RAG Road Trip - Day One

Gladstone South State School is a humble, hardworking school that includes students with a range of learning and socio-economic challenges, and creates a calm and flourishing culture. As our first school visit on this, the final tour of Read Around Gladstone, Gladstone South was perfect. The great impact of the author visits was readily apparent, and clearly important.

When Samantha Wheeler read an excerpt of her book Mister Cassowary to 140 wiggly, excited Prep-Year 3 students, they fell still, enraptured. It was as if she cast a spell over them. Sam shared stories about how cassowaries eat seeds and poo out baby plants, playing a crucial ecological role. And about how she was once charged by a grumpy male cassowary, as big as a monster, because it mistook the yellow watch on her wrist for a tasty banana in her hand. The Auslan interpreter present ensured a deaf student could enjoy the event, and it was great fun to see expert signing of words like cassowary, ecology, and poo. A year-3 student on the autism spectrum, who has an Individual Curriculum Plan at Prep level, turned out to be the best story-teller in the class!

Did you actually write those books? What do cassowaries really do? But what if you want to feed a cassowary? 140 hot, rosy faces crowded into a Year 3 classroom on a warm Gladstone day and we were off to a flying start. What a privilege to be here for Day One of our Read Around Gladstone tour thanks to UPLIT, where, after a smooth flight from Brisbane, we tackled the keen readers at Gladstone South State School. I took on lower primary with Lance in upper, where the engaged and interactive students set the bar high for the week. The welcome continued when local book lovers and artists joined Meg, Lance and I at the Gladstone library this evening, where we discovered the area has not only a wombat sanctuary but a turtle rehabilitation centre! I might just stay a few days longer ….

Meanwhile, under slow moving ceiling fans in the sports hall at the other end of the school, Lance Balchin explored narrative, visual art, the environment, and philosophy with 100 year 4-6 students. Waves of excitement and determination rose from the students as they raised their hands and called out their reflections and ideas on, for example, whether robots can really ever become human. The mechanical aspect of Lance's work was a great fit for a school where many students and family members are hands on with machines at home or work, much more so than in a metropolitan city. 

Gladstone is a city of machines. In every direction the great spines of industry breach the horizon like great beasts rising from the earth. This is a place that draws minerals from the ground. Minerals that will one day become dishwashers, cars and yes, even robots. This is a place where Mechanica would thrive.

Gladstone, like many other regional centres I have visited in Queensland, is also a place where the arts are appreciated. Often in the big cities people’s involvement in the arts is muted through too much choice. When there is so much happening it is easy for people to leave it to others to support artist’s and writer’s events. Not so with our regional cousins. They have a hunger to hear about new ideas and show up eager to hear them

The kids in Gladstone are wonderful. Like kids everywhere they are switched on through the digital world and yet still read. I think that that is amazing when you think about all the (mostly fantastic) digital entertainment that is at their fingertips.

The evening event was a beautiful formal close to this multi-year, multi-partner project. It was wonderful to have Gladstone Regional Councillor Cindy Bush as MC for the event, and to meet the writers, artists and readers present. What a brilliant opportunity to acknowledge and thank the Gladstone community for the success of Read Around Gladstone.

Blog content courtesy Meg Vann, our Producer on the ground in Gladstone