School of the Air

I had rung when we arrived in Alice, to enquire if any time was better than another. Having been told to avoid 10.30 – 11am, we were incredibly fortunate enough to turn up right during their weekly Art lesson! Woo hooo! It was also the 19^th of September, which is, of course, “International Talk Like a Pirate Day”! We had a fascinating introduction to the school and the way they operate, got to watch a movie which showed how the children take their classes at home, and then got to watch the teacher give her lesson. Complete with Pirate costume, of course! I was intrigued to learn that ALL the children enrolled in the school do the same Art class together – from Prep to Year 6, which makes for a challenging range of ability. It was reassuring to see that Mrs Skoss (Scurvy Skoss today!) teaches in a similar way to myself – she started the lesson by showing the children some artwork that had been sent in by students and discussing parts of their work. Then she showed an example of the artwork they were going to do today – a drawing of a pirate ship. All of this was addressed to camera, and she held up the artworks on her chest to show the children. Then she switched to an overhead camera view to take the children step-by-step through the drawing process. I was interested to see that she drew in a black texta so they could see the lines more clearly – thin greylead just wouldn’t show up on camera as easily.

I was amused (and somewhat relieved) to hear Mrs Skoss say almost word-for-word what I would say to teach her lesson. We got to watch the start and the end of the lesson and had our little tour guide and movie in the middle. This meant we got to see Mrs Skoss use her software at the end to click through to the school rooms of the students so they could hold up the work they had been doing. A number of students had been colouring their pirate ships with paints, so that wasn’t highly successful. LOL. Lots of paint went running down the artworks and we even saw a paint pot get knocked over by an enthusiastic participant. Life as an art teacher… at least Mrs Skoss didn’t have to clean it up herself! She was incredibly quick at noticing who should pick up their work and who should not, and always had a wonderful positive comment for everyone. It was interesting to see the siblings all studying together and even some neighbours had joined up to do their lessons as one. There were 21 students officially logged on, but many more students were there as lots of families were all using the one computer.

It was a great afternoon, and a definite highlight for Lexie and I. Angus was a little too hungry, though I think Dunc was entertained too. I’d thoroughly recommend a stop by for any travelling family – even if you’re NOT a teacher!