I made it through my first week of teaching! It turns out I still have a lot to learn about the New Zealand system, but I’m making less mistakes. During my first class I asked the kids to do an assignment for homework, they responded that they couldn’t because they didn’t have books. Only then did I understand that I had misunderstood what someone had told me. They only use books in the classroom and they have homework books at home. I made sure to find one of those. Then I found out that students aren’t really graded on homework or anything here. Their grades come only from passing an internal or external test. In the equivalent of 8th and 9th grade students have tests within the school. The seniors, grades 10, 11 and 12 take national exams called externals where they receive a: did not achieve, achieved, achieved with merit, or achieved with excellence. Since there is no graded homework in the sense that the US has graded homework it changes significantly motivating factors for students.
One of my lessons totally fell apart this week and the kids were off the wall, but I was able to regain control the next class-meeting and we’re much better now. Next week the students have all of their mid-term exams. I think I will begin teaching the rest of my classes late this coming week or early next week.
Today I went to the New Zealand national aquarium and got to watch the scuba diver feed the fishies. I also spent some time helping around my host mom’s daughter’s shop. Friday night I went to a swing dancing lesson that was pretty fun. I started to learn the Charleston so that I could help when they start real swing dances in 2 weeks. I have a lot of practicing to do before then.
When I got to the aquarium the diver was in feeding the fish. I really wanted to see him go in with the sharks, but alas, not that much excitement.
At the aquarium there was a tunnel of glass that you could walk through. Surrounding you were all the fishes and sharks. It was pretty cool. Here's a cross section of the glass. I thought it was pretty cool.
A turtle with a really LLLLOOOOONNNNNGGGG neck.
We'll just let you think that this crocodile was really mad at me. The story could go on to read that I felt threatened and jumped the fence, swam over and wrestled him, but we all know I don't swim forward that well. (I've got backwards down though). I was dissappointed to find that this was just a model...Maybe I SHOULD go back and wrestle it....
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