Day 6 - First Assembly

Today was another great day. It's really easy to get through the school day here in Australia. There are two major breaks during the day; one comes at 1045 and it's Morning Tea, the other comes at 1250 and that's Big Lunch. There are fewer behavior problems here in Australia and I think that's a testament to the fact that students are given an outlet throughout the day to expend their extra energy. In my opinion it seems that everything from the set up of the school building to the organization of the day is based around the simple idea that students are kids. If the education system tries to force them to "grow up" too soon then we have problems where students are being left behind. Just typing that phrase scares me because I could write for the next 24 hours with no breaks about No Child Left Behind and still not say all I need to about it. Our system back in the states has flaws, as does the Australian system. But the system in America, despite the word "child" being in our plan, doesn't take into account that students are children. In Australia, there are grass fields and students have no choice but to walk outside from building to building. In the states, students are cooped up in a building with little to no breaks during the day and in some places don't even have grass. I don't think Australia's system is perfect, it has its flaws but the overall efficiency of each second that teachers are teaching is far greater than what we're used to seeing in the states. In most cases it comes down to a common sense approach. I've become frustrated during my short time in my placement here in Australia because the resources that are available to teachers as a standard part of school are far superior to what I've found in schools at home.

Now that I've spent enough time on my rant, I guess I should actually talk about the day. Today was a great day. I've been running our quickmaths program each day and it's a great intro to working with my class. It's a low stress activity to take control of and I find that it's helping to transition me from guy from New York observing the class to Preservice teacher. Then during middle session (between Morning Tea and Big Lunch) the students shared their culture bags. They included a lot of great things that let me know a lot about each of them. One of the students brought in a sticker from the place he goes motorbiking. I had mentioned that when I was on my trip I got a sticker from everywhere we visited so I could put them on my guitar and he came up to me after class and gave me the sticker. It's moments like that where I'm one hundred percent positive that I made the right choice when I decided to become a teacher. At the end of the day I experienced my first assembly at my host school. It's a great way to get students from all different grades in the same setting and make announcements. The assemblies really build a sense of community. At each assembly certain students from each class are given awards for various things (including improvement in subjects, or kindness). Overall, it was another great day in my host school and I couldn't ask for more from the kids or my host teacher.