In 1983 my parents decided to go on a trip around Australia for a year. This was my first year of high school (Year 8 in those days) so I did my school studies with the Distance Education Centre (DEC).
There were no computers or Internet at that time, so my studies had to be done via books. The work I did had to be sent in the mail and I believe we also had to ring and talk to our teachers from time to time. My brother Manfred (Year 6) also studied with DEC. The subjects I did were the usual English and Maths everyone does, plus I also did sewing and cooking. I do not remember the other subjects. The trip around Australia was a most enjoyable time and something that I will never forget.
Brother's story for newsletter
We started the trip off in a caravan. Darwin was our first big city stop. We stayed there for about a month and as it was very humid so we spent a lot of time in the library doing our schoolwork. The library also had activities for children in the evenings and we went there for discos and movie nights.
In Brisbane we sold the caravan and bought a small 3-man tent in which 4 people slept. This was our home for our journey from Queensland through New South Wales, Canberra and then onto Melbourne. In Melbourne we stayed with friends in their house in luxury. My father got a job in Melbourne, so we went to regular school for a short time and lived in a rented house. Then we returned home to WA on a coach while my father stayed in Melbourne for a month. We had a short break in Adelaide before continuing our journey across the Nullabor. I had never seen the Nullabor before so my brother and I stayed up all night to see it. There were a lot of exciting things we saw in our trip but I would not have the space to write it all.
In 2016 and 2017 I had another experience with distance education, this time with the School of Isolated and Distance Education (SIDE). My daughter Kayla studied Photography with SIDE as one of her Year 11/12 subjects. She attended a small school that did not have this subject available. As photography was her passion, she was very glad she could study it with SIDE. Her teacher was Phil Garnett. She has now finished high school and is studying a Diploma of Child care at Leederville TAFE, which is just down the road from SIDE.
