Pioneering maths teacher retires

VICTORIAN Certificate of Education mathematics students today are accustomed to using a calculator in their exams, but it was Ballarat Grammar teacher Sue Garner who helped pioneer this change in the early 2000s.

Under Ms Garner’s leadership, Ballarat Grammar was one of three schools who took part in a trial where students could undertake Maths Methods using a CAS calculator.

Since then, CAS calculators have been implemented in Maths Methods and Specialist Maths VCE exams.

“It is still controversial, but CAS calculators are now used in VCE exams throughout Victoria,” Ms Garner said.

“I was invited because Melbourne University knew me, and they were running the trial alongside VCAA.

“Our headmaster at the time took a big leap saying yes, and I had to run parent meetings at the time explaining what was happening.”

Ms Garner retired from teaching late in 2024, after working at Ballarat Grammar for 32 years and teaching for 50.

She originally wanted to study medicine or become an actuary but was told she was unlikely to be promoted as a woman.

Ms Garner’s first teaching job was at Debney Park Secondary College where she worked with refugee communities, and she then moved Colchester, England, and returned to Australia to Presbyterian Ladies College, where she had to sign a contact stating she would not become pregnant.

She moved to the University of Melbourne Education Department and then Ave Maria College Essendon where students would attempt to climb into her classroom to watch her use calculators.

“I introduced the very earliest calculators into my classroom, and I found that the girls would climb along from the portable next door… to get into the windows of my classroom and find out how the calculators were used,” Ms Garner said.

“Looking back, it was quite innovative, I didn’t feel it was quite innovative at the time, for me it felt quite obvious.”

In the 1980s, girls were largely not expected to continue education, but Ms Garner enrolled Ave Maria students at St Bernard’s College Essendon and arranged taxis so they could study physics.

She taught extra classes to teach one student pure mathematics, and years later this student thanked Ms Garner for assisting her to become a doctor.

“She saw me in a tram a couple of years later, she yelled across the tram ‘You’re the teacher who means that I’m a doctor’,” said Ms Garner.

“She was only allowed to do general maths, and I enrolled her in pure maths and taught her on the side.”

After working at several higher education institutions, Ms Garner decided to return to teaching at Ballarat Grammar for stability, and initially she thought it was a step backwards, but soon discovered it was the perfect place to forward her career.

“Ballarat Grammar is the sort of place where people stay, they have very long-serving staff,” Ms Garner said.

“I was allowed to forward my career in any way I wanted.”

While completing a masters in mathematics, Ms Garner researched the differences in how girls and boys study mathematics.

“What my thesis found, but what is still found, is that boys do better in, for example, multiple choice questions, because they are risk-takers,” she said.

“Girls will tick it and go ‘Oh no I’m not sure’ and change it.

“I think being a female role model really helped, because girls in my class could sit and think ‘well Ms Garner can do it, so perhaps I can do it too.’

“It’s not too hard for them, it’s just the way the pattern goes.”

In her retirement, Ms Garner will continue to tutor students, completing auditing work for the VCAA, writing textbooks and marking SACs.

She might also study medicine, more than 50 years since she first fell in love with the idea.