I am over half way done with my experience at the George
Street Normal School and it has been an incredible experience. Everyone,
including teachers, college teachers, and students have been so welcoming. My
CT, Mrs. Sturge, has been incredibly helpful by offering many opportunities to
get involved in the classroom instruction. She’s only a second year teacher and
so is very familiar with how to support college teachers.
The
first difference I noticed right away was the schedule. The school day doesn’t
start until 9am and finishes at 3pm. However, at 11:00 the teachers have a 25
minute break for tea time while the students play in the yard. During this
break, the teachers gather in the staff lounge, chat, and announcements are
given. In my opinion, this time creates a strong work community among the
staff. The academic calender in general is strikingly different. The New
Zealand legislation has broken the school year into 4 terms, each running 10 to
12 weeks, with 2 week breaks between each term. The first term starts the first
week of February and ends by December 20th. There summer is much
shorter but I believe that this model could be extremely beneficial for
reducing the amount of knowledge lost over the longer 10 week summer had in
America. The second difference is that other than this morning tea break, and
lunch/recess (which the teachers must staff in rotations) the teachers have no
time to themselves as they are responsible for incorporating all “specials”
including art, music, fitness, science, etc. My teacher said that this can be a
challenge because it requires you to think more outside of the box, but her
solution is to keep it simple and the students seem to still enjoy it.
Despite
these differences, similarities I found included classroom layout and student
curriculum requirements. The classroom feels like any American classroom with
desks grouped together, a “mat” area, a library/reading area, shelves full with
resources, the teacher’s desk, and bulletin boards full with student work. I am
actually really impressed with Mrs. Sturge’s organization system for student
work and would consider using a similar model one day. The second similarity is
the curriculum requirements. The curriculum includes all the basic subjects
included in the U.S, however the requirements for the liberal arts subjects
seem to be a bit more relaxed. Nonetheless, a heavy emphasis is put on reading
and math, as reflected in the daily schedule, much like US requirements.
I had a lot of similar experiences in Australia! I was surprised by the drastically difference academic calendar, but after experiencing it I definitely agree that it probably works better for both teachers and students than the American system. Everyone gets a nice break every ten weeks, and there is still plenty of time to relax over the summer, but not enough time to forget everything that was taught! Additionally, my CT was also responsible for incorporating all "specials" into the classroom. This was a different concept for me too, because in the U.S. we always just sent students to the gym teacher or the librarian. It was interesting to see how to incorporate things like art and physical activity into the general classroom.
ReplyDeleteThough I was thousands of miles away in Ireland, I had some of the same experiences that Maggie and Sarah had in their classrooms in Australia. For instance, there was also a short break some time before the typical lunch break. During this time, teachers would meet up in the teacher's lounge for tea and a snack break. There was definitely a sense of community amongst the staff at St Vincent's Primary School. I think that these breaks also helped promote this community. They were able to talk about their mornings thus far and bounce ideas back and forth. Not only did I think this was helpful for the teachers, but I also think it was helpful for the students. They were given time to run around and play outside. This allowed them to come back inside, refocused and ready for the next task! I also noticed that there were no specific gym or art teachers in the school. My CT would be responsible most of the time to incorporate these important special areas into her curriculum. I felt that this was very different from my past experiences, but it was fun to get involved with these activities with my CT and the students!
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