On Thursday I arrived to my Year 2 yard duty to some great consternation. A kangaroo had separated itself from the herd and was lying down at the fence boundary of the Year 2 playground. It was clear that the kangaroo was not in good health and the children, anxious for the kangaroo’s well-being, shepherded me down to where the handball courts finish, their worried voices a rabble of concern and recount. We watched as the kangaroo repeatedly licked its forearms; a sign, I was told by Nick Hall, one of our Site Team, that it was very stressed. “How do you know so much?” I asked him. “I am a student of nature,” he replied.
It was one of those moments where you feel the responsibility of adulthood too keenly. A group of upturned, hopeful faces waited for me to announce some special kind of grown-up-magic that would render the kangaroo as being okay, that would see the kangaroo happily leap off into the adjoining scrub. I braced myself to disappoint them. “He’s obviously not well and stressed about something. The very best we can do by him right now, is just give him space so that he feels safe and not threatened,” I announced to my court of tiny attendants.
On the surface this seems like a small request but where the kangaroo was laying meant that giving him space required foregoing handball, cubby building, blackberry picking and rolling down the embankment that separates the top oval from the Year 2 playground. It was a lot to sacrifice. I fully expected to spend the rest of lunch reminding them of their duty to care for our unwell marsupial mate. I needn’t have doubted them.
The whelps and laughter that usually loudly proclaim their enjoyment of lunch breaks, transitioned to a very calm burble of conversation. The sand pit, often overlooked as a lunch break option, regained some popularity as it was positioned closer to the classrooms than the border fence, and allowed the children an activity to participate in away from the kangaroo. A few students asked if they could read a book or draw, and sat on the boulder rocks in the garden directly outside their classrooms to do so. A unanimous, unspoken agreement amongst the Year 2s to be quieter and less boisterous, inspired by their joint concern for another living creature.
It was a beautiful reminder for me of how connected our students are to their environment. Their school days are spent on 16 hectares of largely natural forest. They partake in festivals acknowledging the change in seasons and the mirrored changes within themselves. They have a clear sense of their responsibility to be custodians of their environment, reinforced by their teachers and the curriculum that they live and breathe every day. They are observant. They are caring and careful. They are Orana students.
Charmaine Rye – Head of Primary / Deputy Principal
