A TASTE FOR SATURN

The Rainbow Homestead

One of my tasks for the day was to take a lesson from the Eco Schools books and teach it to Kei and Oriah. They are being home schooled. Part of the session/lesson took place with Kei hanging upside down in a tree, yet every time you ask him what you said, he could tell you and he was obviously practicing his balance. The lesson was this - find a log and look at what lives on and from it and how they relate then later back from the field trip, draw a picture of one of the creatures you saw.

This is all great, but there is this over simplistic pyramid that goes from log to insects to insect eaters and ends up with a Leopard at the top of the pyramid. This is all good, but where are the big Herbivores in this story? I get the impression that they are trying to give the impression (indoctrinate the idea) the pyramid systems are natural and normal and carnivores are always at the top, they are not. Yes, this whole pyramid thing takes place, but then the tree becomes compost for the soil, new grass grows and this also feeds the Zebra’s and Elephants and Rhino’s, but this is not mentioned at all and another and, the Leopard also eventually dies, becomes food for new plants, so this should be more of a circle, according to me. 

Maybe I am making a mountain out of a moles heap, but I am very much aware of the amount of indoctrination in Educations and it is very often done in such suggestions. This is just a thought and as I said this was my first ever teaching experience.

Under the circumstances, this being my first attempt, things went pretty well, until after the drawing session.  The drawing session produced three painting – Oriah drew a spiders with caterpillar friends and some clouds and Kei also drew a spider but a big scary one, which he insisted was a male (I enjoyed teaching him that the big spider is always the she, he he). Gabi (Dale's one son) also showed up during the painting session and he painted two fat men and a bag of peanuts, don’t ask, because I do not know why the fat men and peanuts.

Then the drawing thing got boring and the home made clay which served as planets earlier that morning where now being reshaped and tasted. Eventually lunch arrived and we all got through lesson one alive, accept for a few termites which got crushed when we turned the log.

Kei developing a taste for Saturn

I do not have much time or power for writing, but the Solstice was great fun, we did the dress up thing and had loads of fun, food and fire….

Here are some pictures from the Solstice

Me, all dressed up

Around the big bonfire

One of the lanterns made out of Zulu melons

Shiva doing the Shiva