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Outback House: Mucking up for the governess

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Woman in period costume talks to two girls at table
Outback House: Mucking up for the governess

SUBJECTS:  History

YEARS:  5–6


Join a spelling lesson with the governess.

In this clip from Outback House, witness the children's antics as they begin to misbehave.


Things to think about

  1. 1.What happens when you misbehave at home? How does your teacher deal with misbehaviour at school? Do you know how children were disciplined in the past? Ask some older people in your life about their experience of how discipline was carried out.
  2. 2.As you watch this very short clip notice the two girls behaviour as their sister tries to spell a word. Imagine that you are the governess. What are you trying to do? How do you feel about what is happening? How do you deal with it?
  3. 3.Governess Genevieve is living and working in the homestead with her students and their parents. How much privacy does she have? What can she do when the children misbehave during a lesson? What if she had become cross and yelled at the children? How might things be different for governess Genevieve if she were teaching in a colonial school?
  4. 4.How was children's misbehaviour dealt with in the 1860s? What is 'corporal punishment'? Find out if you don't know. What do you think about it? You are a governess who has moved to the colonies from England, isolated from your family in a very different land. Write a letter home to your parents, telling them about your new job and your new life.



Production Date: 2005


Copyright

Metadata © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia Ltd 2012 (except where otherwise indicated). Digital content © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). Video © Australian Broadcasting Corporation (except where otherwise indicated). All images copyright their respective owners. Text © Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Education Services Australia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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