Local History
I wasn’t keen on teaching Local History this year. I’ve only been doing it a week and I have learnt so much already. I have a feeling it could be one of my favourite subjects. I’m reading a book “The Settling of Gippsland” by Patrick Morgan. I am having all kinds of realisations about this region I call home. I am glad I have been given this subject. I remember when I studied ‘Introduction to Koorie Studies’ at uni I learnt so much and was facinated in the local indigenous history. It shifted my perception of this place I come from. I was an adult by then and remember working on an assignment shortly after I gave birth to Tom. I was so committed to that subject! I wondered why I hadn’t learnt about it before.
I watched a TED talk during the holidays called ‘The Danger of a Single Story’. I could relate to it at some level and reading about our local history has reminded me about some of the messages I got for myself from this clip. I want to encourage my students to explore their local identities. So many young people, including myself and my own children can’t wait to get out of this area. Why? There are many positive things about it. We listen to the media instead of our own experiences. It is good to leave home and explore the world, yet I believe it’s also good to appreciate where you are from.
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Austinmer and the Grand Pacific Drive
We went to Austinmer whilst I was away. We intended to get a kebab from the shop across the road from that lovely beach. The header of this blog was taken at that beach when I had a holiday in Wollongong. I enjoyed that spot. It was very busy this visit, so we went further down the road and enjoyed a quieter beach off the main road. Lying on the beach reading and dipping into the waves each time I got to hot was how the majority of the day was spent.
We took the Grand Pacific Drive, which I had been keen to do last time I was there, yet never made it that far up. It is a great road that runs along the coastline. We also called into a few galleries, which were impressive.
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The Ada Tree
Yesterday Darin and I went for a drive. We were heading for Yarra Junction to have a look around and I spotted a sign to the Ada Tree. I have always wanted to be at that old tree, so we made a detour down the dirt track, walked through the ferny rainforest and there it was. The signs say the tree is just over 300 years old. It’s huge. It’s a miracle of survival with all the logging and bushfires that have been through that area.
On the way there driving through the trees we came across a couple of patches of scarred logged land. It’s so ugly. That area was logged by my grandfather in the late 1930s and he was caught in a bushfire that was documented for an ABC website, so it is a significant area to me. I’ve heard Pa mention the Ada track in his stories of those times.
Leaving the Ada track, we took a different turn and found ourselves no longer on the way to Yarra Junction, ending up in Marysville. I have never seen such devastation from fires and I’ve been through a few fire ravaged areas. It was very sad and eerie. We took a very long way but eventually arrived at our intended destination. The day was done though, so there was not much time spent there before heading home. I think I’d had my fill of sights and adventures for the day.
It was the spring equinox yesterday in Australia.
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Hot Days
It’s annoying to be back at school when it is this warm. I like the heat, but sitting in meetings, crowded rooms of hot air at the best of times… is no way to spend days like these. We have very few air conditioned rooms at our school. I’m not all grumbles though because whilst the students are not here Rhonda and I have gone to her pool for a swim at lunchtime. Tonight I went after school as well. I am very lucky. It was bliss to spend an hour in the middle of the day floating in cool water.
I found the Pomegranate juice in the supermarket tonight. It was in the fruit and vegetable section at Safeway. I was looking in the wrong places!
One of our teachers got a call from home to say they were being evacuated because of the fires. I hope they are all ok. I can’t imagine how hot it would be for all the firefighters. Thank goodness for them. Makes me doubly grateful for my air conditioning and the swimming pools I get to enjoy.
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Cadbury Chocolate Factory Myth
Today I drove a my friend Rhonda’s son, Michael to the airport. He’s studying in Tasmania and works at the Cadbury Chocolate Factory in Tasmania. He used to do tours and they’ve shut them down now. I was under the impression the whole factory was shutting down. I was wrong. I am not sure where I got this information from.
Anyway he has corrected me and informed me there is still a tourist facility at Cadbury and you can get bargain chocolate there. The only thing that has changed are the tours of the factory. They no longer run tours. This is due to food safety issues, not health and safety problems as I also thought. It’s good to know, because the chocolate is cheap and abundant and that’s got to be good. You can also get a talk about Cadbury’s.
It was great to have Michael with me on the trip to Melbourne today. He was great company and I caught up with his life. We talked about Antartica and his plans for the future. It was great to have him all to myself, as usually when I see him when he’s home, there’s friends and family to distract. We also discussed a paper he’d written for school on dark tourism and shared our impressions of Port Arthur. I found it facinating and a little weird to be honest.
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Pa’s Water Crisis Solution
In the last year of his life, my pa told me he’d made an appointment to see our local politician about an idea he had for solving the water problem. He told me to keep it to myself because others would say it couldn’t be done, but he’d thought it through and believed it was a viable option. He told me there was water from the Hydro scheme that was being wasted and not serving any purpose and it was possible to pump it to Victoria. He’d rang me earlier and asked the distance between two points from Tasmania to Victoria. He would occasionally phone me to get information from the Internet. He explained all the details to me, but I honestly didn’t understand half of what he was talking about.
I’d bumped into the local politician a few months later who’d told me he’d met my pa and how impressed his was that someone of his age was still coming up with ideas and trying to solve problems. I think it was one of my greatest sadnesses that I didn’t get to tell pa that as I’m sure he would have appreciated the compliment.
He was born in Tasmania and spent time there in his last few years. In April 2003, I took my kids over and we met him there. He took us to the farm he’d been born at. He showed us the site where he’d been in a train crash that had taken the life of his sister, when he was a child. He took us to her grave. I treasure that time spent with him and feel such appreciation that I was able to join him there and see his special places.
Last night I had a really vivid dream with my pa. When I woke up I had to get reorientated that he had died. This morning in the paper I read ‘Look to Tasmania for Water Answers’. He would be rapt I reckon.
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ANZAC Day and Pa
At school yesterday we had an ANZAC service. The students are always very reverent and respectful of this ritual in the calender. It is a powerful experience to be in a gym with over 600 teenagers and teachers and experience total silence and stillness. To be able to hear the slightest creak in the building and the birds outside.
This is the first ANZAC day since Pa died last year and I miss him. I usually go to the dawn service. He hasn’t marched for a couple of years due to being unwell, but I would spend time with him on this day. He would tell me stories about that time and stories from other men he had heard. He spent some time at one stage of his life at the RSL. I remember when he was in his 70s he would talk about helping out the old blokes, yet some of them were younger than him! It was quite ironic. I intended to write about some of the stories about him that I remember but I can’t today. Maybe next year.
In this photo, he is in the back row, forth from the right.
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The Apology
Today we assembled our year 9s to raise the Aboriginal flag. We then went to our lecture theatre with the intention of showing the broadcast of Parliament and the statement the Prime Minister was about to deliver. We missed it. Some of the students heard it broadcast on the radio in transit, but most missed it. We read the speech on the big screen and had a reflection on what it meant. The 200 students were absolutely silent. You could hear a pin drop.
In my English classes today, we discussed the days events. Some students commented they didn’t understand why they had to apologise when they hadn’t done anything wrong. Mind you I hear this every day when disputes occur and they have done something wrong! It was a great opportunity to talk about forgiveness and reconciliation, as well as history. I was impressed with the way they listened and expressed themselves. I was also pleased that although some of them expressed some concerns or doubts about it all, during the morning’s activities, they had been totally respectful.
We talked about the Government and the statement representing our entire community and how saying ‘Sorry’ was a heart change, that would be just as healing for each of us, who chose to take it to heart, as it would be for those receiving the apology. We talked about the things that had happened in the history of our relationship. We talked about how building trust would be slow and this was just a starting point. It felt very good to listen to the open minds of the young. These are the days I am following my bliss by being in the classroom.
Popularity: 62% [?]
Sorry
Tomorrow the much discussed and wanted day arrives. We have prepared at school to mark this occasion. Megan at Imaginif describes a brilliant way of making it real. If you want to learn more about this historic impending event, the National Sorry Day Council website could provide further information. I’m sorry.
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Ah that’s right – It’s Australia Day!
I’ve had a busy couple of days. I was back in the city yesterday and stayed last night. I visited my daughter today and enjoyed spending a few hours with her. Then it was out to the airport to collect Andy. He’s back to collect his stuff, now that the move to Tassie is permanent. He looks well and it’s wonderful to see him.
I am so tired today, that the fact that it’s Australia Day has totally passed me by! The Aussie Blogger’s Blog would be the place to get some images of Australia.
Popularity: 63% [?]
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