April 25, 2010

Rainbow this morning. Took some pictures of it, but my camera was dying.



We were talking about education while sitting at smoko today (herbed scones fresh out of the oven with butter) I think the conversations started with some talk of how terrible the food was at boarding school. Jet and our boss, Lee, both went to boarding school as teenagers. That's fairly typical for 'bush kids': they go to the school of distance education for their formative years, and then when they are around 13 or 14 they're sent into town for school.

Back in the days when Jet was attending the school of education, roll call and some schoolwork was done over the radio, with tests completed at home and mailed in. These days, for the most part, it's done online.

Jet says the current school of distance education is prejudiced against bush kids and is more directed at town parents who for one reason or another choose to keep their kids out of public school. When he was a kid, he would always rush to finish his schoolwork as fast as possible so he could go out and help his dad with the work. Nowdays, the school of distance education doesn’t allow that. There are set hours for school, and you have to stay in by the computer for those, just like you would if you were in town attending school.