What A Week!!

Sadly, my time in NZ will be done tonight, as we head on an overnight flight back to the States this evening. We leave Queenstown at 4:45 on a Friday, and arrive in Burlington around noon on Saturday- but fly for about 30 hours in between. This time change is so weird!!


Last saturday 15 out of the 20 Vermonters headed back to Vermont- and five of us headed down to the south island for a week long "holiday" or "vacation." It has been an incredible week, full of hiking, biking, horseback riding, bungying, and of course a lot of driving!

We started our adventures in Christchurch, then took a train over the Southern Alps to Greymouth. From there we rented a car, headed north for a detour to the "Pancake Rocks," and then drove south to Hokitika for the night. Hokitika was our one rainy day of the entire trip (well, other than today), but we hiked anyway- which turned out to be a crazy hike!

From Hokitika we went south again, spending the night in Franz Josef before going to explore Fox Glacier and Lake Matheson the next day. Alaina properly described the landscape as looking like Switzerland- beautiful lakes and snow covered mountains. We stopped at the beach a few times as we drove south from there, and then turned inland, driving through the mountains to Wanaka- a small lake side town. In Wanaka we enjoyed some shopping and an absolutely beautiful horseback ride through the mountains near Cardona while Chris, our one boy on this portion of the trip, spent the day mountain biking.

From Wanaka we drove to our last destination, Queenstown. Queenstown is known as the "adventure capital," and is a great outdoorsy (albeit touristy) town with big mountains, a beautiful lake, and really fun people. Here, to celebrate my last day, I took the plunge and went bungey jumping!! Because of flooding in the area I had to wear a full body harness, not the one that straps around your feet so that they could pull me back up instead of letting me off on a boat at the bottom- but it was still incredible. It is the first bungey place in the world, and I was so impressed with their safety. AJ Hackett- you know your stuff! After the rush of jumping off a bridge, we hiked up one of the big, steep hills that overlooks Queenstown, watched the sun set, and took a Gonodala back down.

All in all it has been an incredible three weeks! I have learned tons about teaching and schools, had many adventures and experienced the wonderful country of New Zealand. Kia Ora NZ!

Taradale Intermediate School

Hello again,

While Vermont is braving some late spring snow and enjoying April vacation from school, I have been spending the week at Taradale Intermediate School doing research and observing teachers as they put some great teaching strategies to use! After returning from Roturua last weekend, the 20 of us from Vermont went our separate ways and moved in with local teachers for the week in order to attend their schools and really get a sense of what school is like here. Two teachers, Ben and Michelle, have graciously opened their home up to me and have been wonderful hosts!

I spend full days at school and have carried my little notebook and camera wherever I go. I have been frantically trying to take pictures and videos and scribble down new ideas, questions and thoughts about everything I have seen! Many of the students and teachers want to know about school in Vermont, so I've narrowed it down to a few big differences I have observed...

1. Students in NZ are often barefoot, in the classroom, walking from place to place at school, and during recess and PE.
2. Students also wear uniforms to public school
   
3. Teachers here teach all subjects. Not only do they teach math, literacy and the rest, but they also teach PE!
4. Everyone gets an HOUR break for lunch and recess! Students have to sit and eat for at least 10 minutes, but then get the rest of the time to play. Clubs and sports teams frequently hold meetings at this time too, so everyone really has a chance to get involved...
5. If the hour for lunch is not enough, students also get a break in the morning. During this time the teachers have tea and biscuits (cookies) together in the staff room.

The last big difference is what I am going to be writing my paper on when I get back to the states-
and that is that instead of teaching science and social studies, students take an "inquiry" class. These classes have themes like "culture and identity," "discovery" and "sustainability," and students get a lot of say in what they learn about and how they learn about it. NZ students learn a lot of the "stuff" we do, just in a different way. I have been spending most of my time researching this by reading about the school and talking with the teachers and the students. It has been very interesting.... I will have to go home and read all my notes again before I have a real opinion to share.

One more day of the "educational" part of our trip before many of the Vermonters head home on Saturday. I'll be headed to the South Island for a "holiday" (vacation) next week, so there are sure to be more adventures to come....


Look Familiar??? Some of the students who have welcomed me into their classroom in NZ "google map" Edmunds Middle School to get a sense of what my school looks like back home...

Roturua

Highlights from Roturua, NZ:

- Both Ms Kast and Ms S "Swooped" with another student teacher from Williston this year. This involved being hooked up to a large rope, being pulled high into the air, and then swinging back and forth like a pendulum. Tons of fun! We have a video that I will try to link someday soon...

- Ms Kast also "zorbed"... google "Zorb NZ" for details. Essentially it is just like a big hampster ball for people that you climb inside and roll down a hill. Hilarious!

-Going to a spa that was heated by geothermal energy. If you could get over the rotten egg like smell of sulfur, it was very relaxing!

-Hiking through a geothermal area. Amazing places like the picture below- makes me wish I taught science so I could know exactly what made this all possible because it was incredible!



We are moving into "homestays" at local teachers homes for the week, and will be spending some serious time exploring one school here. I don't know how much time online that will result in, but will try to write an update at some point!

Maori Marae

Hello from Roturua, NZ.

We just drove up here last night, and are staying in a hostel in town. Roturua is known for its geothermal hot springs, so to be honest, it sort of smells like sulfur. There is a lot of “adventure” tourism here though, so today should still be a great day.

Before coming to Roturua we spent a night at a Maori Marae. What an incredible experience! A Marae is a sacred space for the Maori people, so being welcomed onto a Marae includes a lot of ritual speeches, prayers and songs. There is a main meeting house that is decorated with statues and carvings of Maori ancestors. We all slept in the house that night, but were asked not to take photos inside the building. The best part was a group of kids who came to perform songs and dances that they are taught at their school. So impressive! After, they stayed for dinner and taught us how to do Poi (a New Zealand art of spinning strings with your wrists) and some of the dances they had performed. The kids were wonderful, and such fun to talk with. It was only recently in New Zealand that a push to bring back and celebrate Maori culture has truly begun. For many years, their culture was oppressed, much like other indigenous cultures around the world. It is really nice to see how proud these kids are of their culture, and we were very lucky to have them share it with us.

After our overnight at the Marae we went to a teacher’s conference all day yesterday, proof that our trip is not all play and no work! The woman who presented, Kath, is an expert in the type of teaching we have learned this year- talking about how to bring in student’s perspective into our lessons and how to make learning relevant and engaging. Despite being a long time in a chair, we were all scribbling down notes and new ideas to use next year.

Off to explore Roturua….

overdue update

Hello again,

I called home this morning, and was told that I should update this more often…

The past few days have been busy!! Each day has begun with visits to local “intermediate schools” (what they call middle schools here) and has ended with something fun and more “touristy” in the afternoons.

On Tuesday we visited Taradale Intermediate School and William Collenso College, what we would call a high school for year 7-12. Taradale is where I will be spending next week visiting, and seems like a really cool place. William Collenso has started a cool program this year that works on improving school for the Maori people, the indigenous people from New Zealand. (NZ, like so many other places, was a colony of the British, so now there are people here who are of Maori descent and people from European descent.) The woman we spoke to at William Collenso was very passionate about what she does to make school more equal for everyone. We also got to spend some time visiting the school’s garden, which the kids help plant and take care of. The students we talked with were very interested to know if we lived in Los Angeles or had met Michael Jackson (no and no)

In the afternoon we went on an amazing hike up Te Mata peak. The pictures I took don’t show how beautiful it is, everywhere you looked there was beautiful hills and farms and the ocean. The further you hiked, the more beautiful it was. We had dinner at a very cute restaurant named Pipi’s that was all pink and had great pizza.

On Wednesday we started the day with two schools again, this time Havelock North Intermediate School and Hastings Intermediate School. Every school here seems so different!! I have a notebook full of new ideas from each one! Havelock North has a new “technology” program, which is different than what we think of as technology. This program has classes in food, electronics, art, bio-tech (green technologies), and their own TV station. The projects the kids did were so cool!! Hastings was again very different. This school welcomed us with a powhiri, a traditional Maori welcoming. We did not see it coming, and many of us were brought to tears with this incredible ceremony. This school has a big focus on student leadership and has a virtues based curriculum. Also, very cool.

In the afternoon we rented bikes and toured the vineyards nearby. There are huge areas of grape and olive crops nestled in between farms full of sheep, horses and cows. The farms actually remind me a bit of Vermont.

In all it has been a great few days- tonight we go to a Maori Marae, and this weekend we go to Roturua before moving into our homestays at local teacher’s homes next week.

Wow- this was long. Hope it was interesting!

Day Two in Pictures...

Taradale Intermediate School

A student run garden at William Colenso College (aka "high school" in the states)

An absolutely incredible hike

(yes, that is the ocean at the horizon line of this picture)

We have arrived!

Hello again, this time from New Zealand!!

After an overnight flight from LA last night, we arrived in Auckland, New Zealand early this morning. All in all, the dreaded "long" overnight flight was not that bad- you get a pretty comfy seat that comes equipped with its own private TV screen full of movies to choose from. After they feed you a meal, they dim the lights in the plane and most people try their best to fall asleep for the night. I was pretty successful in that, which has made all the difference today.

Want to know the craziest part? In all the traveling we have done over the past few days, we skipped Sunday! We left LA on a Saturday, and went over the international date line late last night, which means when we woke up it was Monday already! weird!

Anyway, once we arrived in Auckland this morning, we quickly went through customs, collected our bags, changed terminals, re-checked our bags, and hopped on an hour long flight to Napier, a town on the west coast of the north island. This is where we will be staying for two weeks. We were met at the airport by some of the staff from the schools we are working with, and found our way to the hotel we are staying at for the first few days of our stay.

While we are all exhausted, it is important to try to "trick" your mind into believing whatever time zone you are in, so we are all forcing ourselves to stay up until a 'normal' bedtime. Right now, it is 6:15pm in NZ and 2:15am in Vermont! In order to stay awake, we went and explored the town we are staying in today- had lunch, took a long walk, and went for a late afternoon visit to the beach. It is absolutely beautiful here, even though it is fall it was very sunny and there are tons of flowers and palm trees lining the streets. And the coast is amazing- huge cliffs overlooking the water! wow! Tomorrow starts our school visits, so hopefully we will be all acclimated and ready to go! We have students meeting us bright and early to bring us on a tour of their middle school!

Hello from LA...we are still in airports!!

Hello Navigators (and whomever else wants to follow our journey!)

As requested, Ms S and Ms Kast have decided to blog about our "jaunt" to New Zealand over the next few weeks... hopefully this will be a way to follow our adventures and learn a bit more about traveling to the other side of the world! We don't know how much internet access we will have, but will try our best :)

We are currently writing from the airport floor in Los Angeles... we left Burlington at noon today, flew to Chicago, switched planes, and then flew to California. We still have two more planes until we arrive to our final destination. We have about 13 more hours over the ocean to bear, and are already feeling a little brain dead!

The good part is is that we are traveling with great company. There are about 20 teachers on our trip, most of which have been a part of the grad program at UVM this past year. There have already been a lot of laughs, I-Phone light saber wars, group stretches in the airport- and we even had Tobey from the office on our flight to LA this afternoon!! (we're not kidding about that!!)

We will update more after we are over the Pacific!

-Ms Kast and Ms S