Malcolm McIlvena

Malcolm McIlvena

1940

Brunswick, Melbourne, Victoria

Malcolm was born in 1940 in Brunswick in Melbourne and his parents had a fruit and confectionary shop on Bell Street, near the corner of Essex Street. They left the shop in 1947 and moved around Victoria quite a bit as Malcolm’s father acquired various jobs. They eventually settled in Melbourne and Malcolm attended Princes Hill Central School to Form Two and then went to University High School where he ‘matriculated and then went on to Melbourne Teachers College’. Some of his strongest memories of University High are related to his involvement in the cadets. He remembers that both involvement in cadets and Scouts inspired him to become a teacher: ‘as a patrol leader [you would] teach the others how to do the knots and all those sorts of things. And then in the cadets it was the same thing except you were teaching them how to pull a Bren gun down’. Malcolm was trained as a primary teacher; however, his first teaching appointment in 1960 was at Morwell High School ‘because they were short of teachers’. He taught English, History, Geography, Science, Art and French to Forms One and Two. This was the beginning of a teaching career that involved many varied roles including the sole teacher of a small country school, relieving teacher for the Warrigal inspectorate, librarian, delivery of professional development for the Library Branch [what is this?] and finally Principal of Pascoe Vale North Primary School. Some of the major changes Malcolm observed during the seventies were the introduction of school libraries and the end of ‘printed curricula’. Malcolm believes another big change is that there is now ‘too much non-teaching’, which was ‘one of the reasons I think that I … resigned’.

Primary: Coburg North Primary, Melbourne, Victoria (1940s)

Primary: Pascoe Vale Primary, Melbourne, Victoria (1940s)

Primary: Princes Hill Central School, Carlton, Melbourne, Victoria (1940s–1950s)

Secondary: University High School, Parkville, Melbourne, Victoria (1950s)

Tertiary: Melbourne Teacher’s College (1958–1959)

Tertiary: La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria

Tertiary: RMIT, Melbourne, Victoria

1. Pascoe Vale Primary School 1929 Building (detail), c1970–1999. Photographer Laurie Burchell. State Library Victoria, H2006.165/287
2. Lygon Street Building, University High, Parkville, Melbourne, 1966. Photographer unknown. Courtesy University High Alumni
3. Melbourne Teachers College, c1950s. Photographer unknown. State Library Victoria, H2009.153/17