Eulogy - Beth Parsons

Abstract

We were saddened this year by the the passing of one of Australia’s drama education pioneers, Tasmania’s Beth Parsons. According to her own memoir (Parsons 2020), Beth Parsons was from the village of Ouse in Tasmania, and had to leave school at the age of thirteen because her parents could not afford to send her to high school. However she worked to complete training at the Teachers Training College in Launceston and went on to teach in a number of primary schools. Beth’s foray in drama in education was launched when she was was selected to attend a ‘school-of-method’ course conducted by the Supervisor of Speech Education, Mr Clive Sansom. Clive Samson had been appointed by the Tasmanian Government in 1950 with the brief to improve the standard of speech among children. He had a background as an author, poet and university examiner in the art of the spoken work. Beth enthusiastically tried out the methods she had learnt with her own class, and also subsequently at the New Norfolk High School. Pleased with Beth’s achievements, Clive Sansom invited her to train as a speech education adviser with the Speech Education Centre. She moved to the Centre in 1955, where she met and worked with some innovative educators, many of whom became lifelong friends. The centre advisors had the challenging job of introducing class discussion and oral language, puppet plays and poetry performances with the goal of unlocking the voices of children. At that time children were generally not permitted to speak in class unless reciting lines that had been rote learnt. At one school, half of the class even staged a walk out because their parents believed that it was evil for children to use their imaginations, however Beth calmly soldiered on, aiming to bring out the best in the remaining children. Beth was soon given the responsibility of covering thirteen schools in the Huon Valley and D’Entrecasteaux Channel areas, and during this time she formed more life-long friendships with teachers that she encountered. Clive Sansom continued to be an important mentor for Beth, and arranged a scholarship for her to study Speech and Drama teaching in England during 1959. This was highly significant as such courses were not available in Australia until 1970. As part of achieving certification from the London Royal Academy of Music and Drama, Beth needed to acquire an accent and intonation that would enable her to merge unnoticeably with an English cast. This necessitated extra tuition to work on modification of her Australian vowel sounds. Returning to Tasmania, Beth soon became the first ever lecturer in Speech and Drama at the Launceston Teachers College, and subsequently at the Hobart Teachers College. She worked towards having The Arts recognised within the Tasmanian curriculum and Speech and Drama accepted as counting towards matriculation. In Hobart, she established lasting friendships with other lecturers involved in Music and Art, and together they NJ: DRAMA AUSTRALIA JOURNAL 2020, VOL. 44, NO. 1, 56–59 https://doi.org/10.1080/14452294.2020.1859671