I wanted something a little different for the title and this seemed to roughly fit the bill and I will continue to promote it, particularly as it might fit with your experience. 

The thought started when I returned to Alice from our Conference. I wanted to play some tunes on my traditional tin whistle, which I love, but couldn’t find. It was given to me by my brother and sister in law and it came from Ireland. I love Irish music! The tin whistle is a “Clarke.” The Clarke Tin Whistle company was established in 1843 in England. The founder was a poor farm labourer called Robert Clarke from a village near Bury St. Edmunds, Coney Weston, for those who know England. In those days poor meant really poor! On hearing about the invention of reasonably light tin plate he figured he could make a whistle out of Tin modelled on the one he had made out wood. The invention was highly successful, producing a very true sound so he had nothing to lose but to start making them. In his area canals and railways were being built and Irishmen made up a significant part of the labour force. They were smitten by Clarke’s whistle, bought plenty and took them back to Ireland where it became Ireland’s favourite folk instrument. I was once in a famous pub in Dublin, when all of a sudden some local lads in work clothes and cloth caps pulled out a couple of fiddles, a guitar, a mandolin and a Bodhran (Irish Drum) and “got into some really good Irish folk”. A bloke in a suit, grabbed a Smithwicks and sat down. Loosening his tie, he pulled a tin whistle from his jacket and joined the cloth capped crew. Wow, could they play. No, they weren’t a paid group just locals after work having a great time.

Today many tin whistles are made of aluminium tube with a plastic mouthpiece. They work wonderfully and I recall the great flutist James Galway cleverly playing two at once. I’ve had some of these aluminium types forever and have liked playing them. But for me this gift of a tin whistle, made traditionally out of folded tin, nicely tapered, was something special.

No, it doesn’t sound the same as the others because it has a wooded Fipple (mouthpiece) and produces a warm tone like a flute. The aluminium / plastic one is more shrill. I love playing the Clarke, love its tone, feeling excited that its design has lasted for all these years. I am amazed at the wonderful music that can be produced on what was known as a “Penny Whistle.’ Clarke called his tin whistle “Megs” which was a Victorian nickname for a halfpenny, as this is what he charged for them. 

So back to the crisis-where was my whistle I loved? Sure I could probably get another one. But I’m a sentimentalist and this one was a special gift from my Brother and Sister in law. I searched everywhere- turned my flat upside down, checked every nook and cranny in the car, quizzed the dog to see if she had played it, checked the houses of the three families in town, then, in a true attitude of Bunyan “Giant Despair,” sank into the armchair. A couple of days later I sat at my table and looked across to my armchair. By the way my kids hate my armchair because they think it’s too big! Then a feeble light began to flicker in my brain, for next to my armchair, yes right next to it, was my music stand which was facing away from the chair,. Surely I couldn’t be that dumb, and layed the whistle across the stand and then hadn’t noticed it. I leapt towards the stand and there it was in the most obvious, maybe too obvious, of places and I had completely missed it. 

Isn’t it true, particularly in schools that the answer to a mystery can be found if you look in an obvious place. Too often we bypass the obvious and as Principals this is so easy to do because of being so busy. But the job of a Principal so often requires dealing with mysteries, issues and problems, all requiring solutions.

Stories are such a useful way to stimulate thought and this one about the tin whistle is no exception. I find that the source of writing pieces can be generated by inspiration where the story seems to flash into the mind or alternatively by distillation where the basis of an idea trickles into the mind and then grows. I think that exams can sometimes miss exciting student thinking when an essay has to be crafted in a limited time. This gives the opportunity for success lying more with inspiration essays or those that have been pre-prepared rather than those that are able to evolve via distillation.

Even during a normal class, students may need time for constructive distillation. Of course this can produce, if not considered in planning, differences when students finish their work and possibly start getting restive. I have to admit that I hardly ever finished an exam and was often disappointed because I felt I hadn’t had time to distill the appropriate answer. 

It is stimulating to make a tin whistle a feature of a lesson. They are cheap to buy, you’ll get the students attention by showing them and blowing it. Then it is a wonderful example of someone like Clarke, in fact without resources, seeing an opportunity and then having the courage and foresight to take it. The story is a good one for staff as well. 

Of course the tale is a great example of initiative. Clarke saw the opportunity and decided to do something with it rather than just keeping it as a good idea. In doing this he had to sort through the challenges of design, manufacturing/creating and marketing, not so different with what we should be considering as Principals on many fronts. Good Principals must think logically and creatively if they are to have a successful school and of course they must always be very sensitive to their market.  

Clarke would never have embarked on his life changing project if he didn’t have a sensitivity to people and what they may want. His whistles are simple but well-made and have built a reputation accordingly which has remained until this day. 

EARLY VET

The seeds of Vet go back into the 1960s but the modern development I think started in 1973 with the innovative Whitlam Government which set up the Kangan Committee. This lead to the most significant report in the history of technical education in Australia. It was about 1976 when I was teaching in my first school, Wangaratta Technical College. The Principal addressed the large Staff Meeting after a trip to Melbourne where he had been briefed about the new direction of Technical Education in Victoria and indeed in Australia. 

I think it was at this meeting (Memory a little faint) that he mentioned the exciting concept of Technical and Further Education and Wang Tech was changing direction with its senior campus set to embrace it. Having started work at a Tech school I have always been a supporter of what was offered and having been there at this time of critical change have always been a supporter of TAFE and VET. 

Since then the ride in the development of TAFE and VET has been made rocky through a range of decisions, none the less of money “yo yoing” in and out of the sector. My memories since 1974 have so often been clouded by yet another cost cutting measure in education based on the hope that “She’ll be right mate” when in fact it was detrimental . Let’s hope this present era is a new one in VET because we sure need it for Australia’s future.

The offering of Vet can be very broad from motor mechanics to being a barista. However I believed it was really important for all students to be able to use tools in the workshop to make things and learn the art of cooking and care in the kitchen. When we started in 1989 all students in years 7 and 8 undertook these skills and they could continue in year 9 and upwards. My father in his own way was a good tradesman and I was lucky enough to learn a wide range of skills from him. Contrastingly, one of my senior teachers had none of these practical skills and really felt he had missed out. He was even unconfident with a hammer. At my own school, as a student, I was exposed to little of this. So I was keen that all students be given this opportunity. At the Tech, practical classes were arranged according to gender. This was never the practice at St Philips.

People teaching in Tech schools at that time were appreciative of the wonderful, expensive, practical facilities that existed. Then the Techs were closed down, amalgamated with the high schools and many of these opportunities we’re lost. Craft, Design and Technology was introduced to schools. It was a fine subject but it didn’t adequately replace the workshop experience which lead more directly into future trades.

In my time as a teacher, Australia has often adopted approaches to education from overseas. And so, in my understanding, was Craft, Design and technology, replacing full workshop experience following the trend in Britain. On my study leave in 1992 I visited a number of schools in Britain who had excellent CDT programs which were of great benefit to their students. However, I believe (my opinion) that they were also a cost saving measure given that authentic workshops were expensive to build, equip and maintain.

The move from a practical background into a trade was a normal occurrence when I started. These days I do have to visit Wangaratta on occasions and sometimes nostalgically park next to the Junior Tech where I started. It is now thoroughly closed and looking very derelict-shame as some of those facilities were built during the four years I was there. I reckon some of those facilities could be useful today - hindsight is a wonderful gift!

Written by Chris Tudor