Max,
I can report that individual A4 sized wooden-framed slates were in regular use in 'Bubs' grade at least at East Ivanhoe State School in 1962. Gwen Harwood speaks of slate too in 'Class of 1927', I presume in Queensland. Later years saw HB pencils and dipping pens but as I said earlier it wasn't until 1965/66 that fountain pens were allowed, most opting for the filled ink tube of the cartridge pen first as I recall. Biros were regarded as implements of scribble and not to pressed into force in school rooms, at least not in my primary school.
Bill
On 15/03/2013, at 6:48 AM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> bad handwriting is surely a sign of bad/weak character.
> Mine was good till high school teachers insisted we write lots down fast.
> In 1951 or so fountain pens were losing the battle with the biro, and biros also destroyed stylish 'hands'.
>
> This all led to immediate loss of character.
> My father became a primary school inspector and often reported on the declining quality of blackboard writing by the teachers he saw.
> (very proud of his own chalk script)
>
> Slates, Andrew!
> I think you alone in this conversation had them.
> Maybe your Welshman brought them from slaty Wales.
>
> Max
>
> On 15/03/2013, at 4:00 AM, Douglas Barbour wrote:
>
>> Not sure if it's nature or nurture, Andrew, but my handwriting is terrible, too…
>>
>> Doug
>> On 2013-03-13, at 9:49 PM, Andrew Burke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>> My wife remembers them being used in 1960. We used slates and chalk when I
>>> first entered education proper, 1950; we used nibs and inkwells for at
>>> least two years after the first year; then fountain pens and/or approved
>>> biros (yes, we had to get them 'approved' by the Prefect of Studies, a
>>> fire-breathing Welsh priest).
>>>
>>> Now, my handwriting is awful! :-)
>>>
>>> Andrew
>>>
>>> On 14 March 2013 08:02, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Beware of loud laughers, Max. Love the way these seemingly slight lines
>>>> never open up, (open out?) revealing with each stanza's accretion, the
>>>> ongoing world view of the meekly good.
>>>>
>>>> Ink wells, I can report, in Melbourne at least,met their makers midway
>>>> through 1965, the year in which I began grade five with a blue
>>>> wooden-stemmed blot-creating nib pen but switched, as did, my memory
>>>> recalls, all of us, to full-flowing ink 'cartridge pen'. Biros I don't
>>>> associate with school until high school which began for me in 1968.
>>>>
>>>> Bill
>
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