His Excellency, the Honourable Chris Dawson AC APM just gave State Governor Awards to two schools here in Western Australia this year (and these are not awarded every year, but only when there is some clear outstanding performance in education that needs to be recognized) one of them being MERRIWA PRIMARY SCHOOL. ...Which is basically from where we started the Autism future employment project (still is physically mainly located there) and I don't need to go on about how many of us are on the Board there, and other stuff associated with those amazing people and their supporters some of whom include yourselves (it is designed to be a project transferable worldwide where there are dynamic, interested people available in other places).
This school is in an area which is in the lowest socio-economic percentile in the State (believe me, if we let them, some kids would come to school not having eaten the night before or the morning either, and there are potential issues about where they slept/if they slept at all), and has the highest number of different ethnic groups represented in its student population (around 35 different ethnic groups from all over the world!). This year, we had afternoon and evening 'pizza meets' where the State Education Department provided interpreters so that the parents of these kids from all over the planet were able to clearly comprehend in their own language what the grades being given to their children actually meant. 'C' being a very good grade, for example, and which meant that the child was doing everything asked of them.
When the Governor carried out his usual tree-planting thing that he does wherever he goes out on official duties to make awards and so on, one of our local Aboriginal students gave the 'welcome' address extemporaneously, with a very moving statement of how proud he was on behalf of his community and his people. ...And this from someone in Primary School. We are talking some serious chops here!
This last month all the children of the whole school met with Aboriginal Elders, and all of them made bush damper, from a recipe given by one of the students' grandmothers.
...I think I'll have to get this recipe from them and post it up on the FB 'Rave Festival Cookies' page now.
Culture is handed on in inter-generational processes where the slightly older children, having learned key things from their Elders, are then able to pass these things down to the very young ones. It is a fact that much of the ancient ways and understandings are highly sophisticated and kept and maintained as incredibly precious things - and it is a matter of enormous generosity that the Elders are at this time choosing to share what they know to the current crop of children and to the wider community here and around the world.
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| Gouryella - Ligaya We've played it before here a few times already. |
As you know we have been promoting here in these pages, deep connection with the tremendously ancient past, and pretty esoteric ties to a strong positive future but linked to that past -, despite current problems in the world. 'Gouryella' with its official music video clip, is the most obvious expression of those kinds of ideas.
'Gouryella' is a global hit by Armin Van Buuren and Ferry Corsten, and the word (which means 'Heaven') is taken from probably the Wiradjuri Eastern Australian Aboriginal language - whereas we speak mostly Noongar over here in the West.
There is far too much going on right now to make anything like a decent report of it all here right away. But things will unfold...
One of you here I know is involved in Ultra Frisbee sports in the US, and this month too, our Ed Support Campus had their kids all outside being taught the art of the frisbee.
Meanwhile - here's the personal message from JES to the school:
Congratulations Merriwa school on being recognised for your outstanding performance. The children are very lucky to have that learning environment, thank you to those who helped create it. Even though I know none of you or where you are i have a soft spot for all children.
ReplyDeleteMy sister is a teacher and her son has dyslexia and aural processing disorder, along with some but not severe emotional processing issues. Their school does not provide any additional learning support other than the assessments and the teacher has a mic and nephew has a hearing aid to reduce ambient noise. It’s been a year since diagnosis and they are only now getting him structured literacy tutelage at their own expenses and outside school hours. He is 10 and hates himself because it can’t read. How fcken sad is that.
And I thought I had it bad when I was shamed by the math teacher for not understanding the problem so spent the next two years playing games on my Casio calculator. No wonder I’m a dumbass, but really if you divide an Apple by zero you still have a whole Apple cos you did nothing to it!
Anyway thank God for schools like Merriwa.
Sincerest sincerest thanks for your very kind and knowledgeable words and for your support. The saddest thing is when someone is negatively affected the whole of their lives in most cases, because of bad teachers and incorrect advice early on. The most interesting thing is how the kids here live up to the amazing teaching and support - they THRIVE at such a early age, their confidence in front of the public is amazing to behold. The State Director General of Education has said every single time she steps foot on the campus what a breath of fresh air the place is and how polite and spontaneously helpful as well as practical, the kids are. And they are so young! You ARE a part of what goes into making these things work. The art of success is to grab onto every rope of hope -, bathe in every ray of sunlight. And to weave an unbreakable fabric from strands as ephemeral as dreams. Acknowledging at the same time that every moment contains its own chance of peril.
ReplyDeleteThank you Old Money. I’ve learned just being available to the children is such a big thing, they like to show you what they can do (over and over sometimes, lol)
ReplyDeleteI like what you said about the art of success. I know I usually complain and ask tricky questions when I comment here and you are always patient with me, leaving me with lots of good stuff to think about.
I suspect I comment the most here. Well aside from Kitty that is - lol