Discussions with (Mrs) Dell: How the Mercy Ethos Shapes Our Teachers

For over 20 years Bernadette Dell has taught at Mercedes College. However, her family’s association with the Sisters of Mercy began long before that! We sat down with Bernadette to talk about her time at the College, her love of teaching, and her immersion within the Mercy ethos from a young age.

Tell us a bit about your journey leading up to Mercedes College.

Well, I was educated by the Sisters of Mercy from the time I was four, in West Perth and then in Koondoola. I graduated from Mercy College in 1975 and did 2 degrees at UWA, I started teaching at another Mercy school, St. Joachim’s School in Victoria Park (now Ursula Frayne Catholic College). I went overseas, travelled over east, came back with 3 children, finished maternity leave and applied to be a teacher here at Mercedes.

I heard that your family has some history connected with the sisters of Mercy, would you be able to tell us a bit about that?

My family have a very long history with the Sisters of Mercy. The first Sister of Mercy in my family was my great-great aunt, Francis Lee, she entered West Perth in 1896, became Sr. Mary Vincent, and was running the orphanage at one stage in Wembley. I had various cousins, and my older sister is a Sister of Mercy – she’s been in the Sisters of Mercy since 1964, as was one of my foster sisters.
So basically, there’s not a convent in the metro area that I haven’t visited either to visit a relative, or my sister. This convent (at Mercedes) was where my foster sister entered, so I knew the grounds here as a small child.

How long have you been at Mercedes?

Halfway through 2000, I was replacing a teacher on medical leave- who thankfully is one of my colleagues now. I was here for 6 months when the principal at the time, Denise, said to me “Where do you see Mercedes in your future?” and I said “Denise, I could see myself retiring from Mercedes.” And here I am now, and I don’t intend on going anywhere else between now and retirement, so I will be retiring from Mercedes. As I said, after a couple of weeks it felt like coming home. Having been so imbued in the Mercy ethos, from very early childhood – it’s been 60 years that I’ve been associated with the Mercy Sisters, as a student or as a teacher, but also, the thing about Mercedes I love is that we have people from every background. People like me, I grew up in a working class background, through to, children whose parents are Queens Counsels or leaders of industry, and in the uniform they all look the same.

What is your favourite part of the campus?

The Convent and Heritage Centre. I used to work as a volunteer there, back when it was the Heritage Centre. I used to know the convent from the basement right up to the top floor. We used to get visitors who were looking around saying “Who was my Year 2 teacher? Who was my Music teacher?” and so on. It was a lovely experience showing people around.

Tell us about some of your passions and interests outside of teaching.

I think I’m probably a classic English teacher, in that I love reading and I love theatre, but I also have a particular passion about history. Which is why I was excited to be invited to be part of the research into Sr. Alma Beard, and leading the girls in finding out all about her life as a student here, and then her services in nursing, and finally her war service. Which was why we made her our feature of ANZAC Day this year.

Do you have any particularly fond memories from your time here that you’d like to share?

I am a specialist in non-ATAR students, so I enjoy watching some of my students who come in, feeling like maybe they have limited opportunities, then growing in confidence and being able to achieve things they hadn’t thought were in their grasp. I think also the non-classroom experiences, the New Norcia camp – combining my joy of history plus the fact that the girls are in a different environment, and a little bit more relaxed. I think I enjoy the relationships and the opportunities to develop those.

How do you think Mercedes differs to other schools?

It’s an all-girl environment, so girls can really expand their involvement in things without being restricted by who they have to impress and so on, and it’s a trusting environment for almost all the students. I think some of them are still hesitant, but most students feel valued and feel they can move forward and make mistakes and learn from those.

What led you to the subject you teach?

I actually trained as a Geography teacher, and English was my minor – but there were no social sciences jobs when I graduated, and so I went to my minor area, with a bit of social science on the side.

I was quite surprised, having been someone who used to read under the blankets with a little torch, I couldn’t quite get my head around the fact that there were people who didn’t like reading, and didn’t enjoy language… and so I quite enjoy finding ways of enticing people into being interested in finding out what’s next and decoding information that they hadn’t realised – things like subtext. I found I really enjoyed that and seemed to be quite good at that, so I keep doing it.

Could you tell me a bit about the importance of English and how it helps prepare the girls for the world outside of the College?

Well, quite obviously in an English-speaking country you need to be quite proficient in English, and as I was explaining to my year tens in the Enrichment class, the literacy levels expected of people in the community are much higher now.

We’ve been doing… a unit called “Real World Reading”, so you work your way through, say, a Working With Children form, and things like ‘informed consent’ and ‘disclosure’ and those sort of terms, because you’ve got to be able to read and understand at that practical level. We also read where people are trying to convince you – in advertising, such as with the recent election; how to read how they’re trying to position you. All of that is very important.

Communication, also – We have obviously written communication but what’s becoming increasingly a problem is spoken communication. A lot of people are very hesitant and shy, and it puts them at a disadvantage if they’re trying to present themselves for a job interview, or as part of employment, trying to convince customers or convey information.

You obviously have had many experiences at College events, camps and alike, what’s your favourite one and why?

New Norcia, as I said. My favourite overnight camp, but in addition to that – before COVID, the former careers officer and I used to have an activity for the non-ATAR girls on the day the others went to Curtin to do their exam practice. We would go around and visit places like the Duxton Hotel and get a tour of what sort of jobs were available there, and have a fun outing as well; head off to the Mint to watch the gold pour; go to His Majesty’s to find out, in theory, work opportunities there, and it was lovely because the girls were so excited about being out in the city on outings and negotiating the environment. For one girl, I think it was the first time she’d ordered her lunch on her own.

During your time here do you have any particular staff members or Sisters, etc. that have left a lasting impression on you?

Sister Joan Smith, who is basically a living encyclopedia of Mercy History, she ran the Heritage Centre and I used to volunteer to work with her and I remember – on my long service leave, in true Sister of Mercy style she found something to keep me occupied, which was transcribing diaries (and based on the internal evidence, the latest they could have been written was 1852), taking them from the handwritten version and typing it out, and also trying to decode what some of the words were.

That was not easy, too – because they were spelling things like, even “veranda”, they weren’t familiar with the idea of verandas because they didn’t have those in Ireland. And I was thinking “My goodness, I’m literally touching something that’s this old (with gloves) to transcribe it.” I could only do it a few bits at a time because at some point the boats were late coming in, so they watered down the ink. And so, the ink was getting more and more faded, so I’d have to take a break for my eyes’ sake, but I was thinking “My goodness,” as I was reading about these difficulties of getting enough goods in and things like that to run their school. Sister Joan Smith, who has a memory like that even now, is able to remember so many details that put most of us to shame.