Bush teaching offers life lessons for station mum

Anne studied teaching majoring in physical education and German before embarking for a year as an exchange student in Germany.

Anne found herself living in the South East before moving to West of Port Augusta to Illeroo Station in 1983.

Her son Lachie started SOTA a year later.

"We all have our own personal track through the various stages of education both in school and in life," she said.

"In preparing this talk, I came to realise just how big of a signpost distance education was for me.

"I helped teach my own children to read, write and add up, I know that a bell works better than mums voice to get the children into the school room.

"The incentive to get to the shearing shed by smoke-o was a much better motivator for extreme speed."

She said children learnt mums buttons on to push a lot quicker than she could come up with alternative strategies.

"Teaching your own children is one of the most rewarding jobs in the universe, it's also one of the most difficult," she said.

"After grade 3 I learnt it was better to start school at 8am and finish at 1pm with virtually no breaks.

"It was fun absorbing various committees and groups for SOTA, the SA correspondence school, and ICPA whose focus was better outcomes and improving access to all levels of education for all remote children.

"I was prompted to return to university to study by distance and graduate over distance education in order to understand what we were doing at home in our own school room in 1986 and 1988."

Anne said distance education was the reason she applied for the coordinator and a supervisor support role at SOTA.

"That was my dream job," she said.

"My involvement with the ICPA, developing knowledge about education and the confidence to formulate motions then stand up with a microphone and debate them and the meeting procedures proved to be very transformative skills to every community that I have belonged to.

"I quickly learnt there was no rule book in the bush that works for everybody and that we had to find our own way through.

"But it also taught me that everyone is reliant on other people at some stage or another."

She said kindy was about training young parents and she learnt that quite quickly.

"I had to remember to turn the radio on or to be inside and if you missed that 10 minutes the opportunity was gone and you had to wait another two days," she said.

"We used to have kindy lessons in the recess time at SOTA on the channels that were used through the Royal Flying Doctor Service, and we were supplied a radio.

"RFDS, SOTA, ICPA and Remote & Isolated Children's Exercise - these acronyms are so much more than just a name, they were hugely important to helping me and our family negotiate the early years of our children's lives.

"Before moving to Illeroo, I had never heard of ICPA and in 1984 ICPA was only 14 years old."

Anne said it was amazing to meet such friendly people who were so focused on access to education.

"Meetings were held at different properties and the whole family went, where men and women held positions and the meetings were taken very seriously," she said.

"Play groups became a powerful force in the lives of all of those who took part, helping to create a sense of belonging, and creating a greater level of confidence in both parenting and education.

"The stations took turns to host them."

She said the RICE newsletters were a lifeline of information recipes and connection.

Anne worked as the childrens supervisor until the end of 1991 with one year off in 1990 when they had a governess.