As I sit in the Auckland airport en route to Vancouver, I
reflect on how much I learned at Maroochydore.
Prior to arriving at Maroochydore, I believed myself to be a
strong educator with skills that could transcend continents and cultures. I was
wrong. The exchange experience taught me that the skills of a teacher are a
result of their environment. When the environment changes, it becomes apparent
that new skills are required. At Maroochydore I had to learn how to manage
behavior in an environment that I considered unrealistic at home. Even the
Maroochydore teachers consider some of the classes impossible to manage. There
have been times that I felt I was doing a great disservice to the school
because I was unable to keep my students on task, and therefore, I did not
maximize their learning potential. Indeed, some students may have learned
absolutely nothing in the time that I have been their teacher. I had to acquire
the strategies from my colleagues in order to survive, and fortunately, I did
learn a great deal from them. I must make the important qualification that in
my time here I was only able to glean a small amount of their expertise. I
certainly cannot claim to have the tiniest fraction of their skill in
motivating a student body that for the most part did not value education. These
teachers possess trade knowledge of teaching that merits significant
admiration.
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| Had to get used to the pronunciation of aluminium |
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| Academic classroom |
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| Organized Science prep room |
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| Common classroom rules |
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| Non-academic classroom |
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One idea that stood out throughout this experience is
something my curriculum studies professor, Terry Carson, had already taught me,
but the importance had not sunk in until I was well into the exchange.
Beware of binary
thinking.
Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Jedi master who trained Darth Vader said
it best, “only a Sith deals in absolutes”.
only Sith
Both systems – Queensland Education and Edmonton Public
Schools – deal in absolutes regularly. Many of the things we do at EPSB would
break Queensland Education policies and vice versa. I have had the opportunity
to experiment with ways to motivate students that would make some of my EPSB
colleagues shudder. I used assessment as a motivator… and it worked extremely
well. My thoughts on assessment have changed since I have been here at
Maroochydore. It’s not that I disagree with the policies of either system,
rather, I no longer believe that one particular way of doing things is
necessarily all perfect or all evil. All strategies have trade offs.
I most likely learned more from my students than the
reverse. One particularly unforgettable lesson happened during grade 11
Chemistry when the students were working on stoichiometry problems. A student,
Kyla, said to her elbow partner
“never let your guard down”. She
was referring to a homework question where I put an unbalanced chemical
equation down and expected them to recognize that it needed to be balanced
before proceeding on. One student was quite frustrated that he had to redo his
work. I had a good laugh because, at Maroochydore, the advice to always be on
guard is extremely relevant to teachers as well. In fact, when that class was
nearly over (last period on a Friday), I had the students put their chairs on
the tables and I waited by the door for the bell to ring. I had my hand on the
door handle to stop students from leaving early. One student convincingly said
that she heard the bell ring. I let go of the door handle momentarily to check
the time and she immediately opened the door and ran out of the room. “See? You
let your guard down. Never do that” said Kyla as she walked out of the room
with the rest of the class. Seconds later, the bell rang.
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| The bullseye for spit balls. It took me a while to discover this. |
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| Pencil and paper cart for students without supplies |
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| Detention area |
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| Emergency eyewash station - students would not leave this alone. |
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| I had to laugh |
The most important lesson that I learned here – or at least
began to learn – is that work does not equal life. The sadness Heather and I
feel as we say goodbye to friends we have made, makes it apparent that the work
was nowhere near as important as the friendships. As I speak with others who
have done the Australian exchange, I realize that they learned to focus on
positive aspects of the experience rather than the classroom. Near the end of term 3 I believe that I
was getting much better at that but still had a long way to go.
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| The bike I rode each day to work |
We will miss the travel, the weather, the beach, and most of
all, the amazing people we connected with and will remain friends forever with.
You know who you are.
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| Our very good friends the Hamiltons on our last night |
Cheers.
