School Picnic

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Today was the school picnic that lasted the entire day. Jordan urged me strongly to volunteer as a helper because he says I'm always complaining that I'm not 'in' on the kids. OK, Ill spend the day from 8:45 until 3:00 with 400 or so elementary kids, their teachers and about 70 other parents. I was in charge of 4 kids, whose names I mispronounced with brave creative flair. The Pacific Islander alphabet and accent is not something I am adept at. The r's are rolled like d's sort of. Oddly, a lot of the pronunciations seem Italian. Desmond's teacher Mrs. She (that's an easy one to remember) is from Malaysia and is quite a bright and direct person. I have found Malaysians to be very friendly, in general. The trip was pulled off with great coordination and the kids played all day at the park adjoining the school property. All the children are issued large red sun has and they look sort of 'Madelyn esque' when you see them together. Many Pacific Island families join their children and there is a laid back feel to things when they do. Large grass mats are spread out and folks sit or lay down and let the time flow by. Here are some photos of the event.

Point England Primary is quite a special place . It is known for it's turnaround from a downtrodden school about twenty years ago. Today it wins awards for it's media inspired reading and writing programs which has children producing podcasts of book reports written by New Zealand authors as well as current events news broadcasts. The school is driven by a very dedicated staff and headed by Russel Burt, principal and his wife Dorothy Burt who is the innovator of the podcasting program. They are quite inspiring to meet. The link to Point England School is here

Podcasting (nothing to do with fishing for whales, Mom) is encapsulated digital media pieces that you can download to your computer or your ipod (mp3 player)to listen to at your convenience. If you subscribe to a podcast than some sort of chummy action between your computer and the hosting site will automatically collect it for you. Its all some sort of syndication system, often distributed through a blog. Sorry for my redundancy if you learned this all several hundred years ago.


For the proud Grandparents reading: Desmond is in room 5 and you can look at photos of his class and some of their digital drawing from that higlighted site above.