The house the children built

Sometimes following unusual signs can exceed all expectations. This particular detour also made me think good education is just good education - no matter what the latest label.
The sign said 'historic miniature bungalow' and is not far from Moana and Lake Brunner on the Greymouth side.
Driving down the straight road we all had a guess at what we might find. Someone's idea of a tourist attraction at a high price or a disappointing dollhouse bungalow perhaps?
What we found at the very end of street was Kotuku's old Jack's Mill School. In it's grounds was a 1/2 sized bungalow with 3/4 sized walls designed and built by eleven and twelve year old children back in the late 1930s. Unfortunately it is only open on Sundays  and it was Monday so we weren't able to walk through it and see the purpose built 1/2 sized bath, the running water, the built-in lounge seat and folding dining room table.

The sign explained it all. A Mr Edward Darracott didn't feel the children were being taught skills that would be useful once they left school so he came up with the plan to build the bungalow. He is quoted on a sign in the school grounds as saying, "Too long has the school been divorced from life as it is to be lived by the child afterwards."
He also said, "The child should be taught to think for himself, not take his lessons spoon-fed from the hands of the lecturer. More still, this training to think and to act should be in a situation as life like as possible."
Today one might use the terms '21st century learning' or 'experiential learning' or 'inquiry learning'. Mr Darracott was doing it in 1938 because it made sense. He had the community supporting the project and the bungalow building did not get any additional funding from the education board of the time. The children learnt not just bricklaying, carpentry, paint and plastering but also book keeping, surveying, letter and report writing - a rounded education. They even made their own carpet and organised insurance. Any school project that becomes a category one listed historic place is surely worth top marks.
It wasn't Mr Darracott's first change to the school either. When he arrived in 1935 he found the grounds and the surroundings gloomy, swampy and "despondent". He decided to get the children to improve their environment by creating a garden with concrete paths on the compass points.
His reason being, "Surely if beautiful thoughts and ideals are to be inculcated in the minds of these children, radical changes must be wrought in their surroundings as well as in their attitude of mind towards the finer issues of life."
The school shut in 1955 but the bungalow has since been restored. Some of the students who had originally designed and built it were involved in the restoration. It seems this learning lasted a life time.
Interestingly a few days later I was talking to secondary school student who was considering building a tiny house as part of his homeschool work. Being an advocate of the 'new' approach to education of emphasising experiential learning tailored to the needs of individual children, I am sure Mr Darracott would approve.
You can read more about the site on the DOC website.

We loved Sammy the starfish rockery

Another surprise in the school grounds.

Historical walk/drive around part of Christchurch

I got the information for this from a cool little book called St. Albans, from swamp to suburbs put out by the NZ Federation of University Women, Canterbury Branch and we did this on a beautiful sunny winter's day with the kids - hence we tried to do the interesting stories they would enjoy.
1. The trip starts at the car park behind the Carlton hotel at the corner of Papanui Road and Bealey Avenue. This is a little bit of history about the building of the current suburb in this area. The land before that was swamp and while Maori would have used it as a rich food resource and a thoroughfare between different pa sites, this particular area didn't have settlements I don't think.
There were no roads and it really was quite different. Flax was ten feet high and there was dense bracken, very peaty soil and swamps! Settlers from England come in the 1850s and for 150 pounds they got a 50 acres of rural land - like in the St. Albans area and a quarter acre in the city - the other side of Bealey Avenue. They chose their blocks then had to build roads to get to their land. One of the first roads was Papanui Road because that brought in wood from Papanui Bush, so the settlers built their houses facing onto Papanui Road. To pay for the road a toll bar was put across the road but all the residents hated paying so instead they would go down Caledonian Road or Springfield Road but these roads were so bad it was said a horse could sink up to his abdomen in the mud! Today there are lots of streetlights but back then there was very few and if you wanted one on your street corner, you had to help pay for it. There was 18 streetlights in the whole area by 1885 and even then they didn't light them on moonlit nights and turned them off at 2am on other nights because they were so expensive to run.
2. The Carlton hotel on the corner was built in 1865 for farmers bringing in their stock to sell. Behind the hotel was sales yards to sell the stock. A guy called A. W. Money owned it but he didn't keep the hotel up to scratch and in 1882 the license board said he could only keep his license if he rebuilt it, he said yes but then didn't do it. He sold the hotel to the Wards Brewery in 1901 and they built the current building in 1906 for accommodation for visitors to the International Exhibition in Hagley Park in 1907. In 1907 A. W. Money was killed outside his former hotel when he stepped off a tram and broke his neck! Before you go onto the next stop, note the Avon River.

3. 150 Springfield Road - almost opposite Abberley Crescent. This home was for John and Susannah Green who arrived in New Zealand in 1850. They didn't have running water so they had to go and get it from the Avon River, down by the Carlton Bridge (past the Carlton Hotel) A long way to walk for water.

4. You can walk from here or drive - corner of Rutland Street and St. Albans Street. St Albans Street was put in by the Provincial Council because James Field complained that his land and others had no access to them. So the road was put in but it was often under water. He and others complained again but the provincial government said it wasn't their problem as people were subdividing their land so the landowners should provide and pay for the roads.

5. On Rutland Street Henry Forwood took up farming in 1890. He had been a banker in London but decided he wanted to try farming. He got a lot of books and set about setting up a model farm. He had dairying, pigs and chickens. He grew oats, carrots and potatoes. A reporter at the time said "Mr Forwood's farm is a very interesting one and will well repay a visit of inspection." Most of the farms in the area were dairy farms. Then as the land got more profitable they started growing more crops and plant nurseries. It was hard work though as the land had to be drained and some people didn't have enough money to make the drains so then they couldn't use their land. Once the land was drained, it sunk and then all the logs off old Kahiketea trees that had fallen into the swamp had to be removed and put in piles so the land could actually be used.

6. Shepherd Place off Trafalger Street, at the end is St. Albans School and English Park.
7. English Park used to be the site of the Philpotts Homestead. They were Methodists and a number of methodists settled in the St. Albans area. In 1853 the Reverend Kirk was on his way to some Methodists in Otago, when his boat put in for repairs in Lyttelton. Methodists in St. Albans walked to Lyttelton over the Bridal Path (you can see it in the distance over English Park) and brought him back making a path through the swamp to lead him along. He held a service in the Philpott's kitchen and ended up staying in Christchurch.
8. The methodists were very keen on education and ran day schools and educated ladies in the area also started teaching children from their homes. It was decided a school was needed and St. Albans school was opened in 1872. To pay for it a rate was put on the houses in the area. Children often didn't make it to school because they couldn't reach the school due to flooding or they were needed at home to work or they were sick with measles or scarlet fever or smallpox. One such epidemic shut the school from June 2 to July 17 1882. The school got its funding based on average attendance so if not many kids turned up, they would shut the school to try and keep the average up. School was supposed to be compulsory for 7-13 yr olds and they started to use the police to enforce this. Children had to attend school 50% of the time. A boy, James Hazell was taken to court for only going to school 11 times by May. But the case was thrown out because half the year hadn't passed yet. Interestingly the only secondary schools in the area are private ones.

9. Caledonian Road - corner of Holly Road. This has now been cleared and is selling for residential sections but this used to the Caledonian Hotel. Before that it was a general store called the Rising Sun owned by Mr Innes. He had a room on the side of the shop that he got a license to sell "refreshments" It was very popular as people could pretend they were just going shopping for bread and things but then go through into his room for drinks. One woman smashed the windows because she was so angry that her husband had been jailled because of the debt he had not repaid that was supposedly for potatoes.

10. On the way home you can look at the trees down the middle of Bealey Avenue. The trees between Springfield Road and Montreal Street were paid for by Gould, a man who had a very big house in the area. He thought it would be nice for people and he provided seats for people to sit on and admire the view. He asked the council to put fences around the trees to stop them being eaten by wandering stock. A bit different from today!