Chelsea Primary School looks back to go forth

16-17 September, 2010. Students at Chelsea Primary School were given a special experience, as they went on an educational field trip at Hamilton’s Mystery Creek and celebrated New Zealand’s personal identities, culture and heritage by revisiting the past.

The Hamilton train trip was a 6-yearly initiative of the school through the school’s principal, Sue Mulcahy, and coordinated with Mystery Creek’s staff members.

The idea was to expose Year 0-Year 6 students to what our ‘real world’ now used to be. One of the aims of the trip was to support students’ learning in social studies education through a focus on culture, time and change. The participants were very optimistic about getting an answer to the school’s thematic question, “How on Earth could anyone live there?”

From this multi-faceted journey, Chelsea school students were able to experience a world when electricity is lacking; when people need at least an hour to churn butter for personal household use or when milking a cow is a common chore by children before and after school. They had a glimpse at how the jail used to work, entered a school where books were scarce if worse none, or viewed how the church looked like in the olden times.

The 3-hour express train trip to Hamilton followed by a 20-minute bus trip to Mystery Creek was a success in giving nearly 400 children, several parent helpers and the teachers a means to understand who they are as a people by knowing something about their past.

Some people might sneer at the thought of getting these children as young as 5 to go on a long train trip like such. In retrospect, Chelsea School has indeed provided these participants a reason to empathise and to remember - the courage, the inventiveness and the creativity of the people in the past whose ideas and actions shaped what we are enjoying in our present lives.

That, by studying our culture through our past, students at Chelsea school may be powerful agents for change in our current lives, for the continuity of our heritage and for the preservation of our culture and identity. 

Ma te Mahi Ka Ora!  -  That's the Chelsea way...that's the kiwi way!

By Nelia Vanderwoude