Australian Schools

My teacher finally gave me his log in to use the school computers, so I can finally use the internet for free instead of paying to use one at an internet cafe clear in downtown. This post is just about my schools since I forgot my memory card reader to upload pictures. I can use this post for part of my final reflection to compare American and Australian schools, so I figured I might as well post it so my Waco students and anyone else can read it.

I survived my first week of teaching. I'm teaching Year 8 students at Whites Hill State College.

First of all, public schools in Australia don't have air conditioning which has taken some getting used to. We have several fans in the classroom and all the windows open so it's not too bad during class as long as there's a breeze. It's been in the low 30s Celcius here (which is in the high 80s in Fahrenheit). The only problem is fans are sometimes turned off as punishment when students are loud because the teacher can't hear over the fan noise.

These are pictures of my classroom.

Students also all wear uniforms which are interesting. They don't seem very attractive to me, but since every student in Australia wears them, everyone looks the same. My students wear the middle school uniform on the far left and far right, and all students wear the polo on sports day. Girls are not allowed to wear make-up, jewelry other than earring studs, and fingernail polish, and long hair must be pulled back because of the heat.


Another interesting thing about Australian schools is that parents are responsible for getting their children to and from their school. We take a 25 min bus ride from South Bank to Camp Hill everyday for school, and there are always students from all over the city ridng the bus and at the bus stops. In the morning the elementary girls get dropped off in front of their school, and Jennifer and I get off at the next stop for our school. But for us, we have a 10-15 min walk down a huge hill and back up it to get to school. The walk is really nice in the morning, but it's awful in the heat of the afternoon. I'm really starting to appreciate my car and having air conditioning.

Australian schools also have crazy time schedules. Teachers at the middle school teach all subjects except electives, and they only teach most subjects twice a week. Students have the same teacher for almost all subjects and attend electives with their normal class, more like elementary schools in America. School starts at 8:45, we have morning tea or little lunch for 20 min, lunch for an hour, and the day ends at 3pm. I'm starting to enjoy having 2 lunch times during the day. I missed morning tea one morning to help with the Year 11 triathalon, and I was starving by lunch time. My students also have 1 or 2 mandatory electives everyday. So far, I have attended music, PE swimming, Art, Japanese, Manual Arts, Home Ec, and Sports. So although I only teach math in the states all day, everyday, I have only worked with Math in my classroom 3 days out of 6 for about 3 hours total. The middle school coordinator did say this is all changing next year to help students meet national and international standards in math and science.

Sorry that this update is all about school, but I thought some people might be curious about the differences between Australian and American schools since that is the reason why I'm here. Tomorrow I'll try to update and post pictures from my weekend at Gold Coast.