Emmaville Central School teacher Rebecca Grant is renown for her dedication to teaching and history, earning an Alan Kerr Memorial Award in 2008 and in 2012 travelling to the Western Front on a Premier’s ANZAC Memorial Scholarship to visit World War I battle sites and to represent NSW at an ANZAC Day memorial service in Ypre, Belgium.
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Now she has again made herself the envy of any Australian war historian, time travelling to New Guinea to walk the infamous Kokoda Track and visit World War II battlegrounds.
“It was a fantastic experience,” she said.
“It was very challenging, very eye-opening and very grounding at the same time.”
Ms Grant returned to Australia in July after the 10 day tour beginning at Ellis Corner incorporating the 96 kilometre trek across Kokoda and including a visit to the Northern Beaches battlefield where Australian diggers and allies pushed back Japanese insurgents, according to Ms Grant.
“I planned the trip myself. I believe that first-hand experience really enhances my teaching and provides a narrative background for my students.”
Ms Grant said she was very keen to make the trip that is so memorable for almost all Australians and considered to be one of the most significant Australian war efforts in World War II. Ms Grant also said the trip had a personal significance. Her grandfather Aubrey Dawson — a war veteran and former president of the Glen Innes RSL sub-branch, served in New Guinea during WWII.
Ms Grant said the trip gave her the chance to truly connect with the experience of Australian diggers and New Guinean carriers during the war and allowed her to carry that experience back to Australia and to her teaching practices.
“We had a wonderful historian, Frank Taylor, who travelled with us and who has made the Kokoda trip 140 times,” she said.
Mr Taylor had an extensive knowledge of the history and the terrain of the track and offered invaluable insight to the experience.
Ms Grant was also able to meet one of the original carriers from the war, Faole Bokoi, who now lives in Menari village at the heart of the track.
“He said he was unsure of what age he was at the time, but said he would have been around 14 years old during the war,” Ms Grant said.
Ms Grant said she could never have anticipated the challenge of the terrain.
“I spent the 10 days concentrating on the ground,” she said.
“It was extremely and continuously steep, with a number of sheer drop offs and incredibly dense jungle.
“It was a fantastic and grounding experience, one that has really enhanced my teaching.”