Julie Murphy leaves the Merri Creek classroom after 40 years
After 40 years at Merri Creek Primary, teacher Julie Murphy will leave the classroom for the last time on Tuesday.
First reported in The Age, she started at the Fitzroy North school on May 30, 1978.
“The first generation of students you taught would now be 46!” Ross said.
“That would be right,” Julie replied.
“I’m on second generations here, I taught one boy when I first started and now I’ve taught his son.”
Julie said the school, the curriculum and the suburb have changed dramatically over her four-decade tenure.
“It was a rather disadvantaged school back then, you were risking your life on yard duty,” she said.
“You’d either be pulsified by a cricket ball, which are now banned, or they’d be having a punch up somewhere and you’d have to try and break it up!”
“The curriculum continues to evolve and expand, we never taught subjects like ‘civics and citizenship’ or ’emotional wellbeing’.
“I haven’t done anything extraordinary, I’ve just done my job.”
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