Learning from home can be a rewarding experience
BACK in the last century, 1948 to be accurate, I spent six weeks on an extended school holiday working my way through a ‘‘hard copy package’’ delivered once weekly during the polio virus. That it should happen again as a result of Covid19 is sad indeed.
World War2 had ended three years earlier and everyone was trying to catch up with improvements in living standards despite the increase in the rates demand.
Schools struggled to put the war days behind them by increasing their library stock, purchasing some basic sports gear and encouraging us to believe things would get better.
The war days had infected us with an immature cynicism and we viewed the prospect of six weeks more ‘‘holiday’’ with selfconscious guilt. We knew the dangers of the poliomyelitis epidemic and we feared it. Several children became its victims but only on our return to school did we fully appreciate the horror of it.
From the first delivery, I came to look forward to the weekly package of lessons and until this day came to regard it as the only acceptable way to provide education.
The lessons were prepared to last a week. I finished mine in a day. This meant of course that I would have to fill the rest of the week with housework and gardening.
I was at once drawn to this form of teaching that trusted the pupil to work alone, that required our investigative abilities to search through whatever dictionaries and encyclopedias that were then available.
I had never experienced the delivery of learning in anything but the presence of an often disgruntled teacher. I asked myself ‘‘how long had this type of education delivery been available? Did they have it at other schools?’’
Enjoy your ‘‘hard copy package’’ students. There are treasures to be found in it.
Anne Turvey
St Leonards
Our heroes
THANKS for running a story on the Southern Heroes initiative (ODT, 19.4.20)
What a wonderful story about those care nurses at Bradford Manor. What a sacrifice they have made, staying in the dementia facility instead of going home. I hope someone nominates them.
A big thanks to all those helping us through these challenging times and also thank you to the Otago Daily Times team for getting the ‘‘feel good’’ stories out there.
John Cushen
Queenstown
[Abridged]