Cold Milk and Milo

Hi, this is Grace's mum, Sharon. I'm helping Grace get this blog post up because she feels that writing the whole post is just a bit too much work at the moment.  The school year is almost over and she has been working very hard with her learning, so it's understandable that she feels the way she does. She did, however, write a small piece which is the focus of this post. I just wanted to add some further details so readers can put what she's written into context.

Two days ago, it was Remembrance Day - an ideal time to have a discussion about the concept of war and a brief look at Australia's involvement in war throughout history. We watched a short 'Behind the News' segment on Remembrance Day, and read the poem 'Flanders Fields' by Dr John McCrae (Grace ended having to read most of it as I was too emotional to even read to the end of the 2nd line). After the 2 minutes silence I decided that the movie 'Australia' would be appropriate for us to watch as it recounts Japan's bombing of Darwin during World War 2. The movie also touches on the racism in Australia at the time, specifically the way the Australian Indigenous people were treated by the majority of white Australians, and the issue of the Stolen Generations.

We watched the movie together, pausing every now and then to talk about certain things that were happening, and for me to explain things when Grace needed me to. She seemed very interested and sat through the whole movie (which goes for over 2 and a half hours).

I'll now let you read what Grace wrote earlier today:

Yesterday morning, I was having a glass of cold milk with a spoon of Milo in it. I started thinking about a movie I watched the day before called Australia. The movie was set in the Northern Territory at the time of World War 2 when a lot of Australians were racist and treated the Aborigines really badly. I remembered my favourite quote from the movie – ‘just because that’s the way it is, doesn’t mean that’s the way it should be’. It was talking about how people treated the Aborigines.

I realised that my glass of milk was like the white people and the Milo was like the black people. The spoon mixing them was like the people standing up and saying ‘just because that’s the way it is, doesn’t mean that’s the way it should be’. I hope that one day all racism will disappear because we are all human beings and we all have value, no matter what we look like.

Just after the Milo goes in

After a little stirring

After more time and more stirring

Just a few specks to go

As Grace was telling me this yesterday morning, I felt so much pride in my daughter. I think it's an excellent analogy and she came up with it all by herself. It's an analogy that can be used for thinking about other contemporary issues such as homophobia. I think it's really important for us to discuss issues like this with our kids. They are our future leaders and decision-makers. And I must say, it's comforting to believe that our younger generation have it within them to change our world for the better.

Well done my clever girl. I am so very proud of you!