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There is a gasp of amazement,
shrieks of ugggggh from the children. A broad grin
spreads across Bernie's face. " Just joking. I just
wanted to see if you were all still awake
". The picture is replaced with a shot
of plates loaded with Indian food: chapatis, rice and
vegetables, somosas, spicy snacks and this time there is
a cacophony of eating sounds from the audience. " Who
knows the name of these foods ? Who knows how they are
made ? how many of you tried them ? ". Hands shoot up,
answers are fielded, then he's off again. " See this
painted bus, how do you think they painted all that
detail? How would you do it ? Would you like to ride in
it ? Then go to Pakistan ! ". Amhurst Junior School in North
London is one of more than 400 schools in Britain to have
employed Bernie Howgate to spend a day giving his
exuberant, anecdotal impressions of the years he spent
traveling on a bicycle through countries across the globe
and to show his selection of 3,000 slides. His journeying
took him to Africa and Asia, the United States of America
and North America to South East Asia and
Antarctica. He is an improbable person to find
on the menu in schools as varied as the smart private
prep and maintained both schools in urban areas or in the
most deprived city areas. He has no formal teaching
qualifications and he admits to have avoided education at
school, but he is strikingly informed and informative
with the materials he delivers to children. His schools
programs have been constructed around the idea that
children should be able to follow up what he shows with
work of their own. His style is more of a music hall
entertainer than pedagogue, an impression added to by the
scream of consciousness presentation, delivered in his
raw Northern England accent. He sports an immaculately
constructed hippie look: shoulder length hair styled
circa 1965, a viva Zapata mustache and careless clothes.
The much traveled bicycle accompanies him as a prop. It
is a style which keeps some 150 young children rapt for
two hours and which has pleased enough schools for him to
be invited back, repeatedly to some, while his engagement
book has been more or less full for the past two
years. " I see my role as interesting
children in something outside their experience and
providing entertainment which is also informative. But I
don't see myself as an educator and I am not trying to be
dogmatic or prove theories. I try to work with teachers
so that they can use what has been seen as they wish. I
discuss my programs with them before going in, if that is
what they want, and I go back sometimes to follow up on
work they have done, or I might help to organize
follow-up work. For example, I have slides of children
making toys with wire and other materials which children
copy with recycled material found at home. Teachers in
other schools had children making model villages based on
what I had showed them". A great deal of artwork has come
out of Bernie's visits and he has organized several
exhibitions entitled
Tales of a
Traveling Man School Art
Exhibition.
Presentations will be free-ranging and
cover such diverse subjects as living with Tibetans in
the Himalayas to life in equatorial Africa. All aspects
of every day life are covered, including transportation
in Asia, village arts and crafts, market scenes, food
preperation, farming & fishing, festivals, weddings,
children at play, wildlife and such natural events as
volcanoes and hurricanes. Program duration can be edited down to
45 minutes to suit individual class needs or expanded to
90 minutes to suit assemblies and is suitable from grade
2 to 13. A days visit is based on a maximum of
3 classroom programs ( 3x 45 minutes ) or two assembly
programs ( 2x 90 minutes ). A half day visit is based on a maximum
of 2 classroom programs ( 2x 45 minutes ) or one assembly
program ( 1x 90 minutes ). Program: For further information on other
programs, contact: E-Mail.: berniehowgate@hotmail.com
The picture on the wall of
the assembly hall shows a small child having his head
examined for lice. Bernard Howgate conducting this
afternoon's slide show and talk, demonstrates by
scratching at his bush of unruly hair, how he, too,
looked for lice when traveling through Asia. " Suddenly,
I found this little thing moving. I grabbed it wi' me
fingers, took a look and popped it in my
mouth".
