Tag: students

Great Wall of China Exhibition

 

This week I went on a school excursion to the Great Wall of China Exhibition at the Melbourne Museum. It was fantastic. I loved learning more about the wall, which as I’ve previously said, I’d love to walk one day. There were some spectacular exhibits and after teaching year 7’s about Imperial China for the past 4 years it was exciting for me to see my first ‘real’ terracotta warrior and various other artefacts that we’d discussed in the classroom.
There were stunning photographs and the exhibition was well put together.
The bus trip was noisy and the students on the way there and back were incredibly loud. At the museum however, and importantly, they were well behaved and participated well in their learning experience. I was tired!

My Day

Today was magical for me. Our students had a poetry competition at school and it was breathtaking to see them stand up and read their poems to their peers. At this time of the term it’s the last thing I wanted to have in front of me today. My patience has worn to a thin veneer all week. The students were well behaved and attentive and gave each other the respect they deserved. There were 40 odd poems read to an audience of about 180 students from a variety of classes. Many were labelled as students who just wanted to get out of class, yet they learnt today. They listened, participated and responded appropriately to one anothers poetic offerings. I felt proud of them all and deeply touched by many of them. It was great.

The last week I have been blessed by my dad, recently retired coming to do a mountain of maintenance that I just haven’t had time to attend to for a long time. As a result I now have a back garden that doesn’t look like a neglected wilderness, two doors that I can get into my home with ease rather than a wrestle and a pile of rubbish removed from my view. My mum and auntie have helped me inside and I now feel I have a home to come to at the end of the day. It has made such a difference. I’m not sure how I managed to neglect everything so much but there have been quite a few things going on and I have found it easier to blog, read or sleep than to do anything productive.

I visited pa on the weekend and he has made an amazing recovery so far. He was sitting up and chatting to those around him. The doctors have solved a few of his health problems and he seems to be mending more, each time I visit. He has had mountains of visitors. He has 3 children, 15 grandchildren and over 20 great grandchildren. Most of them have been to see him in the past week or so, some travelling from Adelaide, Queensland and many from Melbourne. He is such a powerful force in our lives and so well loved.

Lot’s of things happen in your day. So many that I can never manage to keep track of them all but today was great. So I am feeling very satisfied and blessed tonight. I am still tired and ready for my holidays due to commence at the end of the week, yet I feel content.

Free Body Lotion – Forget It!

Today I received an advertising email offering free body lotion. I would actually prefer it if they took some of my body lotion away. It would be more enticing. I am having a day where materialism is sickening me. I feel that I want to shed most of my possessions because they are just a drag. We all just accumulate too much. What is it all for?
I actually cried today over an exhibition of rampant materialism as I perceived it, but I think I am feeling quite unwell at the moment so am possible more sensitive.
My year 9 class is studying poverty right now, so I wonder if this is having an effect on me. I have naturally been discussing the Millennium Goals with those around me. When we had the conversation in our curriculum team, some of the adults complained they were impossible and ridiculous. They didn’t believe it was possible. This is why I love teenagers. They were optimistic and enthusiastic about it. They wanted to know what they could do to make it happen. They felt certain it was achievable and it was important to them to make it happen.

millenniumcampaign.org