Mona Tobias Award
Learning Difficulties Australia makes an annual award known as the Mona Tobias Award. Each year, an Award Committee of three council members considers all nominations and makes recommendations to council, who makes the final decision as to the award’s recipient.
The Mona Tobias Award recognises a person who has made an outstanding contribution to Australian education of people with learning difficulties, perhaps leadership, research, practice, teacher and community education, and is given in memory of Mona Tobias, who was a great teacher and pioneer in helping children and adults with learning disabilities.
Mona Tobias
Emily Mona Tobias, B.E.M. died on 1 October 1980 at the age of 74 years. She had borne a painful illness with great fortitude.
Mona was one who never spared herself. Indeed, in a life as long as hers, I have never known a more selfless person.
The other attributes by which most of us remember her, of course, are her quite exceptional skills as a teacher and her devotion to handicapped children. I had the privilege of being an observer while she taught children on many occasions and the abilities which impressed me most were her uncanny understanding and even anticipation of a child's changing feelings, and the ease with which she would instantly change her method, or even just her tone of voice to match the child's responses. Early in her career with the Education Department, her own ill health forced her to join the Correspondence School, from which she became involved with the victims of the poliomyelitis epidemic of the late 1930's. In the course of this work she met the late Dame Jean Macnamara, another indefatigable worker for the handicapped children, to whom I am personally indebted for introducing me (and hence SPELD) to Mona.
Dame Jean had a tremendous admiration for Mona as a person and for her teaching skills, and these skills were also admired by Sir Fred and Lady Schonell as evidenced by a personal letter in her possession, but which she rarely showed to anyone. Humility was another attribute she possessed to quite an unusual degree.
Mona resigned from the Education Department before the due date in order to study learning disabilities under Sam Clements at the University of Arkansas. She then commenced a second career in close association with SPELD. In this work she must have exerted a very considerable influence on primary teaching in Victoria. Many thousands of teachers came voluntarily to be instructed by her and many hundreds of children owe directly her their rescue from the despair of failure. She also inspired many hundreds of parents to provide intelligent support for their learning disabled children. In spite of illness and failing eyesight she continued to see children in her own home until her final admission to hospital.
Pat Larsen
Previous Recipients
2007 Max Coltheart
2006 Dr Kerry Hempenstall
2005 Daryl Greaves
2004 Wendy Scott
2003 Christina van Kraayenoord
2002 Mike Stock
2000 Elizabeth Love and Sue Reilly
1999 Nick Thurbon
1998 Dr. Peter Westwood - Associate Professor, Associate Dean and Coordinator of the Bachelor of Special Education course at Flinders University, South Australia
1997 Professor John Elkins - Schonell Centre, The University of Queensland
1996 Professor Margot Prior - research, teaching, clinical practice
1995 Christopher Davidson- founding editor of LDA's journal, practitioner
1994 Dr John Munro - Research, Practitioner
1993 Professor Lorna K.S. Chan - educational research
1992 Dr.Frank Oberklaid - learning difficulties
1991 Dr Stewart Sykes - learning difficulties
1990 Ian Macmillan - learning difficulties
1989 Professor Gordon Stanley- research
1988 No award presented
1987 Dr Mildred Green - School Medical Service, President of SPELD
1986 Bruce Wicking - founder, Currajong School
1985 Kevin Stone - integration
1984 Professor Marie Neale - Krongold Centre
1983 Professor John McLeod - research
1982 Alwyn Samuel - early intervention
1981 Ann Keir - auditory perception