NOMADIC SCHOOLS

Taranaki Daily News, 21 January 1935, Page 13

NOMADIC SCHOOLS

EDUCATING YOUNG LAPPS. EARTH HUTS FOR CLASSROOMS. More than 40 Lapp schools are just entering their twentieth year of existence and passing an educational landmark in the history of this seminomadic people. Even to-day, when education is widespread, says the Christian Science Monitor, it is difficult to visualise Lapp schools without having visited this bleak land north of Sweden, in the neighbourhood of the Arctic Circle. In winter the Lapps, numbering some 7000, are to be found in the lowlands. In summer they go to the mountains bordering Norway, their movements dictated by the biennial movements of the reindeer herds from which they derive subsistence. When the Lapps follow the reindeer special' nomad schools follow the Lapps. The schoolhouse consists usually or a circular earth hut constructed on traditional Lapp lines. A framework of stripped branches supports the walls, and, although there are glazed windows and a door, smoke from the open hearth is emitted through a hole in the roof. In a typical school about nine small children sit on their heels in the soft birch branches. which serve, for floor covering, their Mongol-like little faces bright and alert. Among their lessons are Lapp legends. Though the language of instruction is Swedish, the legends are comprehensible even to newcomers. The native tongue is akin to the Finnish and has a grammar but no literature. At the close of lessons some of the children run home while others go to a “dormitory” hut next door. At certain schools, boarders are taken from neighbouring villages in which the population does not warrant the maintenance of a teacher. In a typical hut are six neat piles of reindeer skins used for bedding. Affixed to the wall are six neat blue-checked bags for the inmates’ personal belongings. The children, buffeting each other like reindeer, appear to find boarding school rather fun. Work consists mainly of reading, writing, .and arithmetic, but in the few permanent settlements on the coast Swedish history is included. The key to the institution of these schools by the Swedish Government does not lie in any attitude of repression. The desire was to preserve an element of the population for general decadence. In this connection the former Swedish schools had. been particularly to blame; they had given the children a desire to adopt the' Swedish way of living, for which they were entirely unsuited. Ever since the establishment of independent schools in 1915, every effort has been made to encourage the young Lapps to develop along the. lines of their own culture. The Lapps are well content to receive an education which puts them in a better relation to the Swedes in all business matters, and the children are readily sent to school. In September the reindeer are already beginning to move down from the hills. Soon snow falls and great drifts lie round the deserted huts of the upland villages. But the schools follow the Lapps and the reindeer to the lowlands and continue their work as before.