T ’S exam time. The kids who read this page will not need to be reminded. They are well aware that their entire consciousness has undergone a dramatic transforma tion during these past weeks. The general reader, however, will probably recall exam time on a physical level, perhaps even with a shudder, but the experi ence and its meaning will by now probably be lost. But, like so many sublimations of the dis tasteful, the state of conscious ness induced by examinations continues to lurk and exert its form of control, out of reach of the mind. It was once believed that there was virtue in undertaking arduous and unpleasant tasks. They were felt to be good for the mind and spirit, rather in the way that cold showers were thought to be good for the body. Exam s are recalled by this generation not with pleasure but with a kind of pride in the fact that they came through it all. Exam s, for those who missed out on the war or the Depression, are the great initiation into the mean game of life, the struggle for survival. They are a cathartic experience. Those who passed were entitled to consider them selves endowed with superior virtue. Those who failed were
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ACER is regarded with a certain bound to the conclusion that amount o f awe by the teacher, they were of lesser virtue. but also with fear and suspicion. Times have changed however. But, despite the erosion of The unpleasant is no longer uni public confidence in its value, the versally equated with virtue, and public examination has survived war is no longer equated with manliness, or even with human as an institution. In Victoria these examinations take place in the dignity. The successful doubt the fifth year in technical schools, virtue of their success, and the and in the sixth year in high failures suspect merit in their schools. failure. Examinations are regard In recent years, the technical ed with distrust by a substantial schools have been inclined to section of the community. Educa throw in the towel and confess tionalists come out in open revolt that they are unable or unwilling against examinations without to educate their students to the feeling in the least deviant. At standard of a public examination. junior levels, exams are abandon ed and replaced by progressive They have, therefore, with very assessment of work done during loose external supervision, been setting their own examinations or the year. devising other forms of assess The older teachers worry ment which will enable a respect about this sort of thing, but they able number of their charges to know that they are outnumbered be passed. and outdated. At the Australian In the high schools, HSC sub Council for Educational R e jects are taught often by young search, the backroom boys of teachers who do not themselves education devise curious tests of the subconscious, examinations believe in the value of public examinations, but who cannot of the multiple choice answer escape the knowledge that success type which aspire to produce or failure at the end of the year scores of innate ability to work will have a profound effect on the with numbers, words and con future lives of their students. cepts. The students, sensing the However, in the end the tests only succeed in producing scores dilemma of their teachers, adopt o f equivalence between the sub the reasonable attitude — if they conscious of the examinee, and dont believe in the exams then that of the backroom boy. The why should we? This may mani
fest itself in extrem e forms as is evidenced by the program of ‘Brother John and the Creative Learning Collective’ ( TLD no. 2). More frequently it is manifested in the form of passive resistance, or apathy if you like, during the first two terms of the year. Finally, sometime during third term , both teachers and students are driven by their accumulated guilt to a state approaching anguish, and they seek redemp tion through self punishment. They drive themselves to trans cend the state of consciousness which has prevailed, and to re place it with one which will en able them to pass. This drive for transcendence often has pleasurable side effects, and students frequently find that exam time is the first time that they have any real appreciation of the subjects they are studying. This is in part an illusion, induced by the exclusion of most other varieties of reality, but it pro duces the conviction in the minds of many students that meaning can be created by independent activity of the human brain. Exam time, and the months preceding it, is also a time when many intelligent students drop out. The hypocrisy and internal inconsistency o f the education system is on open display. It
In the Coral Sea of time, Drifting aimlessly. Then washed up on a New Y ork beach, Where dictionary beer-mugs are discussing the relevance of the toilet bowl, Flute heroes discussing the relevance of the cocktail olive, And me wondering about relevance. Time wrecked upon the beach. The Saracen hordes swarm upon my body, The seaweed rags flutter from the flagpoles, The rain coming so tired and thin and desolate, Dylan’s harmonica cloudburst Around the bewildered puppy, His eyes as large as his sorrow. Rom e crumbling into a seven hill golf course, And a grin put upon one face, And a smile wiped off another.
Are these people real? My eyes are devouring my head, And with it my mind And with it myself.
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A R D E L SHAM SULLAH
THIS IS all by way of introduc tion to the two pieces we present this week. Both are the work of final year students. Heather Joh n son is a fifth form student at a technical school situated in a Housing Commission estate on the outer reaches of Melbourne; Ardel Shamsullah is in sixth form at Melbourne High School, an anomaly in the State system, which he rightly describes as “that bastion of the establish m ent”. There is no common theme. Heather titled her piece simply An A pple Eating Institution. Ardel called his poem Alcatraz Night. I have put these two pieces together because they are indica tive of the workings of the mind caused by the search for trans cendence which takes place in the final year of school. They rep resent a refusal to allow the separation of the personal, the social, and the cultural, which the education system seems to de mand.
have to beat this apple eating institution. Definition o f an apple eater: It is a person who, without realising it, looks at the world with only logic, reasoning and facts, leaving little or no room for imagination and their ability to see things as they really want to, not as other people see them. Y ou dont have to see things as other people see them. Take, for example, an abstract painting. One person will see his interpretation, and another might see something entirely different. It depends on the experiences and influences he has had in the past. “An elephant only looks big com pared to a person; If you were to compare it to a mountain, the elephant would be small.” It is only the way you have been conditioned to think and see. We all have traces of apple eaters in our minds — without these traces we could not com municate. It is when you refuse a bite of the apple, that is when you can die — for the majority have already been bitten.
A L C A T R A Z NIGHT
Mattresses roasting over a marshmallow, And prunes popping into eye balls, And into the mouths of trams As they gorge the metal track, Which snakes into a smoky asylum.
occurs to these students that if the system is both inane and arduous, that they might be better off finding reality elsewhere.
H EA TH ER JOHNSON
O DOUBT the teachers of our institution are nowhere near the approval of our attitude. Even the word "teachers” disillu sions me. The fact that we look at them in this manner reduces any feeling we have for them. Teachers are people who have been greatly influenced by their past experiences, good or bad. And they want to use their past experiences in the present. They
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see the past as a record of experi ences by which they can trace back information that will help them in the present. But the past is not happening now. How can you believe in something that has already happened. It is not here now, nor is it likely to return in this lifetime. Whether you realise it or not, everything you do now has a consequence in the future. Y ou
cannot confuse past experiences with the understanding which has com e with them . Sure, under standing is all based on previous experiences but — (I am a hypocrite - this writ ing is confused and senseless.) I guess I was trying to be someone I’m not, a someone who people would believe because they seem to make good sense. And seeming isnt the answer. We
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WATERGATE has proved be yond any doubt that straight politics can be fun, and educa tional. So I am turning over these pages two weeks hence to the Politics o f the School, Stories, articles and artwork pertaining to student government, SRCs the perfect system, spon taneous outbursts, or any other form of wheeling and dealing are hereby solicited. Send them to me C/- PO Box 5 3 1 2BB, GPO Melbourne, Vic. 3001 ROB KING
T H E L IV IN G D A Y L IG H T S , N ovem ber ,13-19,,1973 -
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