With a little under a week until the Australian Federal election Cakes and I have hit the streets delivering flyers for the Gonski.
Huh? What is a Gonski? you say... Well towards the end of 2011 a man called (someone, I could have looked this up, but thought you should know I know as little as the next guy) Gonski did a huge review of Australian education; public, independent and catholic. He wrote a report called the Gonksi report. The report is so thorough, detailing what each school needs and how much money each one would need to get what they need. Things like more resources, more teachers, training, equipment, etc. One of the two big political parties (the one currently in power) decided to make it policy though asked the state governments to contribute.
It took months for each state to slowly sign up to the agreement. Cakes and I live in Queensland and our state government is the opposition and refused to sign up. Even worse than our state not signing up the opposition was so against it that they initially said they disagreeed with it. They have now backflipped and are offering 1/3 of the money over 4 years, rather than the total amount over 6 years. So if the government changes even the states signed up may lose the funding under their previous agreement.
Having a small person ready to hit school in 2015 and with my new career in schools, I really would like the best education possible for all of Australia's children. We really should have hit the pavement earlier and spread the word while we had the opportunity for the state to sign, but we didn't. So with a few weeks to go until the federal elections and I Give a Gonski posts in my Facebook feed, Cakes noticed this picture.
It took months for each state to slowly sign up to the agreement. Cakes and I live in Queensland and our state government is the opposition and refused to sign up. Even worse than our state not signing up the opposition was so against it that they initially said they disagreeed with it. They have now backflipped and are offering 1/3 of the money over 4 years, rather than the total amount over 6 years. So if the government changes even the states signed up may lose the funding under their previous agreement.
Having a small person ready to hit school in 2015 and with my new career in schools, I really would like the best education possible for all of Australia's children. We really should have hit the pavement earlier and spread the word while we had the opportunity for the state to sign, but we didn't. So with a few weeks to go until the federal elections and I Give a Gonski posts in my Facebook feed, Cakes noticed this picture.
"I want to do that Mum" says Cakes. The teacher in me said "I really should have done this months ago", the parent in me said "My child deserves a good education" and the amazement for my kid said "Sure lets sign up". So together we completed the form on the 'Do your block' page and got flyers delivered. We ended up with 3 lots as the first lot was not for our electorate, a second correction lot was the corrected lot and a third as Cakes talked her Nanny into to taking her mail box dropping.
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So far we drove (in her little Gonski mobile which took forever) along our street doing the flyers, around Nanny's streets and tomorrow near her early education centre (in the other electorate). So this little person will have delivered 300 flyers with very little help from adults. To the few people she saw during her duty she called out "I give a Gonski, my school needs the money". Good to know she has a very basic understanding of what it is all about (about as much as most adults really).
And like no other experience it was a great learning experience. She practised writing her name almost 100 times on the flyers, read out all the numbers on the letter boxes (she still reads in single numbers "1 and 3", allowing the opportunity for me to teach her 'tens' numbers "1 and 3 is 13"), she was learning to do something for someone other than herself, developing fine motor skills folding the flyers, hand eye coordination putting them in the mail boxes through the tiny slots (budding mail lady right her), strengthening her muscles by walking, running and driving and a sense of pride for standing up for what she believes is good.
If you are an Australian voter, please consider giving a Gonski this coming Saturday for all the small people out there. One day they will be our future adults, lets make them smarter than we are!
And like no other experience it was a great learning experience. She practised writing her name almost 100 times on the flyers, read out all the numbers on the letter boxes (she still reads in single numbers "1 and 3", allowing the opportunity for me to teach her 'tens' numbers "1 and 3 is 13"), she was learning to do something for someone other than herself, developing fine motor skills folding the flyers, hand eye coordination putting them in the mail boxes through the tiny slots (budding mail lady right her), strengthening her muscles by walking, running and driving and a sense of pride for standing up for what she believes is good.
If you are an Australian voter, please consider giving a Gonski this coming Saturday for all the small people out there. One day they will be our future adults, lets make them smarter than we are!
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