Joseph McKenna was the Under-Secretary of the Queensland Department of Public Instruction from 1923 to 1936.
Impact On Brisbane Society
Joseph McKenna is a troubling figure in Queensland education. As Greg Logan explains, although, as a teacher, McKenna had been inculcated in the utilitarian, child-centred ‘New Education’ trends in the early twentieth century (a progressivist position for its time), McKenna resisted educational reforms for Queensland, holding the state back in the 1930s with a mission for a ‘a sturdy and intelligent rural peasantry’.
Citations
G. N. Logan, ‘McKenna, Bernard (Joseph) (1870–1937)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mckenna-bernard-joseph-7386/text12841, published first in hardcopy 1986, accessed online 18 December 2017.
Image Citation
Portrait of Mr BJ McKenna. Archive: Queensland State Archives 4084, Agriculture And Stock Department, Publicity Branch