Hill Climbing

It is now week 4 of my international teacher exchange. The last two weeks have been a blur and as we develop our lives in Australia, it has become more difficult to make time to write in the blog.

Heather, Fenton, and I just got off Skype with our exchange partners, the Turners. It was really interesting to have a conversation about our two worlds, one that each of us know intimately, and the other that we are each assimilating into. As Gary put it, it is absolutely amazing how two school systems can be so different in so many ways despite the fact that we are both Commonwealth countries that speak the same language. Prior to this experience, I would have expected an exchange like this to be a great adventure, plenty of travel, meeting amazing people, and learning great things. The funny thing about such a prediction is all of those things are happening, but it does not feel the way I thought it would. The challenges have been so much more uncomfortable then I had ever imagined.

Many differences exist between our cultures, and the differences between the two school systems are screamingly obvious. However, there are many things about the Aussie school system that I believe are much better than our system. One simple (and easy to put in place) difference is the teaching schedule. In Australia, teachers and students have two short lunch breaks; a 40 minute “morning tea” and a 20 minute  “afternoon tea”.  In addition we have three to four 70 minute preparation periods a week. At Londonderry, a teacher is “on” from the beginning of school day until the end with with one 30 minute lunch break - often taken up tutoring students, supervising, or providing supports in other ways.  Full time teachers at Londonderry have two 50 minute preparation periods a week. I was surprised to calculate that the total weekly teaching minutes in each teaching schedule are almost identical. In Edmonton I finish the day rattled, and it takes effort to reel back in and produce a "to do" list in order to prepare for the next day. Here in Australia, I work a longer day, but the extra break makes an enormous difference and it does not feel nearly as extreme as at home. Having this opportunity to shut off part way through the day is a gift that I will miss dearly.

How is all of this affecting me? Back home throughout my development as an educator, I learned how to work efficiently. As such, I can prepare quality lessons in a short period of time; and I can do all of this while maintaining life balance. This skill is not needed in Australia because we are given enough time to prepare lessons during the work day. In Canada, I developed skills to motivate my students in a setting where most of them already accepted the idea that school could increase their quality of life. Even the least motivated Edmonton kids knew that success in school could mean the opportunity to have some choice regarding what they do for a living. This is simply not the case here at Maroochydore. I have realized that I need to develop the skill to sell education to my students in a different way. I have to acquire a new set of skills if I am to be successful this year. A new Aussie friend told me to "be brave" and that has become my motto for the year.

Every day I ride Gary's bicycle to school and I must climb a very steep hill. The hill is so steep that I cannot make it up without getting out of the saddle. Every day I get better and I am able to climb higher while seated. The goal is to climb the entire hill seated. Once I achieve that I will take on a bigger hill.  My average speed to work is faster and faster each week. 

The ride to work and back home has become symbolic of the daily challenges I take on as an educator here. 

Our Little Koala

We spent this past weekend in Brisbane attending an exchange teacher conference put on by the Queensland Exchange Teacher Association. We met some new Aussie friends, some new Canadian friends from Ontario, and were also reacquainted with Alberta friends we met at the Edmonton exchange teacher meeting put on by the Alberta Teachers Association. We were very well received by the Aussies and had great conversations about teaching in Australia. The Queensland government has decided to discontinue their involvement in international teacher exchanges due to the cost of the administration. This Association may save the program if they are able to take over the administration the way that the ATA did for Alberta.

After an info session, the volunteers of the Association lead us in a car convoy to Mowbray Park where we caught the City Cat for a tour of Brisbane by river. We stopped off briefly at South Bank for a splash and play in the park before catching the City Cat back to our cars where we said farewell until the next meeting. 

We spent the night in Cleveland, a suburb of Brisbane, with our Albertan friends Nancy and Boyd, also on exchange. While there we walked a couple of blocks away from their house to a small treelined park where we saw giant fruit bats, termite nests and KOALAS! The Koalas were such a highlight that we visited them again the next morning before walking to the Sunday market.

We spent the rest of the day at sunny Wellington Point where there are huge trees shading a playground. The beach is so shallow that young children can be seen playing quite far out without any fear of waves or a dropoff. A young Aussie girl seemed to be quite fond of Fenton and kept rocking the turtle he was riding. Fenton just gave her a hard look and she went on her way.

Next weekend we will head to the famous Noosa and finally hit a beach!

Gluing and Pockets

I have now been teaching at Maroochydore State High School for one week. It was clear before the exchange started that it was going to be different. It is. I am actually surprised at how much there is to learn when on an exchange. The differences are so many that it is like being a first year teacher again.

Maroochydore is a good school with a visionary leader. The students are good kids, the facilities are very good, and my colleagues are helpful and supportive. One would think that this would be an easy transition. It isn’t.

After a week I have started to learn how to manage an Aussie classroom. My Canadian tricks did not seem to work well and as a result I have applied different strategies. Planning has changed for me as well. Collaboration is a big part of planning over here. This is, of course, a great thing. However, for someone who is not used to it, it represents something else that needs to be learned. The best thing about doing an exchange is how much you learn – even if you are a very experienced teacher. I can’t imagine how hard it would be for someone who was not lucky enough to have the support I’ve had.

There are also the day to day things that need to be learned. For example, paper is not hole punched here. Instead, when a handout is given, students will pull out their scissors, cut off the boarder, and glue it in their scribblers. Yes, that’s right. They use glue sticks to permanently stick all handouts. This represents a problem when I photocopy two sided. They must glue only a small part of the handout – the side, fix that into their books, and then flip it like a page to access the other side. The other option is to keep handouts in plastic pockets that can be fastened into two ring binders. I wondered if it was possible to punch holes in paper to fix them directly into such a binder. No such punches exist. They have their ways and they work well.

The students wear uniforms and they must meet very specific standards. The shoes must be black leather, the socks must be white, etc. Facial piercings are forbidden. It is hard for an experienced Canadian teacher to enforce rules that have never been important in the past.

The best thing about teaching here is that I finally get to teach the way that I have always wanted to. I get to do far more experiments. There are two full time lab technicians (tekies) who will set up any lab you want and then clean up when you are finished. If you would like to do a lab that they have never done before, you simply hand them a description with a day or two of notice and it will be done. They will purchase what is needed and then set it up for you the next day. The summative assessment of Science by having students design their own experiments, perform them, and then write up reports is decades ahead of Alberta. We try to have students perform authentic tasks, but I now see that we don’t really know how and that so many things prevent us from accomplishing this, most notably our heavy program of studies. It is amazing how much easier it is to teach concepts when the context is there in the form of an authentic task. This experience has convinced me that we can do this back home… with some work.

Tomorrow I will start my Grade 8’s on their first “prac”. Their task is to design a lab that will determine which material is ideal for a Science lab coat, perform it, and do a write up which I will have to mark.  May the force be with me!