Mr. Bourke

Ubique: You were part of the first Galileo team ever! How did feel to be involved with such an incredible new program that had just been introduced by the school?

Mr Bourke: It was exciting. You knew that whatever you did was going to have far reaching implications. We knew the course we designed that year was going to change from year to year but we knew that we were going to form the structure of the course for many years after that.

It was exciting and stressful but it was good fun. I had a good time. It was also my first year of teaching and it was a good opportunity to have an impact straight away and to be able to implement your ideas. We had so much freedom to do that. That was a great opportunity.

[U]: How has the course changed since it first started?

B: I don’t really know because I don’t have a huge day-to-day update on what happens. I know the camps are very different; the first few years we just went to Queenscliff. We stayed in cabins and all [that] sort of stuff. Now the camps are a lot more hardcore.

Obviously the staff member that comes in brings their own ideas and hence the focus changes depending on what the staff members of that particular year want to emphasise and get rid of. But from what I’m aware, a lot of it is still the same; you still do community service, trails and the team projects. A lot of it is still quite similar.

[U]: Why is it important to have a program like Galileo?

B: I think it gives an opportunity to focus on areas which are quite neglected in the mainstream curriculum. I don’t think the mainstream curriculum has enough focus on things like skill development. You get 13 years of schooling, yet Galileo is probably the only time you have a class on how to do an interview. That’s actually quite an important skill. And without Galileo, you would never do something like that. I think it provides an opportunity – especially in the middle secondary years such as year 9 – to have teachers that are only concerned with year 9. I think that’s really important because when you are in the mainstream teaching, you can get pulled away from year 9 quite a lot. When you are teaching, unfortunately, your focus does tend to shift towards year 12s and year 7s simply because the year 12s need so much more immediate attention and the year 7s require some sort of guidance. I think it really is crucial to have an experience like Galileo. It’s skill-focused, the fact that it covers different grounds, the fact that it has teachers that are purely concerned with the year 9s; it provides an opportunity for the students to really get to know each other.

[U]: What would you change about the current education system?

B: There’s a lot. I think it does need to be a lot more experience-focused. There are some basic skills you need to know. For example, you’re not going to go on with maths unless you know your times tables and the best way to learn that is rote learning. Beyond some of those really basic things, I think the education system would be much better off if it was experience-based. Students have more chances to learn skills that they can apply in a real world environment. I also think it needs to be a bit student-led too; the students should get a bit more of a say about their own curriculum. I don’t think the current model of putting students in a classroom and shutting the door for 48 minutes and learning about science and then learning about English and so on is the best thing. I think that is a perfect recipe for the kids not actually understanding how science works outside the classroom or learning any other discipline really. Multiple studies have shown that a student’s ability to know how what they [learn] in the class applies to outside of the class is appalling. There needs to be a lot more focus on that. There also needs to be a bit more of a focus on the skills that we actually use in real life. I don’t want to downgrade a subject, every subject’s got their thing, but you wonder why the hell that needs to be part of the curriculum when what we don’t teach is how to have a conversation, basic life skills and other important things. You look at some things and you think “would I rather my kid know this or know how to dress, how to speak, how to talk to strangers”.  I would rather the latter.

[U]: We heard that you taught English in Japan. How did you get involved with that?

B: My wife wanted to do that, actually. She learned Japanese all through school and university and she has a couple of friends in Japan from when she was in year 11 and did exchange there – well, they’re my friends too now. She always wanted to go and live in Japan and the way to get a ticket to Joana is to go and teach English. I was also curious about becoming a teacher as well so I thought that would be a good way to get my toe in the water and see whether I liked it or not.

My job was to speak to Japanese people all day and that was a fantastic way to meet a lot of the locals. Because often when you travel, you don’t end up speaking to the people that live there; you talk to the other people in hostel who are probably from Australia as well. I strongly recommend doing something like that.

[U]: You’re currently teaching economics and maths. Why do you think it’s important to teach economics to students at this age?

B: I think economics is important because it explains so much about what’s going on in the world. So many of the big decisions that politicians and other powerful people make on our behalf are about economics. So, if you don’t understand what this whole economics thing is, it’s very hard to have a proper understanding of what’s going on in the world when one of the major things happening in your blind spot. I think it is important to have an understanding of economics.

[U]: Did you always want to be a teacher?

B: No way! When I was in school, being a teacher was one of the last things I wanted to be. I sort of tried not to be a teacher for a long time and I didn’t become a teacher until I was around 30. I held it off for a while, but I’m glad I made the change.

[U]: What did you aspire to be before you made a final decision?

B: A few things. I worked for the Victorian government for a while, I pulled out from a job as a lawyer at the last minute, I was tempted to go into business but I didn’t want to spend my days in an office. So yeah, probably what my alternative careers would have been but I’m glad I didn’t go down those roads.

[U]: A little birdie told me that you’ve been on wondrous journeys around the world; can you tell us a bit about that?

B: I guess the last trip I did was in 2012 when I left Uni High. My wife and I, we just flew to Bangkok. We decided to try and go from Bangkok to Scotland without flying. We spent 5 months going through South-East Asia and up through China and then caught the Trans Mongolian Express through Mongolia and kept going across to Germany eventually. My wife’s friend and brother were both living in Germany at the time. After that we went to Scotland. My wife was working there for about 6 months so we left after that.

[U]: One of your co-workers told me to ask you about interesting prizes and competitions you’ve won.

B: Last year I won a trip to Aspen – it’s a ski resort in the USA. If you’ve seen the movie ‘Dumb & Dumber’, it’s the one they go to.

In January this year, my wife and I went there. Her brother actually lives and works in San Francisco at the moment and her sister lives in Vancouver. We went to San Francisco and her sister came down and we met up. It was the first time my wife and her siblings had been together after a few years because her brother has been living in Germany and the USA. We spent a few days with them and then we did a road trip across to Aspen. We spent a week at the end of [trip] skiing in Aspen.

[U]: And last but not least, which teacher would you like to tag for the next Teacher Tag?

B: I would like to tag Ms, Bobeff.

Ms. Bobeff, we’re coming for you.