25). Cheltenham: Stanley Thornes.
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1994). Situated learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
O'Donnell, M. P., & Wood, M. (2004). Becoming a reader: A developmental approach.
Boston: Pearson.
Piaget, J. (1979 ). Behaviour and evolution. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Rosenblatt, L. M. (1976). Literature as exploration. New York: The Modern Language
Association of America.
Rousseau, J. J. (1762). Émile. Paris: Garnier.
Schön, D. A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner: Toward a new design for teaching
and learning in the professions. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Schön, D. A. (Ed.). (1990). The reflective turn: Case studies in and on educational practice.
New York: Teachers College Press.
Scott, B. (1981). Bound for south Australia. Sydney: Addison-Wesley
Shepard, L. (2000). The role of assessment in a learning culture. Educational Researcher,
29(7), 4-14.
Sovereign Hill Museum Schools. (2009). The Sovereign Hill Schools. Retrieved June 20,
2009, from http://www.sovereignhillschool.vic.edu.au/teacher_info.php
van Manen, M. (1989). Anecdote as a methodological device. Phenomenology and
Pedagogy, 7, 232-253.
Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA). (2005). Victorian Essential
Learning Standards. East Melbourne: VCAA.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes.
USA: Harvard University Press.
Wheatley, N. (2000). A banner bold: The diary of Rosa Aarons. Gosford: Scholastic.
Wilkinson, C., & Ciaffaglone, S. I. (2008). The night we made the flag: A Eureka story.
Fitzroy: Black Dog Books.
Winter, C. (2010, 8-10 February). Education and storytelling about the Great War: The ‘Son
et Lumière’ in Pozières, France. Paper presented at the 20th Annual Council for
Australian University Tourism and Hospitality Education (CAUTHE), Hobart,
Australia.
Zeegers, M. (2006). Living in new worlds: Beyond the boundaries of literacy. Idiom, 42(2),
57-65.
Zeegers, M. (2007). Making the familiar strange to pre-service teachers: Practicum as
ethnography. In N. Kryger & B. Ravn (Eds.), Learning beyond cognition (pp. 243256). Copenhagen: Danish University of Education Press.
Zeegers, M., & Barron, D. (2010). Gatekeepers of knowledge: A consideration of the library,
the book and the scholar in the Western world. Oxford: Chandos.
APPENDICES
Appendix 1A: Information Kit
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Home
Home > General Information
Sovereign Hill Home
General Information
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Code of Conduct
VELS
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General Information
VELS Information
Code of Conduct
History
General Information
View as PDF
THE SOVEREIGN HILL SCHOOLS
AN ADVENTURE FROM THE PAST IN A SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE
Red Hill National School
St. Peters
Ragged Schools
St. Alipius
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An adventure ... a two-day adventure ... that is how we like to look upon the programmes offered by our
four 1850s goldfields’ schools: The Red Hill National School, St Peter’s Denominational School, the
Ragged School and St Alipius Diggings School. The Sovereign Hill Schools offer a unique learning
experience, which is exciting, challenging, and rewarding for students and teachers alike.
Visiting Teachers Information
Students attend the schools for two days of costumed role-play, which highlights the vast differences
between schooling on the Victorian Goldfields of the 1850s and education today.
Costume
Booking & Forms
Students are taught from the Irish National System of Education, which was used in mid- 19th century
Australian schools. They use slates, sandboards, dip pens, copybooks and facsimile editions of original
textbooks. Sitting on wooden benches at long desks, the students must observe the manners and
demeanour of young Victorian ladies and gentlemen. Visiting teachers are also costumed and given a
role to play - much to the delight of the children.
Student Letters
Photography
Map
Costs
As well as time spent in the classroom, we take the children, in ordered lines of course, to visit various
businesses and places of interest in the Sovereign Hill Township and diggings. Visits to The
Wheelwrights, The Bakery, The Blacksmith and The Chinese Temple all help to demonstrate the social
conditions that existed on the 1850s goldfields.
Alternative Accomodation & Buslines
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Visiting Students Information
During their walk students also learn about goldfields’ life by meeting and interacting with costumed staff
and volunteers who role-play 1850s characters. Sometimes in the classroom, their day may be
interrupted by a doctor inspecting students for lice, by an angry next-door neighbour or a businessman on
the lookout for a suitable employee.
In addition to this program we also offer a one day costumed school programme for year 2 children.
Costume
Letters
Trades & Occupations
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Suggested Activities
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Contact Us
For
more
information
about
Sovereign
Hill
visit
the
website
at
www.sovereignhill.com.au
Search
Appendix 1B: e5 Instructional Model
The e5 Instructional Model is one of the many resources that have been developed to support
teachers in government schools. Through the exploration of five domains (engage, explore,
explain, elaborate, evaluate), the e5 model provides a common language around high-quality
teaching to improve learning outcomes for all students, at all stages of learning and in all
learning domains.
The Sovereign Hill Schools program exemplifies the e5 model:
ENGAGE: Before and during the two days of our program, we develop shared expectations
of the learning outcomes with the students and their teachers. We stimulate interest and
curiosity and we connect the students to ‘real life’ learning by creating roles for the students
during their program.
EXPLORE: We present challenging behavioural expectations of and activities for the
students. They gather relevant information to write letters to us outlining their personal
circumstances in their 1850s character before their visit. The letters form the basis on which
the experience encourages exploration of goldfields life in the Outdoor Museum during the
program.
EXPLAIN: The content of the program is delivered in a diversity of teaching strategies,
including direct instruction and conversation in which students reflect on their new
understandings through the ‘hands on’ activities such as pen and ink writing, undertaking
simple trades skills, technical drawing, or cross stitch sewing. We are explicit in our language
expectations.
ELABORATE: The role play within the program most engages students in a continual
dialogue using a new mode of speaking and acting to enrich and reinforce the new
understandings gained from their experience. Throughout the two days we build the students’
ability to transfer and generalise their learning amongst themselves and with their teachers
and visiting identities. Students’ understanding is monitored throughout and specific
feedback provided on an individual level.
EVALUATE: We evaluate our own performance after each school group on two levels. The
visiting teachers give feedback on all aspects of the program and the students fill in an
evaluation when they return to their schools. This enables them to reflect on the experience
and define their learning.
Appendix 1C: Occupations for Girls
Appendix 1D: Trades for Boys
Appendix 2: The Official Report Sheet
Appendix 3: Poem
The Village Blacksmith: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
UNDER a spreading chestnut tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.
His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan;
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate'er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.
Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge
With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.
And children coming home from school
Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
And hear the bellows roar,
And watch the burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing-floor.
He goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among his boys;
He hears the parson pray and preach,
He hears his daughter's voice,
Singing in the village choir,
And it makes his heart rejoice.
It sounds to him like her mother's voice,
Singing in Paradise!
He needs must think of her once more,
How in the grave she lies;
And with his hard, rough hand he wipes
A tear out of his eyes.
Toiling,—rejoicing,—sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose.
Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought!
Appendix 4: Children’s Evaluation Sheet
School on the Goldfields
1.What did you
learn that you
didn’t know
before?
2. What was your favourite part?
you like?
3. Which part didn’t
4. What emotions did you feel during the
program and when?
You may like to draw some pictures or
make further comments on the back of this sheet
Appendix 5: A Child’s Letter of Application
Appendix 6: Analysis of Teacher Evaluation Forms 2010
Chart to demonstrate approval to the teacher’s information folder
Year
Strongly agree
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
99%
91%
89%
86%
77%
79%
75%
71%
Mildly/Moderately
agree
1%
9%
11%
13%
21%
21%
23%
27%
Disagree
1%
2%
2%
2%
Chart to demonstrate the safety of the classroom and surrounds
Year
Strongly agree
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
93%
95%
90%
92%
79%
91%
88%
89%
Mildly/Moderately
agree
7%
5%
10%
8%
21%
9%
11%
11%
Disagree
1%
Chart to demonstrate that schools received adequate information on how to
book into the programme.
Year
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Strongly
agree
80%
Mildly/Moderately Disagree
Agree
11%
9%
86%
91%
75%
91%
73%
72%
13%
9%
17%
9%
13%
25%
1%
2%
3%
3%
Chart to demonstrate that booking into the programme was a clear and simple
process
Year
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Strongly
agree
80%
85%
81%
83%
64%
66%
59%
60%
Mildly/Moderately
Agree
12%
14%
19%
14%
25%
29%
26%
34%
Disagree
8%
1%
1%
3%
2%
5%
3%
6%
Chart to demonstrate that pre-visit information was adequate in preparing the
children for their visit.
Year
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Strongly
agree
85%
96%
90%
78%
80%
67%
69%
72%
Mildly/Moderately
agree
15%
2%
10%
22%
16%
32%
27%
26%
Disagree
2%
2%
1%
1%
2%
Chart to demonstrate that pre-visit information was adequate in helping with
organisational matters.
Year
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Strongly
Agree
98%
86%
85%
79%
77%
63%
68%
63%
Mildly/Moderately
Agree
2%
13%
14%
21%
20%
36%
24%
34%
Disagree
1%
1%
2%
1%
4%
3%
A chart to show activities and role-play outside the classroom were important
in depicting the era.
Year
Strongly agree
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
93%
95%
92%
96%
95%
92%
94%
95%
Mildly/Moderately
Agree
7%
5%
8%
4%
5%
7%
6%
5%
Disagree
1%
A chart to show that the program assists the children in gaining an
understanding of the era
Year
Strongly agree
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
99%
95%
99%
97%
97%
96%
97%
98%
Mildly/Moderately
Agree
1%
5%
1%
3%
3%
4%
3%
2%
Disagree
A chart to show activities in the program are varied and balanced
Year
Strongly agree
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
90%
92%
99%
90%
89%
79%
89%
87%
Mildly/Moderately
agree
10%
8%
1%
10%
7%
21%
11%
13%
Disagree
4%
A chart to show that the activities were beneficial to all children
Year
Strongly agree
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
93%
88%
84%
85%
83%
75%
81%
84%
Mildly/Moderately
agree
7%
12%
16%
15%
15%
25%
19%
15%
Disagree
2%
1%
A chart to show the children enjoyed the program they undertook
Year
Strongly agree
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
95%
91%
86%
88%
89%
81%
89%
84%
Mildly/Moderately
agree
5%
9%
14%
11%
11%
19%
11%
16%
Disagree
1%
A chart to show the program provides a good basis for follow up activities
Year
Strongly agree
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
96%
91%
90%
93%
77%
83%
87%
89%
Mildly/Moderately
agree
4%
9%
10%
7%
21%
17%
13%
11%
Disagree
2%
A chart to show that visiting school staff was provided with enough support
and assistance during their visit.
Year
Strongly agree
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
96%
95%
93%
90%
86%
90%
88%
92%
Mildly/Moderately
agree
4%
5%
7%
10%
14%
10%
12%
8%
Disagree
A chart to show if the changing facilities are adequate
Year
Strongly agree
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
83%
91%
83%
81%
77%
73%
77%
89%
Mildly/Moderately
agree
17%
9%
17%
18%
23%
25%
23%
10%
Disagree
1%
2%
1%
A chart to show that there is a good range of role- play situations within the
program.
Year
Strongly agree
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
90%
91%
83%
86%
72%
79%
90%
94%
Mildly/Moderately
agree
10%
9%
17%
14%
24%
21%
10%
6%
Disagree
4%
A chart to show that the atmosphere created in the classroom encourages
children to participate in role- play
Year
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Strongly agree
97%
91%
90%
90%
83%
89%
88%
92%
Moderately agree
3%
9%
10%
10%
17%
10%
12%
7%
Disagree
1%
1%
A chart to show that the costumes provided are suitable
Year
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Strongly agree
87%
92%
95%
89%
91%
93%
90%
96%
Moderately agree
13%
8%
5%
10%
9%
7%
10%
4%
Disagree
1%
A chart to show that accommodation provided at the Sovereign Hill Lodge is
comfortable and adequate.
Year
Strongly agree
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
83%
91%
88%
88%
68%
71%
51%
94%
Mildly/Moderately
agree
17%
9%
12%
12%
32%
27%
22%
16%
Disagree
3%
2%
A chart to show that the food provided by Sovereign Hill is of good
quality.
Year
Strongly agree
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
72%
61%
65%
78%
39%
46%
49%
56%
Mildly/Moderately
agree
26%
31%
32%
21%
49%
46%
25%
28%
Disagree
2%
8%
3%
1%
12%
8%
2%
16%
A chart to show that the staff at Sovereign Hill are helpful and courteous.
Year
Strongly agree
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
96%
84%
96%
93%
91%
88%
85%
84%
Mildly/Moderately
agree
4%
16%
4%
6%
8%
12%
11%
26%
Disagree
1%
1%
Appendix 7: Letter from a Visiting Teacher and Parent Group
Appendix 8: 2010 Annual Report
SOVEREIGN HILL SCHOOL REPORT
2010 Department of Education and Early Childhood Development
School No 5181
The Melbourne Cup celebrated 150 years this year and as a part of the celebrations the Cup was bought to Sovereign Hill while the students
from Casterton and Learmonth Primary Schools were attending the Ragged School.
School Council President’s Report
Yet another year has passed and the Sovereign Hill Schools have completed another year with
approximately 7 000 students experiencing the rich learning experience offered by our staff and
School.
The Sovereign Hill School Council is comprised of voluntary members from throughout the Ballarat
community, including members from Historical organisations, Government Education Department,
Catholic Education Department, Education Department Regional Office, Independent Schools’ and
Sovereign Hill itself.
Feedback sheets enable us to gauge the success of the program, and as we are human we are always
trying to do better. The members of the School Council enjoy hearing the anecdotal records and
humorous moments that have occurred from one meeting to the next.
2011 saw the retirement from School Council of Graeme Hewitt who not only served on School
Council since its inception, but served as President for ten years. We thank Graeme for his dedication
and commitment to the growth and development of this program over this time.
We welcomed Jill Burt and Margaret Zeegars to the School Council in 2011. It
has also seen the ongoing maintenance of the Schools’ continue and we thank
Sovereign Hill for the work we do in partnership with them to maintain the
building, surrounds and costumes.
Thank you must go to the School staff who deliver the fantastic program with
professionalism and dedication. Thank you and your school for your support of
the Sovereign Hill Schools’. We know our staff love having you here and look
forward to hearing of your School at School Council meetings in the future.
Thank you must also go to those on School Council who give up their time to be
part of this wonderful program.
- Mark Warwick
Principal’s Report: Michael Ward
Another year seems to have flown by where we have provided programs
for many of our old friends and welcomed some new schools to the unique
program that Sovereign Hill School is! The School of the Air from Broken
Hill was a new customer and after their visit I reflected on what an
extraordinary experience it must have been for kids who are not used to an
ordinary classroom let alone one from the 1850s. They handled it
beautifully which is a credit to the teachers who had prepared for our
program. I am personally thrilled to see the growth of our bookings. We are
very close to full in all four schools next year and we do this without any
advertising. All the teachers continually give me feedback about the
wonderful experiences they have talking with people from all over the
world about the great program we provide for the students who can live
and breathe living history. I can assure you that we never take for granted
the privilege that we have teaching in our school. I am really excited about
the release of the research that Professor Margaret Zeegars and her team
from the University of Ballarat will be doing soon. I will post it on the
website for you all to see. When I walk to my school every morning to
open my dunnies and clean my tables I think how lucky I am to teach in
such exceptional school. Could we dare think about a fifth school within this sensational Sovereign
Hill Outdoor Museum that we work in? Perhaps a tiered classroom would add another dimension to
our costumed school program.
Deputy CEO and Director of Sovereign Hill Outdoor Museum: Tim Sullivan
What a year in the Outdoor Museum!
The Victoria Theatre was refurbished in a glorious midVictorian décor befitting the grand building it was
when Lola Montez opened it in 1856. The Theatre hosts
a new interpretive theatre piece on the failed attempt to
form an Anti-Chinese League in Ballarat. It is a
stimulating piece relevant to studies of history and the
development of our modern democracy. Our first year
of providing a Blood on the Southern Cross and
Captain Candlelight package for schools staying at
Sovereign Hill was a fabulous success.
Trapped opened in the mine and tells the story of the
disaster that claimed the lives of 22 Creswick men in
the New Australasian No 2 mine in 1882. It recounts
the heroic but vain efforts to rescue them, and the
resilience of the community to carry on. It is an
inspiring experience.
We added a new Itinerant Photographer, refurbished much of the Diggings, and the ferrous foundry
adjoining the Soho will be ready for 2011.
The Gold Museum Collections Centre will be a major undertaking in 2011-12, and will provide a
modern, accessible facility for our collection of 100,000 artefacts and archives. It will also include a
new web-based research centre for students of all ages.
There is always something happening at Sovereign Hill—we never rest!
Red Hill National School
The original school again had a very successful year with 68
school groups in the two day costumed program and 12 groups
in the grade 2 program. Kelly Kosloff joined our teaching staff
sharing the Infant School with Alison Middleton and both
provided a wonderful adjunct to our grade 5/6 program. We
have had amazing amounts of good old Ballarat rain and for the
first time I actually had to have a “wet day timetable”- I
remember them from a previous life! We had a doorway
installed in the back corner of Red Hill so now all four school
buildings have wheelchair access, a must in these days of
inclusiveness. Marilyn Kent again provided a musical
experience extraordinaire with her singing lesson. Many staff
from Sovereign Hill played the role of the dreaded District
Inspector and I thank them for making Sir’s life an ongoing
misery. The animals in the paddocks around the Red Hill
School continued to delight the students who attended my
school but during the year we saw the departure of “Charlie”
the donkey. He nipped a tourist on a weekend and has been
banished to the stud. I think he’d be pretty happy about that.
Classic moments continue:
The students from Greythorn Primary created chaos during the visit of the DI when they substituted
the words “Ooh la la she kissed me” for “pour on water” in the song London’s Burning.
Master Steven from Upper Beaconsfield added a new adjective to the English language when asked
for one to describe the gold bar at the gold pour “K ching!”-the sound of a cash register.
Alfredton’s Master Jeremy explained that discipline was “the physical contact with children by a
disciplinary instrument.”
Michael Ward
Exchange Teacher
We had a PB when Durrumbul Public School from
Northern NSW attended our school. They are the most
distant school we have hosted. Their grades 4/5/6
students took part in an eight day excursion to Sovereign
Hill via Canberra and stopping overnight in the Tooronga
Zoo in Sydney on the way home. Susan Strebchuk, an
exchange teacher from Canada, was with the grade 4
group in The Red Hill School. Her feedback was
invaluable.
“The opportunity to participate in the Sovereign Hill
School was a valuable experience for my students and
me. The experience allowed students to gain a greater
and lasting understanding of a significant part of
Australia’s history-the Australian gold rush. We loved
being in costume and role. As an exchange teacher from
Canada, the program offered a chance to make some
lasting memories with my students and be a part of the
living museum.”
St Alipius Diggings School
People often ask if I tire of the repetitive nature of the
Costumed Schools Programme. I could say I adore boredom,
but I don’t. It is a rare day when something does not happen
to delight, whether it be from a student or a visitor.
The interaction between students and visitors can produce
some wonderful moments I will never forget. The look of
delight from a group of Chinese visitors when twenty-eight
young girls in costume waved at once and chanted “tsay,
tsay” in unison.
To return to St Alipius after play and see a group of
Malaysian visitors praying in a circle made me realize how
realistic our enactments must seem at times. They informed
me that there were many Christians in Malaya.
I have been trying to learn welcome greetings from as many
languages as possible. Learning is a tad harder than forty
years ago. I was feeling a little smug after my “salamat
dating” cheered a Malaysian group and my “huang ing” went
down well with a Chinese couple, when I met a gentleman
from Hungary.” I can speak ten languages fluently”, he told
me: Hungarian, German, Arabic, Turkish, Bosnian, Serbian, Creation, Italian, Spanish and Romanian.
“French”, I enquired. “Un peu.”
It is most gratifying to see the way our programme works with children who may have difficulties in a
normal school situation. Often a teacher will remark that he or she has never seen a particular student
so engaged. However, the reverse can be true with grade 6 boys as the year nears its end.
I must thank Roger O’Conner, aka Father Downing, for his continued interest in the intellectual and
spiritual wellbeing of the students of Saint Alipius. I must also thank my “wife”, Marie, FOSH
activation, for her visits as my “tired and emotional” spouse, berating Father for not increasing my
salary.
The year was full of delights and surprises, not to mention the odd blunder. At times it is hard to hear
soft, young voices. My standard line is:”I think I might need a hearing trumpet by the time I’m forty
Ma’am.”Stumbling over pronunciation difficulties and correct time period, I managed to respond to
the whispered tones of a young girl: “Ma’am, by the time I’m forty I think I’ll need a “horing aid.” Jack Adams
Infant School
We have had a busy year in The Red Hill Infant School. I
have conducted the one day program with 12 groups
being mainly local schools. We have had the pleasure of
conducting the program for three groups from clusters of
rural schools from the Ballarat District. It is wonderful
that the students from these small country schools get the
same opportunities as their counterparts in city schools. I
have been fortunate to work with Kellie Kosloff and train
her to take the infant program. It is good to have “new
blood.”
I would like to thank Lorraine Sheppard for playing the
role of Mrs Davidson, a neighbour who is ill and
appreciates a visit from the caring children.
Available dates for 2011 will be sent to schools early in
the new year.-Alison Middleton
St Peter’s Denominational School
Over 70 groups of children have passed
through St Peters this year, to be
threatened and tortured by Ma’am and I
might add I have enjoyed every moment of
it. Many of the schools attend yearly but
every so often there is a new addition.
A couple this year have been Middle
Kinglake and Durrumbul. The Middle
Kinglake School was destroyed in the fires
of 2009 and with the help of Sovereign
Hill, our school, a local bus company and
a caravan park these children enjoyed a
great couple of days.
I have continued to have children from
many different cultures and to watch them
over two days is so inspiring. I often
wonder what they are actually thinking.
Likewise with the Sovereign Hill visitors
they love to speak to the children and have
them speak back to them. Two such
groups were Worldwide International
Teachers and some Exchange Students from New Zealand. As well I can remember a German Gap
student just loving the experience of dressing up and being proposed to within two days!
Miss Sydney. .from Sydney {really from Canada} also had a memorable time.
One day this year my door monitor must have neglected to lock the door properly and on returning
after lunch with my charges I found my classroom full of students and a teacher giving a lesson. I am
still not sure who got the biggest fright.
However it is the individual children who make the program so enjoyable and spontaneous and here
are a couple of their genuine comments.
Child: I want to be an actor.
Teacher: What nonsense, you must do something worthwhile.
Child: I think in the future children might have their individual desks, rooms for each grade and a
different teacher to teach different subjects.
Teacher: How ridiculous, child. That would never happen.
Child: I liked wearing my pantalettes as they covered my “bear” legs.
Teacher: What do we call these pants that young lads wear?
Child Under-bottoms. {They are in fact knickerbockers.}
The program would definitely not be the success it is without the continued support of our FOSH
volunteers and other members of the Sovereign Hill community.
The vicar’s visit is a highlight and quite valued, Dr Burton is always willing to participate, along with
Trooper Bray and Mark Burnett who is always available to propose to my single teachers. I am quite
indebted to these people and other members of Sovereign Hill.
Master Zachary really summed up his visit with,
“This is the best history lesson I have ever had.”•- Sheryn Mitchell
Ballarat Benevolent Asylum Ragged School
When the curtain comes down on the
eleventh year of the Ragged School in midDecember, 66 schools will have visited in
61 groups, with some smaller schools
joining forces to create a viable number to
visit. I was thrilled to host my first Sydney
school. Unfortunately the drought broke
during their visit, but the teacher was full of
praise for our program and promised to
spread the word in NSW.
A highlight was when several children from
Casterton and Learmonth were chosen to
hold the actual 2010 Melbourne Cup when
it was on show at Sovereign Hill. Special
white gloves needed to be worn.
I was assisted again throughout 2010 by
Alison Middleton, as well as Peter
Featherston, Jeff Fyffe and Kathryn Steele, and I thank them for their enthusiasm and dedication. We
were all saddened by the death of Alison’s husband, Bill, during the year. We were very pleased to
have Alison back among us in costume during the final term.
Again a huge vote of thanks, from me as well as from the hundreds of visiting pupils, must go to the
many staff members as well as the Friends of Sovereign Hill volunteers who facilitate the “trades”, a
unique part of the Ragged School program. The pupils love this practical aspect and are very proud of
the items they produce to take home. A new activity this year has utilised the recently renovated
tentmaker’s premises in Main Street. FOSH member Phil Carter plays the role of Mr Murphy and
assists a small group of boys to make their own individual flag after showing them the various uses of
canvas on the diggings. Thanks to Wendy and Kate in the costume department for sewing the calico
flag shapes.
I thought it would be appropriate to use the words of some pupils and a teacher to sum up 2010.
“I felt like a gentleman when I used manners I had never used before.”
“The best part was when I was taught to sew by a wonderful Ma’am who was good at sewing.”
“I felt really nervous when I realised that Ma’am was strict.”
“The best part was the afternoon at the stables and the blacksmith’s. I learnt lots and I felt great.”
“When I held the Melbourne Cup it was the feeling of a lifetime and I will treasure it forever.”
“I felt special when I got the award. Thank you. Thank you.”
“Thank you for teaching me to write with my right hand. I wish we could stay till the end of the year.”
“I felt happy when I walked in the door, and I got even more happy as the two days went on.”
“I was sad when it ended.”
“The Sovereign Hill school experience is one that the students, staff and parents of our school very
much appreciate. I cannot imagine a more relevant and enjoyable learning experience than bringing
history alive by being part of your living museum.”
In conclusion, I have had a most enjoyable year, with great pupils, dedicated teachers and parents and
a terrific teaching team at Sovereign Hill providing countless lasting memories.
Season’s Greetings and best wishes for the New Year. - Marion Snowden
Students Comments
HOW YOU FELT
“I felt good in school because you really felt that you were in the 1850s.”
“I felt nervous because the things that Sir was teaching us were unexpected.”
“I was embarrassed when I had to stand up in front of the Inspector to do my 12
times tables.”
“I sort of felt like the girls’/women’s’ only aim in life was just to get a husband and have kids.
Because no women had any major roles women were expected to stay at home and clean. I had that
feeling all the way through the program.”
MY FAVOURITE PART
“My favourite part was the poem because it puts a picture in your mind of the village blacksmith and
it made the Inspector smile.”
“My favourite part about camp is the school because you got dressed up and wrote in ink.”
“I loved the sound and light show because I loved all the colours. I also loved the school because I
loved the role play.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN
“I didn’t know that you got married at such a young age and there was no High School.”
“I didn’t know that for children in the 1850s life was so hard.”
“Kids were caned for using their wrong (left) hand.”
“I learnt a new style of writing and I am enjoying using it.”
WHAT DIDN’T YOU LIKE
“When the vicar came in I was so scared.”
“I did not like it when I was writing and you said – rub it out and do it again.”
“I didn’t like how we had to learn out 17 times tables in one night and the story was a little bit scary.”
Teacher’s Comments
“All aspects of the 2 day schools program help to bring to life the unit of study
based on the Gold Rush. The role play, even for the most timid or ESL student,
reinforces the historical nature of Sovereign Hill and the teachers are to be
commended for the way they adapt the program to the needs of an individual
visiting school.”
“Thank you so much for an amazing program. It’s such a wonderful learning
experience for all students. I have now done the program as a student (20 years
ago) and now as a teacher.”
“This is by far the most educationally valuable camp experience our students undertake. Wonderful
program, unique in so many ways. Thank you to “Sir” and “Ma’am” for providing us with so much
fantastic learning, and a great time as well!!”
“The roleplayer teachers were very professional and were the key to a positive learning environment.
The children assimilated very well with their teacher which allowed them to easily immerse
themselves into the 1850s. An excellent experience for the children.”
“The whole program is fantastic. It’s varied enough so that the children stay completely engaged
during school time-complimented by the tours of Sovereign Hill and the playtime activities.
Confectionery Factory
As a part of the Sovereign Hill School experience most of us take the students to the confectionery
factory and talk to them about how those “revolting “boiled sweets are made. If we are lucky a
confectioner might be making a batch and that makes the experience even better. Sometimes, if we
are really good, the confectioner will come out and
give the children a sample, still warm from the
cooking process. I’m sure that kindness by the
confectioner is more than compensated by the
increased sales in the confectionery store! We are
forever grateful to the Sovereign Hill employees who
go that extra yard to make the children’s time here something special. They make eight to ten batches
a day of about 2000 lollies every day except Christmas Day That’s about 7 280 000 boiled lollies a
year. It is just another example of how the Sovereign Hill experience completely immerses the
visiting students in the daily life on the Gold Fields. Tony Geurts and Matthew Deeks are two of the
hard working confectioners.
Criterion Store
As a part of the St Alipius program the students visit the Criterion
Store and while Sir talks to the boys about men’s fashions of the time
the girls are shown the room where a lady would go to view
undergarments and bonnets. A student is chosen to model a bonnet.
The girls especially are amazed at the complexity of a lady’s
undergarments and are really grateful that they do not have to wear
such apparel! Elle Hoskin from Criterion Store helped young Marley
Page from Canadian Lead Primary School with the beautiful bonnet.
FOSH
It is always very important that we acknowledge the constant
support we receive from the wonderful group of volunteers that
make up the Friends of Sovereign Hill. Throughout the year in rain
(and we have had plenty this year), hail and shine they turn up to
conduct the orientation walks and assist in the trade program of
the Ragged School. Thank you very much again for the very
significant contribution you make to the school program. The
children are the ones that benefit from your work.
Phil Carter as Mr
Murphy helping students make flags
Research Project
The Principal of Sovereign Hill Museum School, Mr Michael Ward, approached Dr Margaret Zeegers
from the University of Ballarat’s School of Education in 2008 to conduct education-based research on
the operations of the School at Sovereign Hill. To this end, unrestricted access to the archives of the
Sovereign Hill Museum School has been provided. Archival material includes evaluations and
assessments that have been conducted over a number of years, and video footage and copies of
documentaries that have been made over the years of its operations, as well as relevant reflective
writing of the staff working at the school. The University’s School of Education has provided research
funding to support the research program, which has been designed in consultation with Sovereign Hill
Museum School. Participating children, teachers and visiting staff having been filmed and
interviewed, to give data on current perspectives which may be set alongside archival material for
study.
Sovereign Hill Museum School is the only school of its type in the world, where the partners involved
provide ongoing funding and resources to maintain the program and make it accessible for as many
schools as possible. Surprisingly, in the 30-odd years of its operations, no research has been
conducted on the school, yet its unique position makes it a most suitable subject for this type of
research. The project has identified key features of the program that lead to teachers and parents
constantly and with enthusiasm embracing the educational experience the Sovereign Hill programs
provide for their children; such is its popularity whole years are completely booked out in advance.
Through the children’s personal responses and their evaluation forms, and those of their teachers, the
school has been aware of the high level of engagement that children have in any of the school’s
programs in which they participate. Given this, it is remarkable that no research has ever been done on
the School, and Michael Ward’s approach Margaret Zeegers to address this apparent lack of attention
by education researchers has been a most timely one, especially given the renewed interest in history
as a discipline in its own right in the proposed National Curriculum for Australian schools.
It has been an intensely focussed research project, which may be considered a snapshot of the school’s
programs and activities, to identify those aspects of the program that not only make this such a
satisfying experience for the children, but also to examine its effectiveness in relation to established
criteria and teaching and learning principles embedded in sound curriculum and classroom practices,
and the strength of the partnership with funding bodies that supports it. The school is aware of the
popularity of the program it offers; it has wanted rigorous research to investigate the effectiveness of
the teaching and learning bases of that popularity. A report of the project will be launched at
Sovereign Hill in due course.
Margaret Zeegers
Bushfire Schools:
Middle Kinglake &
Marysville
Throughout the year we were very honoured to provide a sponsored program for these two school
communities that lost their schools in the disastrous Black Saturday bushfires. Our School Council
suggested we sponsor these schools for their travel, accommodation and food costs. Sovereign Hill
very kindly
donated the
entry, Blood on
the
Southern Cross
and mine
tour costs.
Ballarat
Coachlines and
the
Welcome
Stranger
Holiday Park
provided
travel,
accommodation and catering at a discounted rate and their support is much appreciated. Talking to the
teachers it was a real eye opener to hear of the horrific experiences some of these students had been
through. I was immensely proud of the generosity of all concerned.
2012 Bookings
At this time of the year it is opportune to remind all schools that we will mail out information about
the bookings for 2012 at the end of February 2011. It is imperative that you fax back your requests for
2012 as soon as possible in order to get what you want. With 150 schools attending this year it is a
real juggling act trying to keep everyone happy. The letter with be addressed to the grade 5/6 teacher
at your school. We don’t address it to individual coordinators because they change for different
reasons. So let your office manager know that the letter should arrive at the end of February or early
March.
Thanks
I wish to thank the dedicated teaching staff for another great year. Sheryn Mitchell, Marion Snowden,
Jack Adams and Alison Middleton are just like a good red wine, they get better with age. Also thanks
to our wonderfully supportive band of casual relief teachers: Jeff Fyffe, Peter Featherston, Kathryn
Steele and our new addition in the Infant School, Kelly Kosloff.
We are forever grateful to the management, staff and Sovereign Hill Board who continue to support
us so we can provide the best possible program for our visiting students.
Thanks to all the schools that have been a part of our program this year and we wish you all a terrific
holiday – be safe and we look forward to meeting you again in the not too distant future.
Michael Ward
Principal
Sovereign Hill School