System of Education
The setting is St. Joseph’s Catholic School, a small cluster of stone buildings at the bottom of Gillagala Hill on the outskirts of Merriwa, a rural town of 500 people in northwest New South Wales, Australia. It was in this one room schoolhouse that I received my “formal education.” We pupils sat in rows, inkwells full, and listened to repetitive instructions of which I have no memory. But it was not in this classroom that I truly received my education. Each day I would wake up on our sheep station with my four brothers and two sisters. We would do our chores and then walk a mile to the bus stop for the rough and ragged journey to school.
On this journey, I would start my schooling. As the notorious “naughty boy,” my designated seat was up front, on an old apple box next to the driver. My engineering education came from being up close and personal with the bus engine and the gearing system. As I was not permitted to talk for the 1½- hour journey, and the scenery got boring, I found other ways to engage my energies. As there was no lid to the engine housing in this bus, the driver constantly had to refill the radiator so the bus would not overheat. I would watch the engine rattle and groan, and the driver rev and change gears, until I knew every working part of the bus. On one occasion, to try to understand the tension applied to the brake pedal for the bus to stop, I reached my foot across and slammed down on the brake pedal while the bus was in full motion. We stopped, all right, and I learned that it took a lot of my weight to push the brake pedal to the floor; I also learned, through a sore bottom, that placing one’s foot on the brake randomly was not a good idea.