Flax plants and morning tea

I didn’t mean to fall behind, but life gets busy when you start teaching in schools! I don’t know why, but I come home exhausted every day and all I want to do is sit down. I love being in class with the kids, it just seems to take a lot out of me…and I’m not even the one teaching! Regardless of how drained I feel at the end of the day, I’m loving this practicum. It’s very different from the practicum I did last March back in Utah. New Zealand schools have quite a few differences.

1. Each class has about a three year range of students. The youngest class ranges from ages 5-7, the middle class is ages 8-10 and I teach ages 11-13. It’s crazy because they’re all on such different levels! From what I can tell this is new to their school. I don’t think that too many of the teachers are very partial to this method either.

2. There is so much focus on neatness and organization within the classroom. Not just with how the classroom is put together, but with how the students take care of their things. Each of their notebooks has to be “named” and set up correctly with red pen margins and title strips. They’re not allowed to write on the outside of their books or doodle in the margins. (That would have killed me throughout elementary school.) Their handwriting is very important. My teacher said that she should be able to draw a line across the bottom and have all the letters be level. I think I would have failed that portion.

3. There are no indoor hallways. Maybe it was just me, because a lot of the other girls said growing up that they had different buildings for their classes, but it’s weird to have to make a copy and have to run through the rain to go and do it.

4. Haha, I never know where the rubbish goes! I’m hesitant to pick up any rubbish I find outside because I know that I’ll just end up carrying it around with me. Our classroom doesn’t have a rubbish bin…there is a recycling one that chippy bags and yogurt pots are not allowed to be placed in. Then beneath the sink there is a bucket for food waste, but still not for chippy bags or yogurt pots. My teacher has a very small basket beneath her desk for rubbish…but it really is very small. They are so good with recycling here! So good that after two weeks I still can’t seem to understand their system! Rubbish on the grounds seems to be a bit of a problem as well. Any student who gets in trouble in class is assigned to pick up rubbish during their break.

5. The teachers are a bit more strict here. They don’t mince words.  My teacher is firm, but she’s still kind. It just seems, in general, that the teachers here are a little more harsh than we were taught to be at BYU. They don’t put up with very much and it’s been a little bit difficult for me to find a balance for myself. I’m not sure if I should try to match the standards Mrs. Chase sets with discipline or if I should try to find my own. I’d never pictured myself having quite so strict rules, but I worry that if I do not match her standards that the students will not listen to me. Although I think some of the difficulty comes from there being two authorities in the classroom and one being more authoritative than the other, I get nervous that the only way they’ll listen to me is if I glare and raise my voice. Hopefully within the next couple of weeks I’ll be able to find my own way to manage a class like this.

6. Swimming is part of their curriculum. They think it’s weird that I only spent 4 days in the 5^th grade learning how to swim.

7. It doesn’t really seem like they plan lessons…or not the way I was taught to plan them. I don’t actually think that this is only with New Zealand teachers. In my last practicum my teacher only did small box planning as well. No one sits there and fills out a two page lesson plan for every single lesson they’re going to teach  with accommodations, the ABCD objective, the overall objective, the input, and the anticipatory set. No one has time!

8. The students in my class have to write two dates in their notebooks. One in English and one in Maori. It’s kind of cool.

9. Morning Tea time. I really, really think that this should be established in schools across the world. Essentially it’s like an early morning recess where the kids eat a light snack and then go out to play. We have it at 10:30 am every day. They take it very seriously here as well because back in January while we were taking our BYU courses we had some New Zealand professors come in to teach us how to teach math, science and social studies and each of them insisted that we take a break for morning tea. It really is brilliant though! It helps divide the day into three different sections. And it’s cute. Tea time.

10.  They’re drinking fountains just squirt right onto the ground. If you walk by while a students is getting a drink you get shot with water.

11. The school is made up of three different “whanaus” (fawn-o) which means families in Maori. They divide up the whanau groups vertically rather than horizontally. So, rather than having the three Year 6-8 classes together they make a family out of a year 1-2 class, a year 3-5 class and a year 6-8 class. Not all schools do this here, but it’s something ours is trying out. I’m in the harakeke family. It’s a green New Zealand flax plant that they use for weaving. Some of the kids have made some really cool things with that plant at recess.  

In spite of all that’s different about the schools over here, it’s interesting to me how they are also the same. Children are children wherever you go. Twelve-year old boys laugh at the same silly things and act out with the same nonchalant attitude during class. Twelve-year old girls still giggle and laugh and walk around in clusters. Two girls the other day asked me if they could go use the bathroom together…so that one girl could “turn the faucet for the other”. The boys and girls don’t really mingle and it’s funny to see how some of the boys are still a head smaller than the girls. It’s been such a learning experience for me, teaching in the school here. The students still have lives with problems that I’m only beginning to see. Some of them come from homes with very little. Some of them come from homes with lots of siblings. Some come from homes with divorced parents. I’m just so happy I have the opportunity to be in the classroom with all of them and to do what little I can to make them happy! It seems so easy…they’re happy just talking to me. But still, hopefully I’ll be able to do a little more over the next couple weeks.