Speaking Out Of Turn

Manning Clark

• Publisher: Melbourne University Press Digital
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9780522847703
• eBook ISBN:
  9780522863260
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This fascinating book brings together forty-two selected speeches and lectures by Professor Manning Clark.They range over fifty years from 'What of Germany', delivered in 1940, to the last, delivered in 1991 just before his death at the launch of Barry Humphries' book The Life and Death of Sandy Stone and reveal recurring themes as well as developments in Clark's thinking. In one sense they are all of a piece. They reflect the values, aspirations, regrets-and laughter-of one passionate and intelligent man. In another, they change and develop during the course of that man's intellectual and emotional career. In early manhood he analysed issues and problems ruthlessly in terms of his own values. In middle life he portrayed men and women and expounded ideas from a historical perspective. Towards his end the elegiac mood prevailed and he sought-not always successfully-to speak as a 'life affirmer' and to regard all men and women and events with the 'eye of pity'.A History of Australia, Volumes 1 & 2, Earliest Times - 1838, deals with the pre-white settlement era and the earliest years of European colonisation through to the establishment of an increasingly settled society and the expeditions of the great inland explorers.

The Teaching of History: Tutorials

A talk to the history staff, University of Melbourne, 4 August 1948.

Introduction

My subject is teaching history by the tutorial method. I am going to assume a number of things: that you are fond of your subject (possibly doing research in it), that you want to communicate it to others. Also that you have the ‘externals’ to do this—that your voice, appearance and manner are, if not helpful, at least not offensive. I am assuming all this, and will concentrate on how you use these to conduct a tutorial.

How

Well, I think there are two essential things to do well before the class begins—their preparation and yours.

Their preparation: There are two tasks for you: to set work which they can do, a maximum of 200 pages; to make them (could I say inspire them?) do the work. This is one of the most exacting tests for a teacher. And, of course, the real test of your success is that they should go on wanting to find out long after you have taught them. How do you do this?

1. By acquiring the skill of recommending the books which will appeal to them.
2. By taking an active interest in their work—especially in libraries and casual conversation. Here, above all, you must be careful not to cross the frontier between ‘interest’ and ‘domination’.
3. By showing in class and elsewhere the value you attach to their work. I think you should show them that they can and do teach you a great deal. Some examples: ‘You’ll remember that Mr So-and-So drew our attention to this material’, or ‘I followed up Mr So-and-So’s point of view and I think we may have to revise our view on this.’
4. However, the important thing is for them to realise that you not only work at the subject, but find it worthwhile. It’s good for them to see you at work. You’ve got to hand this enthusiasm on to them—I don’t think you should ever consciously try to do this. Remember the unerring eye of the adolescent for anything which is not genuine.

This takes us into your preparation.

Your preparation: First I will urge you strongly to do two things.

1. Spend a lot of time thinking about the lesson.
2. Plan the lesson on paper—and, if you are, like me, a beginner, the plan should be in detail.

Well now, how do you plan a lesson?

Planning A LESSON

The first thing you have to decide is what you want to teach. To illustrate with an example, the introduction of political democracy in Victoria 1860–1908—what you decide on as a theme or proposition: why people hold certain political opinions (there are many other possible themes).

Form OF THE LESSON

Preparation, Presentation, Conclusion—compare with theorems in geometry and sonata form.

1. Preparation: Quite informal—e.g., ‘It’s odd why some people believe in certain political opinions’, or ‘Miss Smith, what do you think is the main reason for holding political opinions?’ Elicit the main reasons and formulate them.
2. Presentation: Well, let’s test these views:
   • Example of debate on Electoral Act Amendment Bill, 1888.
   • Example of debate on votes for women 1908.
3. Conclusion: ‘Well, here are the opinions and here is the evidence. Do you think we can draw any conclusions?’

Incidentally, by planning your course, you can test out all the hypotheses about human behaviour and social laws.

That is one model for a lesson. There are many others which I haven’t time to set out. One point: your thinking about the lesson beforehand should be so thorough that you are not put off by any surprising developments—and you should be prepared for modification when the response of the class makes this necessary—explain. Above all, don’t create the impression that you would flounder if you left your carefully charted course.

Aids

How do you keep such a discussion moving?

1. Skill in questioning—give examples—practise the art of putting questions, and study masters of it, e.g., The Dialogues of Plato.
2. By bringing everyone into the discussion. Another exacting test for a teacher is whether he can bring in ‘the least of the children’.
3. By showing them that the truth comes from the contributions of all sorts and conditions. You will get a better decision from throwing all approaches into the ring—and, of course, you won’t do this unless you believe it yourself, i.e., that you can learn from everyone.

Perhaps I may be permitted to add at random some lessons from a short experience in the game.

The DON’ts

1. Don’t talk too much yourself. You will exhaust all you have to say far too quickly—look at columns by journalists. Also, there are times when you should intervene and I think they will respect you more if you do it rarely.
2. Don’t read long extracts—even if you think they are wonderful.
3. Don’t let the class be passive for more than five minutes, i. e., no long papers, or introductory remarks.

The Do’s

1. Use humour.
2. Use any acting powers you have.
3. Identify yourself with the members of the class. Follow up their argument with them, e.g. Maconochie.* Pause—then stand aside as a critic.
4. Be patient with them—encourage them to give of their best.
5. Be careful with your use of criticism—you may silence them for ever.
6. Treat them all as of equal significance—I mean: don’t pander to those who hold your opinions and organise the class against your opponents.

To Sum Up

Preparation and practice and self-criticism and truth by discussion. Teaching a lesson is a work of art—both you and the class should feel as one does after an act of creation.

A talk at an Adult Education seminar on teaching, Australian National University, March 1967.

You remember the story about Vaughan Williams: when asked how he wrote music, he replied ‘It’s a rum go’ Well, my first point is that if you can do it—if as a teacher you are in the happy position of a cricketer who has pace off the pitch, or a pianist who just naturally plays scales in phase—don’t let the professional educators come near you. But I am assuming that most of you are not in that group of people in whom chance and the gods have planted such a precious gift; that most of us when we bowl come off the pitch very slowly. We can learn something. I will try to make a few points (rather like hints for fly fishermen).

1. In tutorials, if things don’t go well, it is almost certainly the fault of the teacher. So here, the beginning of wisdom is to tell yourself that there is a problem—namely, how to communicate to ten people; and if communication is not happening, that it is your fault.
2. You can learn a great deal from watching a great teacher at work. I remember once seeing Professor Frederick* make a class on the imperfect tense in French into an exciting experience. He became like Toscanini—and everyone in the class had a part.
3. Just as in other fields of intellectual activity, there is a model for conducting a tutorial, a model which very few can dispense with. A class is like a theorem in geometry, or a sonata in music: there is a statement of a theme, and recapitulation. You must have your plan. You must work out beforehand, for example, how to establish the subject for the day. A good teacher will get this from all of the class.
4. In following the plan, there are certain don’ts to bear in mind:
   • Don’t permit arias by any member of the class.
   • Don’t let the class become a sonata for unaccompanied tutor, i.e., you need to learn how to get at least 90 per cent participation. You are the conductor, and every member of your group has a part, as in a symphony.
   • Don’t attempt to communicate more than can be absorbed in fifty minutes.
   • Don’t be sarcastic, domineering, etc.
   • Don’t forget to work and work at the art of questioning. All the great teachers of mankind have been distinguished by at least two things—by their skill in questioning, and by the felicity of their images.

One could go on—and you would rightly feel irritated. You see, I am assuming three things.

1. That the success of a teacher in subjects such as history, politics and literature is to be measured by how long the inspiration lasts. I know that after the class there is a tea towel waiting for the women, and the bar for the men—but what lives on in the students’ minds?
2. That if everyone participates, if everyone contributes, then at the end of the hour—shall we say a very good hour—something like an epiphany has happened, something has been shown which was not there before.
3. That the teacher believes in what he is doing, that even when he is taking the students into the suburb where Mr Dry-As-Dust dwells, the members of the class can see that the man has some general picture of life: that, to put it crudely, he knows where the mainstream of life is.

It is this—the teacher’s morsel of ‘rum go’—which creates the enthusiasm, the belief that what they are reading and talking about has much to do with their own quest to find a meaning in their lives.

*Presumably a reference to a class discussion of the penal reformer Alexander Maconochie.

*Wilfred Henry Frederick was headmaster of Wesley College, Melbourne, 1947–56 and professor of education, University of Melbourne 1956–66.

A History of Australia, Volume 1, and Its Critics

The opening address at a seminar on new interpretations of Australian history convened by the Association for Cultural Freedom at the Belvedere Hotel, Sydney on 25 August 1963.

I am going to talk about Volume 1 of A History of Australia. A few years ago I sat down to dinner with a group of people. I heard snatches of their conversation—‘What you say is not clear . . .’; ‘Is that a verifiable proposition? . . .’; ‘I would attend closely to what they say’—i.e., a conversation of academics. In one of those moments of despair which overwhelm even the strongest when incomplete people talk in an incomplete way, I followed the advice of those who claim to provide us with a comforter. I looked up, and saw on one of the walls a painting: two men, two characters from one of the stories in the Old Testament—David and Saul.

And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand; so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.

The painting was by Arthur Boyd—an artist’s vision of the world. It achieved what all art achieves—that shock of recognition, that sense of awe and wonder, the burden of the mystery, of helping us to understand ourselves, the eye of pity for all of us—so that one could even feel gentle towards the men who seemed to believe that by thinking they could add a cubit to their stature. I use this scene to make the point that history is one of the muses—to communicate a vision of the world—a vision, not the vision, and hence I called my work A History of Australia. I will say something soon about what I tried to communicate. But first, I want to say something about the limits of history as a medium for such a communication.

1. It is not the greatest of the mediums—the poets and the musicians do it very much better, e.g., the arrival of the Lady Juliana in 1790, the reactions of Governor Phillip—what one might feel about life from contemplating such a scene—what if one had the passion and the serenity in, say, Bach’s Partita No. 4, first movement. The contemporaries, the eyewitnesses often do it much better, e.g. Pigafetta and the journeys of Magellan.*
2. The facts of history often cut across the purpose of the artist. Life, as Henry James said, is so untidy. The tragic heroes of history don’t say the right things—they don’t rush on to their destruction—don’t have their moments of awareness.
3. There are the personal limitations of the artist, e.g., one’s failure with the Portuguese. (Tell the story of Malacca.)†

Next: what I wanted to communicate. Well, the hedgehog and the fox.‡ Not one big thing, but many things. Will mention some of them, though, for obvious reasons, not all.

The TRAGIC VIEW OF LIFE

By this I meant many things—which is embarrassing to discuss publicly. I meant in part that men wer...

Table of contents

• Speaking Out of Turn
• Foreword
• Contents
• Note on the Text
• Preface
• Politics
• History
• Literature
• Friends
• Biographical Index