School Week 4

 Some left over pictures of last weekend. I have taken no photos for four days!

 My first notice of one of the deadly animals here in Australia.

Sunset on Chelsea Beach.

Monday, February 22^nd.

Rode the bicycle to school on this nice warm morning. The next two weeks are the parent interview weeks. They are called “You tell us” interviews. The idea is the parents come in and tell us anything they deem important for us to know about their child. Claire and I work as a team as we both teach all of the 44 children. She takes notes on her computer and we both listen and answer questions or provide information. The interviews are not about student progress because we have not worked with the children long enough to be able to report accurately about them. We had two interviews before school and three after school.

In between we had our Monday morning assembly outside and the usual classes. There is another new timetable for all the classes of the binome as all of our prep time is directed as either team planning (all the grade 3/4 teachers) or binome planning where the French and English teacher of the grade have time to work and plan together. So now my Friday started with two hours of planning with Claire, followed by two hours of outdoor sport, then lunch. After lunch I see the students for an hour before we go to the computer lab for the last hour.

After the after school interviews I rode home again. It never reached the promised 30 degrees today, so if was quite comfortable riding. Then I went to the store to buy some supplies for dinner and then worked at home before an early bed.

Tuesday, February 23^rd.

I got home this evening after interviews at nine. I rode my bike to school this morning in a nice comfortable 23 degree morning. The temperature climbed to 40 by the afternoon, but it was a drier heat than back home. Carol and I walked to the school to buy an icy pole (popsicle) at lunch, just to experience the heat. It wasn't awful although the icy pole melted quickly. While we were interviewing there was a thunderstorm with strong winds but luckily for me the temperature dropped a bit and the rain stopped by the time I rode home again.

The interviews that are taking place this week and next are designed to be information meetings with the parents where the parents tell us about their child. We have not had them long enough to really say too much about the students yet. The parents here are quite different from back home. On average they seem very educated and very involved parents. It was interesting to listen to them talk about their children. Most families are at least half French, some have both parents French and a few are both English speakers. Everyone spoke English on my behalf. They were all very friendly and most welcomed me to Australia and asked how I was settling in. I told them that I was really enjoying myself and that I felt very comfortable at the school. The staff has been very supportive, the children are wonderful and the community has been very welcoming.

During our team meeting today the VP came in and started up a dialogue about a professional dress code. Boy did that stir the teachers up! They were not happy but I think they sense some direction will be coming down the pipe.

We have 200 hundred minutes of prep but all of it is directed by the principal. I have two 50 minute periods back to back in grade team meetings on Tuesday and two 50 minute periods back to back on Friday morning for team planning with Claire about planning for our 44 kids. There is no prep at all on Monday Wednesday or Thursday, and none where I can do what I want or what I need to do. This is what our last battle back home was about, principal directed prep. From what I hear the union here is pretty toothless and has given away lots of things in recent negotiations. For comparison sake I want to find out more.

Wednesday, February 24^th.

Rode the bike to school again. It was a warm and pleasant morning. Today we rotated classes again and I now have class 4F for the week. They seemed awfully chatting at first but once I gave them the recount assignment they settled down to work quite quickly.

The day went smoothly until we went down for the 160 grade 3/4 singing session. There is one teacher leading them and six teachers doing crowd control. At one point Joel (the young music teacher asked Libby the cagey veteran to pick out the three best singers and have them come up to the stage. She picked three teachers, Carol, An Cecil and me! This put the kids into a frenzy. Yikes, anyone who knows me knows I can't sing. Anyway the whole choir sang including us. I think all three teachers were pretending. Then when Libby had the children close their eyes and vote with their raised hand as to which of the three of us they thought was the best. I told the three of us to turn our backs to the audience to avoid the embarrassment of seeing the vote. “Who thinks Ann Cecil was the best?, pause, who thinks Joe was the best? Oh hell! Who thinks Carol was the best. Okay put your hands down.” Apparently I won in a landslide. Just goes to show that the kids don't know talent when they see it!

After school I rode home in the 30 degree heat and a strong head wind. I was hungry and went to Woolies where I bought a package of seasoned salmon and prawns and came home and cooked them. That was the first time I turned on the stove. Then a lazy evening and early to bed.

Thursday, February 25^th.

I took the train to school today, as my legs are tired and I need a rest. The highlight of the day was that Libby and Carol arranged a treat tea for Anne-Cecile at morning recess, as she has just received permanent resident status here in Australia. Everyone was very happy for her. Most of the French teachers here hope to get their citizenship.

I had a great day with the kids. They are generally very well behaved and there aren't any major issues, just the usual silly, inattentive things. We worked on editing a few written things on the computer and the data display so they could all learn from each other's mistakes. I am trying to train them to help each other proofread and edit their work. Also a productive math class teaching rounding and estimating.

Claire and I had a couple more interviews after school and then I took the train back. It was my first experience with a rush hour train. It was full.

After I ate, I took my book and a towel down to the beach to read for a bit and enjoy the sun, sand and the sound of the surf. It was quite windy and the water was rough, so I read for a while and then returned to the house for the night.

Friday, February, 26^th.

I rode my bicycle to school again today. It was a beautiful warm sunny day. Claire and I had our first two hour planning session. We had different agendas or needs, but we got a few things done. Now that I finally have an account and password to get on the teachers website, I can now do my own attendance instead of Claire having to enter hers and mine. So I learned how to do that. We planned a bit and talked a bit about individual learn plans which are much simpler here. After recess we had two hours of sport and again I did soccer with the girls. It's interesting watching them. After lunch I finally had my kids for the last two hours and we finished up some work and read some of Parvana.

After school I rode home again, had dinner and then headed out in the car.

I went to one of the teacher's houses, Anne-Cecile's, who was having a party in celebration of receiving her little permanent residence. I met her husband and a lot of the other French teachers. Interesting to see them outside of school. Claire was there with husband and some others. 90% of the party were French speakers. Leora and Adam were there, I keep seeing them everyone. The most interesting couple was the French assistant principal and her English husband. She is very attractive and Libby said one day she doesn't know what Caroline does except walk around and look hot. Well her husband is a character. He is probably 50 and looks like he has had a rough life, his face looks weathered. He was born in England, lived in Durban South Africa for years, fought in the war in Angola. Now he is a hairdresser in Australia. His hair was cut really short on the sides, but was 6 or 7 inches long on the back and was jelled up about 7 inches on top of his head. He was wearing a t-shirt, a casual suit jacket and black leggings with black cut off sweat pant shorts. And he chain smoked. He showed everybody his enormous scar from his bellybutton up to between his nipples. I thought maybe it was from the war, but no it was from a duodenal ulcer, which almost killed him. When I left he gave me a couple of strange handshakes, a hug and kissed my ear! Needless to say he made an impression on me. Compared to him everyone else was very normal, but I thought it was weird that here I am in Australia at a party and most people were French.

I'm off to bed so I can get an early start for the two hour drive to Ballarat. There are teachers who live there who are billeting us. I am staying with a family there. I will type when I get home on Sunday.