Advertisement The instrument of the Australian Aborigines pictures a bright-green parrot, sea horse, koala bear and snorkeling equipment, which remind her of every stop she made while discovering life Down Under.
“This is probably the best souvenir I could have,” she said. “It tells about the whole journey.”
Tracing her artwork, she told about trekking though the rain forest, snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef and seeing new animals like the smelly, yet friendly koala bear.
About midway down, her instrument is the symbol for St. Hilda’s Anglican School for Girls, the place where Abts, a University of Wisconsin-River Falls education major, student taught. Abts spent five weeks of her trip, June 8 through Aug. 3, at the school in the city of Perth in western Australia.
During this part of her trails, she learned something too expansive to explain on her long and narrow instrument. She learned from the Australians about letting young children discover when learning.
“You give them materials to create, but are not so focused on what the final product looks like,” she said.
She helped lead 5-year-olds though activities such as creating their own country and coming up with its flag, greeting and shape.
Abts said the end product may not have been very neat or pretty, but that wasn’t the idea. The idea was to discover, create, and, in the process, learn a lot about their imaginary country and real countries like Australia and the United States.
“Sometimes we think teachers have all the knowledge, but it is also important to give students the opportunity to be in control of their own learning,” said Abts. “If you give the power to the student of what they want to learn, you gain so much more than if just lecturing to them.”
While she is much older than the students she taught, Abts, in a way, learned via discovery, too.
She discovered a new place in the world, new methods to teach youth, and even how to play the didgeridoo.
“It made me a better teacher to step outside my own comfort zone and have a more worldly view,” she said.
KJ Lang can be reached at (608) 791-8226 or klang@lacrossetribune.com.
