Passion for outback education leads Brooke Scriven to an unexpected doctorate

Brooke Scriven, a 27-year-old who had dreamed of teaching at Broken Hill Primary School, instead found a passion for academia in her third year of university.

“I’m originally from Hay and I wanted to be a teacher in the outback, but I became interested in how research was done,” Dr Scriven said.

“We were using these studies and journal articles and I wanted to know how they came to their conclusions.”

Dr Scriven’s doctoral research looked at how children interact with family members to learn digital literacy and she hoped to reach reach beyond an outback classroom to one day influence lots of students.

The impact of spelling on a child’s academic performance was the thesis subject of Dr Tessa Daffern, who also received her PhD on Wednesday.

Wednesday afternoon’s ceremony was all about teachers, with students receiving a variety of education degrees.

More than 60 primary school teachers graduated, 9 early childhood educators and eight adult educators.

Librarians and students from information sciences were also well-represented, receiving more than 30 degrees.

While there was a lot of pomp and circumstance surrounding the ceremony, which Vice-Chancellor Andrew Vann said was one of the few life events people could put on fancy clothes for, the graduates showed signs of grateful relief at having completed their studies.

He told the graduates they would go on to make an important contribution to education and he hoped they would have a positive impact wherever they went.

In her occasional address, university ombudsman Miriam Dayhew echoed the sentiments of Professor Vann.

“Graduation is an important milestone,” Ms Dayhew said.

“It’s a milestone you share with the families who have supported you and the relationships you’ve developed will last a lifetime.

“Use your education for good and live respectfully in a land worth living in.”