Being a Recycled Baby Alien Plum

A lot has changed at my school in the 25 years since I left.  And I know this because my daughter now goes there so I can make constant forensic and slightly obsessive comparisons.   

To whit, check out these differences:

• they learn Mandarin, not French.
• they have a philosophy class where they learn to ask things like 'If 7/11s are open 24 hours a day why do they need to have locks on the door?' 
• they have values, which include respect and kindness and bullying is frowned upon.
• every week there is a gold coin day for an unheard of but worthy charity.
• they go on interesting excursions to places like the Footscray Market to buy Vietnamese vegetables and fruit which they then learn about, cook and eat.
• there are no winners in the house sports competitions.  There are 'finishers' and people who 'competed'.
• maths is studied on line at home and school by logging on to Mathletics which treats maths as a game.
• they have a market garden where they make compost, breed butterflies and harvest cauliflower.
• they have 'Nude Food' days where you have to rip the wrappers off the bars before they go into the lunchbox because everyone's lunch waste is weighed and tallied.
• they have groovy teachers who ride red scooters to school and wear leggings. 
• they are taught to give presentations to large numbers from an early age (I didn't have to do this until I was 25 which gave me a crippling case of the red and blushies).
• they have to wear their hats everywhere and noone has a suntan.
• the maintenance workers and gardeners are young surfie types not slightly creepy \ mad older men.

And nowhere are these differences more apparent than in the annual Christmas Concert,    which was held this week. Quite a long time before Christmas, you may say.  Well it may as well be, because the concert has nothing to do with Christmas. Instead, it is a Celebration of Learning.   This week's concert was about a baby alien who landed in my daughter's school and was amazed by all the things the girls had done.   Since starting school, my daughter has dressed up in a bewildering array of non Christmassy characters for her Christmas Concert:

• a plum
• a star
• a farmer
• the rain
• Autumn

I loved the concert.  It was touching and cute.  They were all so nervous, and so excited.  The dancing was sweet and slightly imperfect, and my reticent little girl stood up and spoke her line loudly and proudly, which I know was not easy for her. 

And like the last 5 concerts,  recycling and the environment were prominentlyy mentioned.   Maybe recycling is the new religion.   

But, and I say this as a largely non denominational person,  just a teeny tiny little bit of me would like to see either:

• a Christmas concert with Christmas Carols, and two children inappropriately dressed as Mary and Joseph with a local screaming baby as Jesus in the manger and the Three Kings in the background or
• a concert which looks at the way other cultures celebrate their key festivals or religious days..............

Is it just me?

(All images via Sarah Kaye)

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