July 9th- First day at Mountain Creek State High School

            Today was my first day of student teaching down under! Beka and I are both teaching Physical Education and Health at Mountain Creek State High School, which is a 40-minute walk from our apartments. We practiced the walk yesterday and got lost, but that’s why we did it the day before. When I got to the school I was feeling good, not very nervous because I figured today I would be observing more and getting used to being here. I was pointed in the direction of the sign in book and then Beka and I were off to our sub school, Bribie. Mountain Creek has four sub schools that act as teams involving teachers and students. Each school has a building that houses the teachers work areas, basically a large room with desks and tables and some kitchen appliances. Beka and I each got our own desk, which I LOVE because I like having my own area to work in. The cool thing about these buildings is that its not just one subject area together, there are multiple teachers from math and science and business. You get to know other teachers outside your subject area which is completely opposite in New York. Beka and I met up with our host teachers Kim and Cameron in Bribie before we were off to our classes.

My schedule at Mountain Creek is four classes a day starting at 7:30 AM. Each class is for 70-minutes and I was a bit nervous about this but it seems to fly by while teaching.

The first class I had with Cameron was in the onsite Gym that is NOT ran by the school. There is a gym ran by a man Josh but it is his own business that you need a membership to in order to use it. The Physed department has set up with him to use it on certain days though for their weight lifting units. Beka and Kim’s class are also in this class, so we will be co-teaching year 10 weightlifting. Today Josh went over different equipment and technique, safety, behavior, dress code and a few other rules. The students paid attention and didn’t complain about working out at all, which I have experienced in New York a lot. I am expecting the next class to be a lot more active.

Second Class was a lecture class with about 24 year 12 students. The classroom is set up like an ordinary New York classroom with almost all the same technology. This class is very similar to my Sport and Society class at Cortland. A lot of the information that the students will be learning is about gender inequalities in sports and stereotypes specifically dealing with Aerobics. This class will be meeting two more times in the week but as an activity class doing Aerobics, so they are connecting the lecture to what the students will be doing. I think that is a great way to learn and I wish I had more classes like that when I was younger.

Morning tea break! 25 minutes woo hoo!

The third class is supposed to be another activity class with 8/9-year level students but today they had an assembly about the Carnival on Wednesday. The carnival seems like it is going to be a massive track meet between the sub schools and they just wanted to finalize the students in each event. By the end of the assembly we had about 20-minutes to spare, so the host teachers decided to do dodgeball. Beka and I automatically started to laugh since dodgeball is a huge debate topic at school and we were already seeing it on our first day. It is the same here as it is at home with the same debates but the kids love it.

The last class of the day is most definitely going to be the most entertaining and difficult class I have during my experience here. The lecture portion is Sex Ed but the activity portion will be team invasion sports. These students are all immature 14 and 15 year olds that can’t take anything seriously so far. It’s been only one day and I already know that they will be laughing through each and every class. Certain words and topics have them bursting out laughing for ten minutes at a time. To be honest, it was hard for me to not laugh at their reaction and certain things they said. This class will for sure be entertaining to say the least but it will be extremely new and probably difficult as well. At the same time, it gives me a piece of teaching health and maybe it will make my master program decision easier.

Now that I described my classes, here is a list of everything I noticed that was very eye opening and different through out my first day…

1)   A grade of a C is normal and grades of very public here. There is a rank order of Low Achievement to Very High Achievement and all the names in your class are listed in these categories. Students see other students grades but no one so far has gotten upset by a failing grade. Teachers talk to other students about other students grades as well.

2)   Students wait outside in the pathways and courtyards for their teacher to meet them

3)   Teachers wear backpacks around to each class

4)   All the teachers know each other from subject to subject

5)   Uniforms are VERY strict here. Teachers were checking student’s ties, shirts, socks and fingernails as they entered the assembly. One student got sent away to take off her make up.

6)   The entire term is one concept in physed. So since im doing team sports, I will be teaching a few different ones and Beka will be teaching Aerobics for the whole term.

All in all, it was a GREAT first day of meeting a lot of friendly people and everyone was very welcoming. I feel comfortable talking to people already and I cant wait to get more involved and start teaching the students.