Old-school learning
Limited power, no air con, no digital notebooks – Milson School pupils have gone old school.
Pupils at the Palmerston North primary school have spent more than a week without some of the comforts and gadgets they’ve become accustomed to in the classroom after one of the school’s main electricity cables stopped working on November 26.
Electricians were able to redistribute some of the school’s power supply across the remaining cables, but the school has had to ration its use until contractors can excavate to fix the faulty cable.
Acting principal Tracy Thorn said every class was affected, but had some power.
Funds for the repairs would come from the school’s five-year plan budget, but electricians weren’t expected start on them for another week or so.
Thorn said most lights were on, but air conditioning was too powerhungry for the system to handle, so it was off, despite the hot, dry spell.
The children’s digital notebooks could not be charged and the large display monitors in the classrooms could not be used.
Lots of classes were being held outside under the trees to keep the kids cool, and children doing individual learning were allowed to work outside with a roving teacher supervising.
Pupils who could not search the internet for information were getting used to textbooks, encyclopedias and dictionaries, and teachers were using whiteboards instead of display monitors.
‘‘The children said to me that they do a lot more talking about their work they want to share, instead of relying solely on technology like Google docs,’’ Thorn said.
Learning outside ‘‘reinforces that freedom to be able to learn in a different environment and to show them you can learn anywhere, not just in a classroom’’, she said.
Eleven-year-old Platnym Walker-kara’s top tip was to sit by a door or window to catch the breeze.
‘‘It’s been another way of communicating – most of us use a lot of emailing to teachers and friends, but now we can go to them and talk to them face to face.
‘‘It’s easier to explain things, and we get to do a lot of communication with our teacher.’’
Campbell Hincks, 11, said when his parents grew up with no internet ‘‘it must have been very, very hard’’.
Diego Rosson, 11, said he was petitioning for pupils to be given ice blocks and ice creams throughout the day to keep cool.
‘‘I’ve drunk, like, four water bottles a day.
‘‘I rinse my face in the broken water fountain that sprays heaps. When it’s hot I can’t concentrate, so I run it on my head and shake it off and then I go back to class and can concentrate.’’
‘‘The children said to me that they do a lot more talking about their work they want to share.’’ Acting principal Tracy Thorn