Thursday to Monday

Thursday, 13 September 2012

All right, so, Thursdays are tricky days, and easy days because our kids are out of the classroom for a large portion of the day. Unfortunately, we have a pretty awkward schedule, having the kids for half hour blurbs that aren't long enough to do anything, but are too long to just give the kids finish off time. It's tricky. The kids did well, though, and although we didn't really have any big issues for most of the day, the single issue was a big one.

Student A (who often has trouble with anger and violence issues) asked students B and C to stop talking during a bit of free time. B and C continue talking, and A continues telling them to stop (probably not in the nicest way). All of the sudden, A stands up, runs around to the other side of the desk, and grabs B by the hair. He got three or four punches in before I crossed to the other side of the room to step in the way of the hits. Obviously, I'm terrified of getting too involved, but I was the only teacher that saw it, so I had to do something to stop B from getting beat on! Literally, punched in the head over and over again. It was so freaking terrifying, I was nervous that I had made such a huge mistake by getting involved. However, after talking to my principal and several of the teachers at school, they reassured me that I made the right decisions. Thank goodness.

The rest of the day passed relatively without incident, not including the restorative chat with Adrienne, the three boys, and myself.

I got home and absolutely collapsed after Thursday.

Friday, 14 September 2012

Friday was about a million times smoother than Thursday (mostly due to Student A being in school suspension for the day). At the end of the day, the students had the chance to play some games (the drawing the name cards out of the jar turned out absolutely brilliantly - kids were so excited about the drawing and everything. It was a lot of fun, and nice to know that it worked out well.

Saturday, 15 September 2012

Saturday was quite a busy day! I got to wake up slowly and get ready at a pretty leisurely pace. The wonderful Gretchen dropped me off at the train station at 9:15 ish, and I caught the train to Boronia in order for Rachel to pick me up around 10:00. Rachel had a netball game in Boronia at 10:40, and I wanted to go (so I could see what an actual netball game looks like, as opposed to our team). All the girls on Rachel's team are quick and smart, and watching them play really showed me what it's supposed to look like. It's weird because it seems as if they all know where their teammates are without seeing them. It appears to be a sixth sense that I don't possess. Blurgh. Maybe it's an Australian thing. 

Immediately after the netball game, Rach and I headed back to her house, but she dropped me off at a little shopping center with a Lolly Shop that has American candy! I almost peed when I saw that they had...
WHOPPERS! I was so excited! Unfortunately, I didn't have any cash, so I had to buy more candy in order to reach the $10 check card limit. In addition to Whoppers, I got Hershey's Cookies'n'Cream Chocolate, Bubblicious Bubble Gum (Watermelon) - but only because they didn't have Original Hubba Bubba Bubble Tape, and I got a tootsie roll! It turns out that Australians don't appreciate any of these things except maybe the Hershey's. Silly Australians.

Anyway, Rachel picked me up from the shopping center and we headed to our school's Open House Fun Day, which really was awesome! There were dozens of stalls set up in around and on school grounds. We had popcorn, parades, slushies, souvlaki (sp?), pick a stick, face painting, photo booths, and a huge blow up slide! I'm sure I've forgotten things, but that's fine. I worked in the pick-a-stick and raffle hamper (basket) stalls, which were pretty fun. The REAL awesome-ness came when Fleur (another student teacher) and I got to go around and have some awesome going on. First, we got our faces painted, then took a walk around at all the stalls.

Next thing, got my face painted! Fleur had a rainforest butterfly, and I had a rainbow butterfly! Here's us strutting our stuff:

Also, it's just going to have to be upside down, because I can't figure out how to make the blog realize I have turned it right side up. We also bought these fabulous fairy wands from one of the stands by one of my students' moms. She is absolutely wonderful, and made a variety of these  fantastic arts and crafts. I also got another beautiful item from her for Jory Ann, so I won't share what it is on here! The beautiful thing has a wonderful story - it was sold in order to generate money to support my school, and it's absolutely perfect for you! :) I'm excited!

Next thing was the HUGE bouncy slide! It was four dollars to go into the slide for five minutes, and it was SO fun. We had to climb up to the top of the slide and then make these epic leaps down! After going down a few times, the guy working the slide told us to try to do a summersault at the top of the slide and then go down. It was absolutely AWESOME. We took spectacular flips and had such a great time! It was hilarious!

After getting our faces painted, we decided to head to the photo booth! The pictures were absolutely hilarious, and I'll take a picture of the pictures to enter them in. 

Fleur and I also each took a photo using our magic wands to find the best sticks in the pick-a-stick booth (where we were working). Yellow sticks got us a small chocolate, and purple sticks got us a big candy. Unfortunately, we both earned eight yellow sticks, and no purple. So, if you go to a pick-a-stick booth, don't do this...

Not effective.

Anyone, after the fair I headed over to Tor's netball game, to see some more of the actual netball game. Tor's game was a lot of fun to watch as well!

Saturday night, Tor, Cathy, and I were planning on going out to dinner, but we were all exhausted, so Tor and I went out to pick up take-away, then immediately came back to their house to flop on the couch and watched quite a bit of The Big Bang Theory! It was a lot of fun, even if we all were really exhausted by the end there. Hah! The wonderful Tor drove me home and I collapsed into bed.

Sunday, 15 September 2012

Sunday morning I took a few minutes to sleep in and slowly wake up and get ready. When I finally did get my lazy bum out of bed, I caught a bus to the train station, and took a train into the city. My first stop on Sunday was the Old Melbourne Gaol. The gaol didn't actually have a tour, so you just walk through and spend your own time reading and learning the information. It was absolutely freaking incredible and terrifying! 

This picture also makes it look like it's a lot brighter in the gaol than it actually was. It was absolutely terrifying! Not only was it dark and small, but within each of these tiny little cells was a freaking DEATH MASK of the criminals who lived in each of those cells. Creepy stuff!!

Death Masks are creepy.

After bumming around at the jail and scary the holy living crap out of myself, I went through the gift shop and talked to the woman at the shop. The next tour of the WatchTower was still a half hour away. So I mosied on down the street to the State Library, which is the most spectacular building ever! It was so beautiful, and it looked like the beast's library in Beauty and the Beast. Most of it was closed off because it was Sunday:( I did get to see the outside of the library and the basic internal structure, which was similar to the Treasury - where I went later in the day.

I headed back to the Gaol to go on the Watchman's Tour. The Watchtower was closed in '93 or '94, so  it was a pretty recent setup. The whole tour was conducted as if we were criminals in the watchtower in the early 90s. My character that I was playing had been arrested for growing illegal plants (I said that I was just watering my dad's garden). Anyway, we were taken in through processing, fake 'frisked', and then led into the waiting cells. There were three different kinds of cells (not including sizes). Because the watchtower is just your station while you're waiting for the magistrate to rule on your case, there were very minimal comforts. Each of the standard cells had wooden floors, with a wooden bench around the outside of the pentagonal room.The 'warden' locked us in each of the cells (men in one, women in another) and turned off the lights - it definitely was scary, but all the girls in the cell were pretty good. 

The outside of the men's cell was:

Hahaha. It was hilarious!

Other cells included cells with no wood on the floor, cement floors that slant down to a drain. The warden called these the 'drunk cells', because drunk people are messy. haha.

We also found some actual padded cells - creepy, but cool:

I also got a mugshot taken - I was definitely the cutest criminal there...hah!

Taa-daa!

Next, I headed to the Old Melbourne Treasury. The amount of history in this building is absolutely incredible. I wanted to go to the Treasury for two reasons. 1) the architect who designed the building was only 19 when he designed it, and when on to contribute to the designs of dozens if not hundreds of buildings throughout Melbourne and 2) down below the ground floor of the building was an exhibition on the gold rush. I had kind of mediocre expectations for the exhibit on the architect, but I was SUPER excited for the gold rush exhibit. The actual exhibits were completely the opposite. The exhibition on the architect was actually incredible! The Exhibit on the gold rush turned out to be quite a huge disappointment. The only part of the gold rush things that I was impressed with was the replicas of the largest gold nuggets ever found! The largest one was called the 'Welcome, Stranger', and the next largest nugget; the 'Welcome Nugget'. 

This was the only demonstration of the incredible size of the nuggets. These were underneath the ground!!

That was pretty much it for the treasury, and although it was pretty cool to read about the history, I'm glad that the Treasury Building Tour was free:-D

Next Stop: Immigration Museum

It was absolutely spectacular! The first floor was a pretty traditional summary of what you would expect to be in an immigration museum; timelines, reasons why people immigrate, periods of heavy immigration, etc. The top floor was this incredible demonstration of stereotypes, assumptions, physical appearance, ability, and other things that make us judge the people around us. There were a variety of interactive pieces that allowed you to determine what kind of prejudices you might have, and what you can do to combat them. It covered everything from skin colour, face shape, clothing, job, and all about how those things can affect your opinion of someone. It also went into a variety of groups and teams that relate community; these things also included specific aspects of someone's personality that were incredibly unique/beautiful/amazing that you probably wouldn't know about them until you got to know them more deeply.
There was also an interactive scene in which you watched  four people on a tram in the city. two are bystanders, one is a young aboriginal man (talking on the phone in a language other than English), and the other is a middle-aged white man in a suit carrying a briefcase. He is incredibly rude and disrespectful to the younger man. After watching the scene, you are given the choice to 'hear' what one of the people in the scene may have been thinking at the time. It talks about the assumptions made by the older man, the hurt felt by the young man, the uselessness felt by the two bystanders, and the need to do something about it. It was pretty intense, and I felt, very accurate.
Also on the top floor (right toward the end of the exhibits) were two stations that looked like they belonged on the Bridge of the Enterprise:

In the small white square you place one hand. The pad scans your hand (not your hand print, just the outline/shape of your hand). It then asks you to write something pertaining to prejudice, connections, community, trust, assumptions, etc. It gives you prompts such as, "I'm glad to live in this country because...", or "Sometimes I wish I could change how people think when...". I wrote something about being welcomed as a member of the country rather than cut off as an outsider. It was more profound than that, though.
Last but not least at the immigration museum was a huge tree, and beneath it was an enormous tub of recycling materials; bottles, cardboard, fabric, aluminum foil, etc. In the 'tree' (and all around the room), were hundreds of airplanes made by people who had come through the museum.

Everyone's plane was different, and it's so cool to really just sit and look at the differences. The creativity that went into many of the planes. Materials used in new ways and by new people. It was absolutely awesome and deep. Especially for me, in my long day of deep deliberation and terrifying myself in 80-year-old gaol cells. Hah!

After finishing up at the immigration museum, I headed back to the train station, because I had to get home for...

Netball

We were absolutely clobbered. Afterwards we talked and decided that the third quarter was probably our best quarter all game. Unfortunately, that was the quarter that I sat out of the game. Hah! I think netball might be something you just have to grow up with...
Anyway, clobbered as usual, but thus beginneth my last week of teaching in Australia!!!!

Monday

Blake was back! It was really nice to have things back to normal...(Blake sitting in the back of the room while I teach instead of Cyn), and the kids were glad he was back in the room. After we got over the initial shock of Monday morning, the day progressed typically, allowing us to get through several maths and literacy rotations throughout the day. We also got to finish off our freetime, which the kids were really excited about. Here are a few games they play down here, and what their 'translations' are.

• Giant's Treasure - red light green light
• Tiggy - tag
• Scarecrow tiggy - freeze tag
• Chinese Whispers - Telephone
• 40/40 - Hide and Seek

Tuesday

Tuesday, I had my last observation with Kevin! The lesson went pretty well, although there were some logistical problems for which I was unprepared. For instance, when drawing fractions, I didn't expect drawing thirds to monopolize the better part of 45 minutes. However, Kevin saw that I coped well with a change in my lesson, and I responded to my students' feedback on how the lesson was going. We slowed down, and just gave the students more time to complete and understand their fraction circles. Because I was overplanned, but also didn't rush the students, instead spending time wandering around the whole classroom to get a feel for each students' understanding, and modifying the lesson on the spot to fit the needs of the kids was a great thing for Kevin to see that I am capable of doing. 

Pretty exciting! 

Also - we had a going away dinner for me at Persian Flavours - a fabulous middle-eastern restaurant near school. It was great!

Wednesday

Wednesday was footy day! Which means that everyone came to school wearing their team's colours/jerseys/scarves. I, unfortunately, don't have any Roo Gear (North Melbourne Kangaroos), so I was forced to wear a dirty little Adelaide Crows Jumper someone-who-can't-stop-buying-them-on-eBay let me borrow. Which was nice, but I still wish I had something Roo:( 

The day was good, and a really cool bit of it was that I got to spend time in several other classrooms throughout the day. Shockingly, it took me a full ten weeks to get across the hall and spend some time in the junior school! I spent the first hour with Rachel and her preps. I got to watch their morning reading groups which were great! I had a really good understanding of the tact Rach was using to improve their reading skills, and I would see each of those methods in progress. Also, the kids are delightful!

Next I went to Cathy's room to spend some time with the grades 1 and 2. They were also incredibly lovely. Incidentally, today (in Australia) was International Talk Like a Pirate Day! Fortunately, this tainted all of our activities during their reading groups including making hats, treasure maps, and a pop quiz game show about Pirates. The 1/2s were also absolute treasures! It was so great to see a couple of different classroom setups:)

Tonight, some of Kylen's friends from school took us out to a restaurant and dessert bar in Glen Waverly. I'll need to talk more about it and post some pictures, but it turns out I really need to go to bed, and I really need to post this finally. Good night all, see you next time!

-Megan