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Peace...
A comfortable quietness...
Beautiful grounds.....
Interesting buildings.......
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And yet there are 60 children here. Why so quiet, so
peaceful?
When you look at them they are happy, not stressed, not
competing for attention
(and getting louder in their demands by the minute). |
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What a lovely place to go to school, what a great place to
teach.
I was looking at Happy Rainbow Primary School, near
Silverdale, just north of Auckland city. I can feel the love for children here,
for their Rights as individuals for themselves and for each other.
CLICK ON PHOTOS TO ENLARGE
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Discipline here is self-driven. Everyone I see is involved
in whatever they are learning. They are unconcerned that I am walking around
them; they are each interested in what they are doing. |
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At the eldest of the four classes, the subject is history,
its effects on today, that part of Life that directly relates to the development
of the person at the age of the student studying now.
And as the mood suits, one of them
will go to Lesley Law, and have turn at stirring the Damson plum jam they are
making from fruit they had picked from trees in the school grounds. They
will take their share home in jam containers with labels they had designed and
made themselves.
They grow and harvest the olives, take them to a commercial
press nearby and get half of the olive oil in return. Last year their trees
produced 80kg and they were able to take home a bottle each. |
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All the children’s activities include horticulture and
growing the home garden, building and the trees providing timber, art and crafts
related to living…
Every one of the four school buildings -- created or
modified by Lesley and her husband, Rodney Mayor John Law since 1997 -- has its
own garden, carpeted area where they can sit, a painted solid floor section for
more vigorous activities, a small room for one-to-one development. On the
walls, and everywhere, the work they have done is on display.
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Lesley Law is the principal teacher and owner of this
private school. A fully trained teacher, she began teaching privately within her
own home initially but, when the ‘waiting list’ showed her the potential for her
approach to education, she bought the present property and began with 15
children.
She now has qualified staff, three fulltime and many
part-time; the numbers of students have reached 60. These are divided in age
(thus development staged) groups who are protected by a child-centred
development programme that is philosophical and environmentally based. Each
child is cared for in a secure and home-based atmosphere. There are aspects of
Rudolph Steiner in this programme. Every aspect of each child’s activities is
holistic rather than a series of unrelated lessons.
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The latest development is a pre-school group run by a group
of mothers, using one of the Happy Rainbow buildings provided as support for the
creation of a full programme of early education. The student who travels though
this pre-adolescent, emotionally secure education system can be expected to do
well in a world where a conscious interest in continuous education is essential
to survival.
-- Peter E Rodgers,T.T.C.,Dip.T.,B.Soc.Sci.(Psychology)
Postscript:
After 50 years involved in education – about half of that within ‘the System’
– I have no difficulty in accepting that the school’s ”Statement of Intent” [we
used “Aims and objectives”] is achieved. School inspections support the success
as well.
That we need alternatives to one-stop-shop schooling has
been recognised for years. In 1980, following being Principal of Hamilton Centre
High, (a school for expelled 14-year-olds) and keynote speaker at a ‘Child at
Risk’ seminar in Masterton, I wrote an Alternative Education Programme which was
financed on the authority of then Prime Minister Rob Muldoon. But “The System”
does not like change and bureaucracy will kill the golden goose…..
In all experiences I have observed, the direct result of
intervention of healthy food and secure systems is always a substantial
reduction in violence, aggression and noise.
Until alternative systems are more fairly
funded, the only parents who will see the needs of children met as individuals
will be those who can ‘top up’ the finances of alternative schools. (All already
pay tax for ‘Education’.)
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