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cowane1


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Trips:

Australian Adventures!

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Orientation - Day 5

Caboolture, Australia


For our last day of orientation, they wanted to familiarize us with the school, teacher, and class we would be teaching for the next 4 weeks. Those of us who are elementary (or primary as it is called here) teachers began our day at Morayfield East State School. We were taught how to sign in in the visitors book and given a packet of information about the school. We were then sent with our teachers to our respective classrooms. My teacher, Miss Kyryn Wright was much younger than I had expected her to be! She can't be older than 25 years old. And though she comes across as very serious with her class, she is very very friendly and I can see that she will be wonderful to teach alongside. I later learned from the principal of the school that she was a phenomenal aboriginal student who received a scholarship that helped her with much of her schooling and that they are lucky to have her. (The aboriginals are similar to our Native Americans in the fact that there is the stereotype of "not worth anything"). I was nervous to meet my class because this was a portion of the email the that Kyryn had sent me previously about them:

In this class we have 26 students with only about 8 girls so we are very boy heavy, I have 6 students that have special needs and they range from Autism, Aspergers, Intellectually Impaired, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Hearing Impairment as well as a 2 behaviour 'problem' children. I have had a few of these kids try to jump out of windows of my demountable classroom, be aggressive towards myself and other staff or calling me a variety of names using'colourful' language. So this is a hard class but in general we have worked really hard together to build up a reportoire with myself and the students so they do know their boundaries. They will try to push you to see how far you will go but you need to be firm with them and let them know that you mean business.

I was PLEASED to find out that she had done a GREAT job with behavior management and became particularly excited to teach such a well behaved group of year 3 students! I also was pleased with how very active Kyryn made me in the classroom; even though I was only in there for a few short hours she had me take roll, lead a small group guided reading session, and give a spelling test. A vocabulary word that I think you might find different was that they call their water fountains, bubblers! :) After this we were brought back to QUT for some concluding orientation things. We were again asked about our homestays. Thankfully the girls who said they weren't being fed enough admitted that their homestay mom had lightened up and was feeding them well now. We ate a "good luck" lunch of pizza, tim-tams and fruit. The pizza here is VERY different. If you ordered a pizza with just meat on it, it would likely have BBQ sauce as the sauce and not regular pizza sauce. And any other pizza we've had has had about a MILLION different toppings on it. Needless to say, I've gone OUT of my comfort range and eaten several different types of pizza while being here. All of the MN students say that they could REALLY go for a regular pepperoni pizza however. After lunch we were given a description of what our final presentation was to be like, and then sent home for the day.

After orientation, Tina and I went shopping for some much needed stuff. I wound up buying a $20 bottle of contact solution, that I could buy for 6 dollars at Target in the US! We then ate supper at Nan and Pops' (Tina's parents) and finished the night by playing Rummy-O as well as some other card games for money. Sad to say, I think I lost a good chunk of Australian money that night! :( ha ha!

I've also found that even in normal conversations with my homestay family, certain words, phrases, or ideas will come up as different and neither of us are afraid to ask about it. This just goes to show that, yes life IS very different here in Australia! Even the most common things may be different. Something that I learned this day was that here in Australia, if a couple is living together for 6 months, the relationship is considered "defacto" and that they now have the rights to half of the other's property. So if someone was buying a house, and they had their mate move in, but then they broke up after 6 or 7 months, even if the mate hadn't paid a cent towards the house he/she had rights to half of the house! Unbelievable!

permalink written by  cowane1 on August 20, 2010 from Caboolture, Australia
from the travel blog: Australian Adventures!
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Orientation - Day 4

Beerwah, Australia


The university had decided that we had had enough DIFFICULT serious orientation stuff to fill our brain for the time being, and decided that all of Thursday was going to be devoted to going to the Australia Zoo! The Australia Zoo is extremely famous, and widely visited because it was the home of the late Steve Irwin. It had previously been named The Reptile Park, but when other non-reptile animals were added they changed it to a more appropriate name. We were VERY fortunate because it was the warmest that it has been since I've been in Brisbane that day, 27 degrees C! (about 80 degrees F!) This, being my third "zoo" since I've been in Australia, wasn't in as great of wonderment as the others, but I enjoyed it and did some NEW things nonetheless! Like... petting a baby crocodile and fed an elephant! Besides the usual Australian animals, kangaroos, koalas, dingos, tasmanian devils, wombats, echidnas, cassowaries, this park also featured tigers, elephants and other Asian animals. But what I found most amazing were the massive crocodiles they home. We also went to a show in the Crocoseum where a zoo keeper tempted a crocodile to snap at him several times. Apparently that was the part of the show that Steve usd to do. Overall, the zoo was very very fun, and left me quite exhausted afterward! Tina surprised me by stopping at a local politician and getting me a free Australian flag and information about the Australian flag, emblem, flowers, and anthem. We ate supper with Grandma, Trevor's mother, and enjoyed a board thereafter. Both of which I enjoyed greatly. Tina and Trevor have asked that I cook them something Minnesotan while I am here and the first thing I thought of was Tater-Tot Hotdish. They had never heard of it, or even tater-tots for that matter! They apparently call them potato gems or potato jewels. We also discoverd that there are several things that are the same word, but because of our dialect we pronounce differently - like the word route, tomato, roof, etc. Silly little cultural differences!

permalink written by  cowane1 on August 19, 2010 from Beerwah, Australia
from the travel blog: Australian Adventures!
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Orientation - Day 3

Wamuran, Australia


Today for orientation we got the opportunity to visit a different Australian school than the one that we would be teaching at. We would simply get the opportunity to sit in throughout the day, help out as we wanted, and observe the differences in culture. The school we visited was Wamuran State School. We were told to meet our "drivers" at the Caboolture train station and that they would provide us transportation to the school. As we were waiting at the train station, we saw SEVERAL kids (they had school uniforms on), who couldn't have been but 13 or 14 years old smoking one cigarette after another! It not only shocked us, but we were APALLED! Our teachers told us that sadly enough their parents probably bought them the smokes. On the way to the school I saw the remnants of an accident - the very 1st one I've seen since being here. Upon driving up to the school we were charmed by the sign they put up outside their school "A Warm Wam Welcome to the USA Pre-Service Teachers!". As we got out at the school we were welcomed by the school leaders, a group of year 7 students known for their good behavior and grades. After we had signed in, we were presented pineapples as a "welcome gift". The Wamuran school district is a rural district known for its pineapple, banana and strawberry crops. Two of the school leaders took us individually on a tour of the school. It was remarkable to hear the pride in their voices as they talked about their school. I was also impressed with how professional they presented themselves! The two girl leaders then dropped me off in my "class" for the day, a year 4 classroom led by Mr. Collins and a student teacher named Mrs. Cabrera. I walked in during roll call and was fascinated by the structure in which it was done. The teacher would say, "Good Morning Alice" and the student was required to reply, "Good Morning Mr. Collins and Mrs. Cabrera, I'm feeling like a 10 this morning". This not only proved respect by the student, but also gave you a gauge of how they were feeling in the morning. One of the first things I noticed about the classroom was that it was VERY compact. There was no small group reading table, and only 2 bookshelves. Besides that there were only the students' desks and a teachers desk, and I had a DIFFICULT time squeezing around the classroom! Nothing like the classroom sizes of MN! A few other differences I noticed were that they gave the students the option of playing the Playstation as a reward! I was amazed by that. Also, at this school as well as every other Australian school, the students are REQUIRED to wear a wide-brimmed hat while they are outside. This is to help the extremely high rate of skin cancer found in this country. They all function under a "No Hat - No Play" rule... similar to a "No Boots - No Play" type rule we have during MN winters! The school also hired a company to come once a week and teach the students a choreographed dance. This time is used as the 30 minutes of REQUIRED active time each class must do besides P.E. and recess. At the end of the day, because of the students' good behavior, they were allowed to teach me a few games outside to finish the day. I officially learned how to play "I've got it!", a rather fun game that I wish I would've known when I worked at camp!

During the evening, Tina, Trevor and myself went into Brisbane to Shannan's house, had fajitas for supper, and talked about our days. I told the group that at the end of the day, the student teacher asked me if I thought that these children seemed like a bunch of "bogans". I told her I had NO idea what a bogan was. She told me that she guessed it would probably be like what we considered people from Texas to be like. I was still very confused about this so I asked Shannan (who giggled when I told her how the teacher had described them). Shannan said that bogan is the equivalent of trailerpark trash, or redneck! I didn't feel like the students were like that at all!

After supper we all went to this entertainment center where every night they show a free movie. So, I got to see Sherlock Holmes, which was very exciting! :)

permalink written by  cowane1 on August 18, 2010 from Wamuran, Australia
from the travel blog: Australian Adventures!
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Orientation - Day 2

Caboolture, Australia


We began our day with a very exciting lecture by one of the QUT professors, Jenny. The class was about the middle years, and her lecture focused particularly on the adolescent brain! Following her lecture, we were sent to the library for instruction about searching out accessible curriculum items, and where to find them within the library. After that we discussed our homestay experiences and some of the differences and similarities we'd seen thus far! Many of the things mentioned were things that I had noticed at first when mom and dad were here. Unfortunately two of the girls who had come mentioned that they were concerned with the amount of food they were being given and fed by their homestay mom. QUT staff were amazing and suggested several things, and even offered to politely mention it to her. Being from Minnesota, we wouldn't allow that and since then it apparently has gotten a bit better. After the discussion we were free to eat our packed lunches on the school campus. After that we were to be in another class with the QUT students, and much to our surprise it was a sheep brain DISECTION! Apparently, sheep brains are quite close to our brains and through this disection we were able to see the different parts of the brain. It was interesting, because we had very few safety regulations. We were given only gloves and steak knives. The disection wasn't even completed in a labratory, but rather just a regular classroom! I don't think it would've flown to proceed in this way at MSU. I was also able to talk to some QUT students who mentioned that they REALLY missed having Mello Yello (they had it for some time but then it stopped), but didn't really care for Dr. Pepper (which they also had for some time but then it stopped.) After the brain disection and a short lecture, we were given another lecture (separate from the QUT students) about the Australian curriculum. This was concluded with a competition to see who could build the tallest marshmallow/toothpick tower. Dave and I got 2nd.... it was his fault. :) Later that night I attended what is called Girl Guides. It is the equivalent of Girl Scouts in the US. It was fun to finally see some Australian children, even if they were a bit wired! My host family's daughter, Shannan, is a leader and so I spent the evening meeting here and enjoying the guides. One of the things I noticed was that they call "jumping rope", "skipping rope"! What a difference to have kids yell to me, "Watch me skip! Watch me skip!" when they meant for me to watch them jump rope!

permalink written by  cowane1 on August 17, 2010 from Caboolture, Australia
from the travel blog: Australian Adventures!
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Orientation - Day 1

Caboolture, Australia


Monday was our first day of orientation. They didn't load us full of information because all of the other students didn't arrive until Sunday and jetlag plus lots of details just simply don't mix. We were introduced to several very important people to our stay - including our homestay coordinators, school supervisors, professors at QUT (Queensland University of Technology - the school with which MSU coordinates this experience), and even the head of the college! We also got our pictures taken and received our official QUT Identification cards. We were given a Subway lunch, complete with the Australian cookies Tim-Tams, and additional sweets Lamingtons. Even though you would think Subway would be universal, there definitely were things that were different here in Australia! At supper this evening I found out that they do not have graham crackers here in Australia, and that most people do not know what a s'more is! I also heard some unusual vocabulary that you might enjoy! jumper = jacket, boot = trunk, hire = rent.

permalink written by  cowane1 on August 16, 2010 from Caboolture, Australia
from the travel blog: Australian Adventures!
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