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COMPUTERS IN JUNIOR CLASSROOMS

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Western Australians are currently enjoying two weeks of school holidays. I enjoy  the holidays, too, despite not having school aged children because I catch up with several groups of friends I have taught with at four different schools. Three of those groups are involved in primary school education.

There is one constant concern expressed by these teachers; learning is prescriptive, online and difficult to assess. Many learning areas are totally digitalised and children work on their devices  alone. It has long been known children develop writing and spelling skills by actually sounding out and writing words. The physical involvement reinforces and embeds the skill. Self correcting digital programs do not require nor develop these cognitive skills.

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So I was interested to read that Sweden’s Minister For Education, Lotta Edholm, has recently announced a plan to reduce the use of computers in primary schools. This follows Sweden’s poor score in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study . This indicates Sweden’s performance has declined from high to intermediate in the past five years. The test measures the reading comprehension of 9 – 10 year olds.

Computers are everywhere and will be part of everyday life in all areas. Children will become adept at using them without missing out on standardised learning  objectives, the current trend. The article refers to comments by Isobel Dans, Professor, University of Santiago and researcher in Diadactics and Digital Education. She says “Screens are everywhere. What is a mistake is to link them to more traditional learning without assessing their usefulness.”

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I know many experienced junior primary teachers in Western Australia who would agree!

Further information   SOURCE 

THE MOST LIVABLE CITIES IN THE WORLD

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, Vienna is the most livable city in the world. Vienna has won this award several times in the past five years. The city is recognised for its stability, infrastructure, culture and entertainment and education. Return to order after the covid-19 pandemic was also considered. Improvements made in developing countries were also noted.

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The 30 indicators for each of the 175 cities assessed are ranked from 1 ↔100. The indicators are assessed according to ratings of acceptable, uncomfortable, undesirable or intolerable.

The top five most livable cities in the World as rated June 21st, 2023 are

1. Vienna, Austria
2. Copenhagen, Denmark
3. Melbourne, Australia
4. Sydney, Australia
5. Vancouver, Canada

READING

STORIES of the SAHARA by Sanmao.

This cover would win the award for the least clear and enticing cover on a book.

My neighbour lent me an unusual book of essays. Originally published in Chinese  this translation of Stories of the Sahara into English was published in 2019. The author is described as a writer, novelist and a pioneer. Born in China in 1943, she excelled at school, especially in literature and was offered opportunities to study philosophy. She then continues her studies in Spain.

Widely traveled, she is fascinated by the Sahara Desert. She meets a Spanish diver and underwater engineer, José, who moves to  El Aqúin in Spanish Sahara to begin work for a mining company.. Sanmao soon follows and they consequentially marry. Housing is in short supply and expensive, so they move into a small, unfinished derelict home in the cemetery  district and settle into desert life.

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The Spanish colonized this area of the Sahara in 1884 to capitalize on the fishing opportunities and ports on the coast. They increased their claim in 1958. They also mined  phosphate. The Muslim Sahrawi, the traditional owners, living around the Spanish mining ventures, continued living the way they had for centuries. It is an uneasy arrangment, but ever curious Sanmao goes exploring, often alone, in the desert. She makes friends with some of the locals by getting to know their children.

Sanmao is thrilled by the desert and writes essays about the temperature, sand storms, mirages and the way the light changes at sunset. She describes its vastness as ‘majestic’ and is awed by the changes in colour during the day and the total blackness at night. She has an array of Chinese and Western medicines and despite no medical training, becomes known for helping with aches and pains, infections and other health problems. She holds ‘school’ for the local girls and teaches them to count, a skill previously only known to males.

Unlike other Spanish living in El Aqúin, Sanmao develops friendships with some Sahrawi families. She writes about the planned guerilla led revolution against the Spanish and the occupation by the Moroccans. Although I found her behaviour to be frequently reckless and also dangerous for the Sahrawi involved, she was adventurous and a keen observer of local life. She records and writes about local life in both positive and negative ways.

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El Aqúin is two thirds down the coast of the yellow part of the map.

What also intrigued me about this book was my ignorance about the Spanish occupation, the bungled decision making about their future in the Sahara, the downfall of the Sahrawi guerillas and the eventual occupation by the Moroccans. Spain began to withdraw due to international pressure, especially from the United Nations. Morocco and Mauritania now preside over different parts of the region. The history of the area, south of Morocco, highlights the problems of colonization, particularly when the colonizing country withdraws.

Sanmao was a free spirit, a skilled writer and she lived an extraordinary life. José died in a diving accident in 1997. Supported by her parents, she returned to Taiwan, where her extended family lived, and continued writing, teaching and traveling before committing suicide in 1991, aged forty seven.

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school holidays

When I was at school we had two weeks holidays in May, two weeks in August and seven weeks summer holidays starting just before Christmas. The long summer holidays seemed endless. Once the excitement of Christmas and Boxing Day has passed, life settled into a routine for a while. My Mother took us into town from the farm, more than a forty-five minute drive, for swimming lessons. I started swimming lessons early because I was the youngest, just sitting there and as Mum said, “You might as well swim rather than sit on the beach watching.” She’d chat with the other mothers surrounded the wet towels, thongs (flip flops) and discarded shorts and shirts. This meant I’d completed all the levels of swimming before I was nine and couldn’t do the Life Saving Medals for three years.

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My two older brothers and I played cricket. We could have done with a few more players because the dog and I were usually fielding. The cricket, broadcast on the radio, would be on where ever Dad was working. I was 12 before we got electricity; prior t that we had a 32v generator and when it ran out of fuel it spluttered and stopped. Suddenly we were plunged into darkness and total silence, but usually the three children were in bed by then.

Prized Christmas gifts were books. With no access to the school library for seven weeks, the books received as gifts were very welcome. When I’d read my books, I’d read my brother’s books. I loved Biggles and Tom Sawyer. When they were tired of their Lego, I played with that, too. We had a platform up an olive tree set up as a cubby house and I’d disappear up there, but I had other hiding places for uninterrupted reading, too. We’d swing for hours from a branch in the almond tree and bounce on a large tractor inner tube.

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I had a Barbie doll from America, brought back in 1965 by my Father, and I made clothes for her, plus furniture and decorated cardboard box rooms for her, too. Always interested in decor and houses, I’d pore over the women’s magazines my aunt passed on to my Mother. I was always making something.

Kids were expected to help when I was younger. We’d climb the apricot tree, picking warm apricots to eat raw, preserved or made into jam. We’d be sent to pick mulberries, almonds, grapes and my favourite, nectarines. We grew rock melons and water melons and masses of vegetables. Do children still spit water melon seeds at one another? Our pocket money was earned by sweeping the verandas, under the grapes and the path, opening gates when we were going up to the front gate plus chopping wood. (My Father gave my son a tomahawk for his six birthday and taught him about chopping wood.)

Late in the afternoon when Dad had finished work outdoors we’d go to the beach. Like every other farmer on the beach, Dad’s dark tan would finish at his ankles where his boots covered his feet. He also had a tanned V neck line and tanned arms. As kids we were permanently sunburnt and competed to see who could peel off the biggest piece of burnt skin. Paying for that now!

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School holidays also meant going to Perth to stay with our Aunt, Uncle and cousin. Bliss. Television was like magic for farm kids! There was another girl to play with, things like icecream were served regularly because the shops were nearby. (By the time icecream got from town to the farm it was melting and messy.) My Aunt was always busy so we’d go out frequently, to shopping centres, her friend’s places and to see films. For some years they were involved in a marina and I often went to stay on Rottnest Island with my Aunt and cousin. Bliss. But more sunburn.

Going back to school meant catching up with friends on the school bus. My husband grew up in the city and I asked him to reminisce about his long school holidays in the 1950’s. He said that  due to limited finances and transport not much happened. He learned to swim at the Hotpool in Dalkeith and when he was old enough to ride a pushbike by himself he would go down to the river with his dog to swim or fish. The very hot unairconditioned summers meant long days of lying in the shade on the lawn reading books or playing board games with friends. Building and flying kites was another pastime.

Thinking about primary school aged children I know now our school holidays probably seem very different. No play dates, no devices, no television on demand. I would have loved a trampoline! We were outdoors more as children. Please share your memories of school holidays.

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