The new school year in New Zealand is about to begin! This past week I’ve attending professional development at my school, Waipahihi-A-Tia. The first moment I walked into the Waipahihi, a new teacher, named Monique, swooped in. She is beautiful, calm, and was to be professional flutist for 15 years. She has helped me survive by explaining all of NZ’s education acronyms, along with her rich knowledge of NZ in general. To my luck, she’s one of the 3 teachers on our teaching team.
But, the first day I was incredibly overwhelmed. Everyone around me was new to me and everyone at the school already knew each other from last year. New Zealanders seem to be very social, taking 20 minute breaks for tea time and 30 or more minutes for lunch, all talking dynamically together in their large staff lounge. Overcome with emotions from new stimuli, worries about fitting in (even despite my instant connection with Monique), jet lag, and all the differences from home, I actually cried a bit on my 15 minute walk home the first day, After that big day, I have been so happy to be at this school. As an added perk, one day after professional development, they served all of the teachers wine (yes, they were storing alcohol at the school!).
At the training, I was able to learn about new research findings in ed-psych, math, and learning through play. My team is embracing learning through play so much that they are allotting the first hour of our school day, each day, to simply be student-led play. This week I also helped set up our classroom and plan for the week ahead, where all 3 teachers plan all of their lessons as a group. Within 3 spacious open-wall rooms, including an extra enclosed room for the teacher-aid, there will be 3 teachers (plus me), 1 teacher-aid, and 63 students . The teachers are constantly re-grouping these 63 students by their interests and needs. I’m really curious to see how it works in action.
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By the way, I figured out my bike situation. Kristine has a friend who was so kind to borrow us her and her husband’s bikes on the weekend. So with Kristine away for the weekend, Mikki and I rode off for what would be a nearly 8 hour bike and sight-seeing expedition. We had no idea what we were getting into. We weren’t expecting it to be so long, or as gnarly as it was. Our destination was Huka Falls. Google Maps gave us directions to the entrance of Huka Falls, where, from there, are an abundance of trails.
But at this nature reserve, they don’t want you biking on the walking paths, so they have trails for biking. But the biking trails aren’t gentle, they are mountain biking trails — rough with tree roots, sharp S curves, steep inclines and declines; most of the time all three of those at once. We endured these trails for at least two and a half hours before making it to the actually falls.
On the way back, we were exhausted and stopped in a field to read under a tree. Currently I’m half way through Michelle Obama’s book, Becoming. One tree that we came across was so incredibly tall and wide that if you get the whole tree in the picture frame, you can barely see me standing under it.
We also ran into a scenic outlook to stop and take pictures of the view of the city. This little city has continued to impress me with how much there is to do within a close distance. On our way back, as we were riding along the lake, our hot and sweaty bodies took a quick dip in the water, fully clothed and all. I’m already sore, but I won’t long this little adventure.
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