In the beginning of the movie, when the teacher dismisses his students for the (Summer?) break, one of the girls give him a paper wrapped gift "for your collection." I don't recall if the gift was ever revealed. Does anyone want to speculate with me on what that gift was?
Probably a bottle of after shave or something similar. Australian children would take up a collection to buy their teacher a gift as appreciation at the end of the school year in December.
shareIt was a rock for his rock collection. After he leaves the schoolhouse and returns to his room, you can see the collection behind him as he walks in. The director confirms this in the commentary
Christmas presents *and* summer break at the same time since it's the southern hemisphere. Santa Claus makes his appearance as people are sweltering. It just adds to the oddness of this great film.
shareThat part doesn't seem odd at all to an Aussie - in fact it's positively nostalgic to an expat Aussie like me living in the UK now! The good part of it was that at the beginning of the summer holidays you had not just holidays, but Christmas as well to look forward to. No wonder those kids were just waiting to bolt out of their classroom!
Mind you, I didn't live in the outback, but it was summer, and Sydney gets bloody hot in the summer - not much fun if you're cooking a traditional Christmas dinner as we did when I was a kid, and for a large part of my adult life. Quite crazy really - couldn't wait to get out of the kitchen!
Never lie to the dog.