All In All The Time

I never believed that I would experience any kind of culture shock in Australia. My mother was born there so I know most of the Aussie slang. I have traveled the country extensively and know many Australians. Most of the time Canadians and Aussies get along just great, so why would I need to worry about culture shock? Within a mere 3 days I have realized that there are many more struggles when one lives in a new place compared to simply travelling. To put it simply, everything is different, from turning on the light switch in the morning to driving to and from work. That being said… a difficult day here is in fact a difficult day in a tropical paradise. I’ve had worse. In fact, I know that when I return to Edmonton I will miss going into the pool, eating amazing fresh fruit every day, cycling all year, the wide selection of gluten free treats, and of course the people.

Heather and I landed on the morning of January 22. We were fortunate to have an incredible house to live in and to be greeted by David and Jan, the parents of Karen Turner. January 23 was my first day at work. Murray Gillis, a new colleague, picked me up and took me to school. We will be teaching Chemistry 11 together and it is a great opportunity to plan so closely with a teacher. It is clear that Gary and Murray have been extremely collaborative and I am very happy to continue that tradition.

After 3 days of professional development, meetings, schmoozing, and planning it is clear that teaching at Maroochydore is different than at Londonderry.

Our first order of the day was to go to a meeting. The Principal, Boyd Jorgenson spoke at length about the school focus. “All In… All The Time”. Mr. Jorgenson was in an interesting role last year as a curriculum auditor and had the opportunity to visit many schools in the Queensland area. He believes that the most successful schools have policies that all staff understand, buy into, and implement consistently. The analogy is two parents who have the same rules for their kids versus those that are inconsistent. Teachers at Maroochydore have a certain degree of professional freedom, however, it is clear that consistency is a strong value here.

All teachers of a particular course must follow the same unit plan. For example, all of us in Science 8 are expected to cover lab safety, lab equipment, and scientific method in the first week. Each week is planned out and all teachers of the same course follow the plan. Teachers may experiment and try unique methods of delivery, however, the timeline must be followed as set.  The plans are handed out to the students each term and the format of the plans is consistent – same cover page, layout, font, etc.

We all implement the same rules. All students are expected to line up outside the door before each class (every day all year) in alphabetical order. The teacher will greet each student at the door and check to make sure that he/she is wearing the correct uniform, has all necessary equipment, and is sent to the correct seat in the seating plan. These are just a few of the many examples of “All in all the time”.

I have never taught in a school like this, so it will be very interesting to experience such a high degree of structure. It may even be difficult to go back to the Edmonton way.

There are more differences, but I would rather wait until I teach some classes before reporting on them. The purpose behind doing a teacher exchange is to put ones self out of the comfort zone in an effort to learn something new. This will certainly be a year of discomfort and learning and I look forward to it!