TheBanyanTree: Quite a week

[peter macinnis]

I have played with 200 or so proxy grandchildren this week, and 
amazingly, emerged at the end, still with my voice almost intact. These 
were mainly Years 1 and 2, ages 6 and 7, though yesterday, I was with 
Year 6, talking astronomy, culture and stuff, plus I reminded them of 
Crocodile Dundee's famous line: "That's not a knife, THIS is a knife", 
before producing a basalt blade that I made, and cutting paper with it. 
That was our only day inside.

It was cold all week, as Australians see it: our official winter starts 
on 1 June, and it arrived on time, so it was about 18°C with wind chill 
taking it down to ~14°C. To show you how vicious our winter is, I have 
dug out the thumbnails I used in the sheet I did for them, to help them 
spot what we were looking for, and they found all the flowers. (The 
third last was taken in better lighting conditions, a few weeks ago, but 
it was also in our area, just hard to photograph).

The main delight was the taddies, as kids that age (or mine) call 
tadpoles. On the first day, I observed that the water level had dropped, 
so when I appeared in the school grounds next morning, two small boys 
ran up to ask how the taddies were.

"They're still alive," I said. "I took 3 litres [2/3 gallon] in, and it 
was just mud, but I put the water in, and they all came out of the mud, 
where they must have been hiding. I'm just going to get some more."

Thursday morning, they waylaid me again for a health report, and as I 
had by then added 25 litres, I could tell them the tadpoles were alive 
and well.

I showed them a 200-million-year-old fossil sandbank, and told them to 
look for another one, inside the school grounds. On Friday, three girls 
were waiting near the gates to show me where it was.  We went over, I 
told them that wasn't the one I meant, but theirs was better than mine, 
but to keep looking. (It was mine, but there's no room for honesty when 
hearts and minds are at stake.)

On most trips, I showed some of them how to handle ants (there were 
these marvellous long-legged ones), and the last picture in my set shows 
a sundew, an insect-eating plant. I fed two of them some cheese, but 
they weren't hungry, and we found another incredibly delicate species. I 
saw one, then the kids found more, and as each class after that came 
through, I told them there were probably more, and in turn, they peered 
into the grasses and discovered more plants, which I solemnly told them 
were new ones to me. (Remember: there's no room for honesty when hearts 
and minds are at stake.)

I also showed them how Aboriginal children who lived in the area, just 
three of my lifetimes ago, made ochre from stones that lay on the track, 
and then demonstrated how I was fixing up the erosion on the track, and 
two groups found me a bird's nest.

I can't speak for them, but I had a wonderful time.

peter