Mark update

I need to write about Mark because frankly, he is having the roughest time. All four of us came here with slightly different expectations of how we'd be spending our time. But the one expectation we all shared is that we'd find a way to enjoy ourselves for the year. Mark has landed in a new teaching culture which is what he was after. But sadly, he is struggling daily with finding ways to enjoy himself. He would probably never tell you all this himself (though I will get an okay from him before I post) but it seems crucial that this story be told. He is working in a system that still "tracks" or streams students. Therefore, by the beginning of 8th grade, each student is put in classes according to their test scores the year before. And the students are all labeled as such (8-1, 8-2, 8-3, and so on) so everyone knows whether they are in a high class (lowest numbers) or a low class (higher numbers). Including the students. The kids in classes one and possibly two will be tracked to go on through Year 12, graduate high school and go to "Uni." The kids in the lower classes will not be expected to go past Year Ten and will never darken the doors of a University. Mark says 400 of the 700 students at his school are seen as throw-away students.

Teachers are expected to teach something, anything to these kids in the lower classes even though the students have very little motivation to succeed, as you might imagine. They'd have to buck the very system charged with educating them to move up a class or more in order to get a better education. The system doesn't believe they can do it so you can imagine what they believe about themselves. Therefore, most of Mark's classes are students who, while incredibly polite and friendly, are out of control behaviorally. Many exchange teachers who Mark has commiserated with have used the word "feral" to describe these kids. They throw things out windows, get up and leave class right in the middle, talk non-stop through the entire period, throw spitballs up at the ceiling during class and get precious little done. Mark is testing every classroom management technique he's ever heard or thought of.

The feedback he gets from other teachers when he asks for ideas is to lighten up, don't lose sleep over these kids, focus on the ones who want to learn, don't expect the "bludgers" to do a thing. We Americans take ourselves way too seriously, he's been told. When he was talking to a teacher at another school about his theory that all kids are capable of learning but he was having a hard time reaching these kids, the teacher said, "Ah, such naivete. So refreshing. Go on."

What breaks my heart, and why I am writing about this (since Mark probably won't) is because Mark's phenomenal teaching skills are not being utilized to the extent that they could be. These people have no idea what they have in their building and it may be that, at the end of the year, they will have missed him completely. Who knows, though. A year is a long time and I've never seen Mark work so hard to try to figure out a seemingly unworkable problem. I'm always eager to hear at the end of each day what he's done and how it's gone.

There are successes, he will want me to tell you that. There are quite a few, actually. He has reached many students already and is seeing learning happening in all of his classes. One of his hardest classes--Year 10-4--have responded remarkably to an idea someone gave him. He gives them packets of handouts for each unit and then offers certificates to students as they finish each unit. They are so eager for their certificates that they are actually working. And demanding those certificates when they've finished. Even the most troublesome ones are engaged more than they had been. He has one class--Year 8-1--who are the most studious and motivated kids he's ever taught. "If I don't finish this in class, canI bring it home, sir?" He loves those guys. Sometimes he has to tell them to put their pencils down about 5 minutes before the end of class because he wants to chat with them.

Currently, as I write this, Mark is on a camping trip with the Year 7s. They went about an hour north on the coast to a Bush Camp/team building camp with about 150 12- and 13-year-olds and a handful of teachers. Mark was hopeful that this would be a good experience but was willing to go just to have the experience regardless. He is leaving me voice messages about what an amazingly well organized and executed adventure this is for the students and how much he is enjoying getting to know them better. He has done some of his own fear-facing this week, apparently, by jumping off and swinging from things from very high heights. I am hopeful that these few good days with these kids will generalize into the classroom some the rest of the year. Time will tell.

Outside of school, Mark is enjoying the time we are all together since he's not running to golf practice or golf tournaments or golf with his buddies. And we're enjoying being a foursome more often than ever before. He's tan from the beach, fit from his morning runs and very, very happy that our shipping FINALLY arrived only 8 weeks late because in that delivery were his bike and golf clubs. Hey, wait, does that mean we're not going to have him around so much anymore???

So, if you happen to have a moment, and you are so inclined, please put a good thought out there that Mark has just the right intuitive thought about who he is as a teacher in the classrooms of Australia. I'm enjoying my front row seat as I watch Mark adapt and adjust and possibly affect a nearly unbearable situation to turn it into an enjoyable and successful experience for himself and his students. We'll see!

The kids

Gabe and Jordan are having a great time--credit given to their ability to live almost completley in the moment. As long as what is happening right now is working out for them, it's all good. And for the most part, other than having to put their dishes away, get their shoes on or go to bed, activities clearly not unique to Australia, their life is pretty much good for them most of the time.

One thing happening that has nothing to do with Australia is that their school back in Colorado is not going to be in existence next fall. They will not return to their old school in January as we'd hoped. And to make matters worse, Jordan's two closest friends will not be attending the school we are considering sending them to. Gabe's closest friends will be. We haven't talked to them about this yet. I'm thinking we'll wait until we get home next year before we break any of that news. No use ruining their moment with bad news from the future. Childhood is a sacred time, I believe. So when they aren't listening, Mark and I are having tough conversations about where they may be attending school come next January. Not an easy discussion to have while the schools we are considering are on the other side of the globe.

The school here, on the other hand, is a gold mine. We take a lot more baths here in Australia than we ever did in Colorado as they come home just filthy most days--covered in mud, dirt, sand, water, and brown butterflies painted on faces from natural, plant-derived face paint that they pick and mash and paint with all right there in their "playground." When I pick them up in the afternoon, Jordan sometimes comes to the gate munching on fresh beans picked from the garden. They both will bring me treats of hand made rolls they baked with their classes. Gabe is working on a breadboard in his woodworking class. They like to tell stories of the resident cow, Dulcie and her calf, Daisy and where the two of them ended up laying that day--smack dab in front of the house Gabe and his friends were building was the funniest. They had to find somewhere else to play that day.

Gabe came up with a list of 8 friends from school he'd like to invite to his birthday party in a few weeks. We'll have the party in this big open space in Blackbutt Reserve, right down the street from our house where the koalas and kangaroos and a huge array of local birds live. And we'll play sports, he says. Games and sports. So he invited only the boys in his class who like to do that. No one standing around, he says. I look forward to getting to know these kids a bit more and their parents.

Jordan continues to talk about her designated friends--PollyAnna and Elsa. She's added Altea to the list though she reportedly plays with many different girls, she just won't call them "friends'. This morning she told me that Asha has been pinching her and that she'd like some help to get her to stop so we'll deal with that. She is quite fond of her three teachers and enjoys the friends she has grown to like. She still struggles with parting from me in the mornings but we talk a lot about that and we're working on building courage. One of these days she's going to run away from me without looking back so I'm in no hurry for her to "get over" this one; though it is tough to watch her teachers have to physically move her away from me and try to distract her while I go.

Both kids are speaking Australian but very subtly. They will come home from school using the same rhythm as the kids in their classes with the lift at the end of each sentence. Sometimes you'll hear a word come out of their mouth said with an Aussie accent. They sometimes notice themselves speaking differently and find that entertaining. "Did you hear me? I just said "hhh" instead of "her". Or, "Nor" instead of "No". The Aussies have the strangest way of saying the word "no". They say it without really finishing the word. No. Period. Americans have a beginning and end to that little word. Aussies sort of let it fade away and often add an 'r' sound to the end. You have to almost let your bottom lip just hang there after you are done saying the word. They definitely don't pucker their lips into the shape of an 'o' like we do when we say 'no'. It is nearly impossible for me to describe it, as I'm still trying to master that one. The kids' favorite Aussie word that they hear all the time at school is "heaps" as in "We need heaps of sticks to build this house. " But of course, it is pronounced, "hipes".
That's Susie, by the way. She's 20 years old and very picky about what she eats. That's why they hand feed her. She was completley unimpressed by us but we were very excited to pet a koala and find out that they really are as soft as they look.

One of the things that just thrills me is to listen to them talk about all the things they know becaues of their time here. Things that at their age, or even at my age, I would have never known because I hadn't been exposed. I hear them think about what country is directly on the other side of Australia. I hear them naming birds and spiders and bugs and plants that I've never heard of. They teach me about the habits of some of the bugs that they've learned about from their friends at school. Detailed and fascinating stuff. Who knows if any of it is true, mind you, but it could very well be! They know about cultural differences and language differences. Just today Gabe asked which country was founded first, Australia or America. I said I thought it was America (hoping I was right and obviously not bringing up the issue of native peoples being here long before any place was "founded") and he said, "then why do Australians use the right words for things and America uses the wrong words?"
"Like what, sweetheart?" I asked.
"Like 'maths' and 'math'. Since maths comes from mathematics and there is an 's' at the end of mathematics, then maths is right and math is wrong."
It was a good opportunity to talk about how America actually has it right and anything Australia does differently is wrong. Okay, kidding. We talked about how everything is open to interpretation and different cultures look at things differently and that there are no rights and wrongs. For example, who is right, the countries who drive on the right side of the road or those who drive on the wrong, I mean left side of the road. Kidding again, I didn't say that to him.

Okay, my point being that it is wonderful to be having these serious conversations with my kids about things that I would never have given any thought to at that age. Jordan asked me the other night if we were going to travel to every country in the world. I asked, "would you like to?" She said, "I don't know. Sure." Then she said, "It might take until the rest of our lives." Indeed. She's grasping the concept.

So the summary here, in case you are skimming, is that the kids are good and I am really glad that we've taken them to Australia this year. Periodically, we check in with each other and ask each other how we are liking this experience and how we feel about not being home. Recently, I asked the kids if they were to chose right now where they would live, here or Colorado, what would they choose and they both didn't hesitate to say, "Colorado." When I asked why they both said because of their friends.

A Tuesday

Hello to you all,

In sitting down to update the blog, I realize that settling into our "day-to-day" here doesn't lend itself to adventure writing. We haven't spent much time driving through pristine, untouched country side, nor has anyone nearly fallen on top of seal in quite a while now.


So I've created a game for you. You know those kids magazines that have 2 pictures side by side and you are supposed to pick out the 10 things in the second picture that are different from the first? They'll change the boy's hat from red to blue or add an extra ear to the dog's head or whatever. So here is your chance to play the grown-up version. I'm going to tell you about my day today and you get to compare it to what you know of my days in Colorado. We'll have a contest to see how many you can pick out. The winner gets to come visit us! (Airfare and lodging not included.) (I just want you to know that I am totally cognizant of the fact that this might be more fun for me than it is for you!)

I woke up this past Tuesday morning and went for a run along the ocean (that would be one because, as we know, there's no ocean in Lakewood. See how this goes? Now you see if you can find the rest) while my husband and children were sleeping. I saw the skies turn from black to dark blue to pink, peach, yellow and orange. Then to pale blue to bright blue. I watched the sun rise up out of the back of the ocean, turning the water from a vast darkness to a playful turquoise toothpaste color, the waves brimming with creamy breaking water. It's amazing how the ocean can look menacing and mysterious in the dark and delightfully playful with the light.

I drove home after my run and made my children breakfast and packed lunches and with the help of Mark, we got them out the door on time without much hassle. I sprayed the kids with bug spray which I know is an exercise in futility but I do what I can. We all got in the car and drove Mark less than 5 minutes to his school and dropped him off and then another 5 minutes to the kids' school to drop them off. Gabe leapt out of the car, as he does every morning. It's been a few weeks now since I've gotten a good-bye hug or kiss. Are those days really over??? Jordan and I waited until her teacher arrived and then walked over to the sandpit where her class gathers in the morning. She struggled with my leaving as she does most mornings but she has two wonderful teachers, one of whom playfully and lovingly took her hand and redirected her attention off me and onto something fun for her.

Then I drove off, alone, for the day. I dropped the car off at the Servo (service station) for an oil change and to figure out what the creaking sound is about when I turn right. After handing them the keys, I walked home. I made a quick pit stop and then went back out my front door and across a street to the big open space park where I took myself for an hour long hike through the gum tree forest. As I was hiking along, enjoying the raucous bird song, the fresh air and the February sun with temperatures in the high 70s, a kangaroo hopped across my path about 20 yards in front of me.
About 15 minutes later, I was startled (you should have heard what I said!) by a foot and a half long, black, shiny goana (lizard) who was chilling by the edge of the trail I was on.

At the end of my hike, I came back in the house, made myself some lunch from the home cooked meal I'd made the night before and then sat down to write. I got out 2000 words today but unlike yesterday when my fingers were dancing about the keyboard, today was hard work. I'm afraid that on some days, the words have much more heft than depth. But they're out there, those words, and my job for the day was done.

I had some extra time before our car would be done at the shop so I sat in our family room and read a book in a quiet house. The car people picked me up and I went on my way to get the kids from their school and then Mark from his. Once we were all home together, well before 4:00, we played. Gabe and I played Othello, Mark and the kids played basketball. Then the kids and I cleaned the bathroom together: "I get to clean the toilet," yelled Jordan. "I get the bathtub," countered Gabe. I love Australia! Mark spent that time working on some travel plans on the internet. (For those of you who are gearing up to give him a hard time for not being a team player, step back. I'm so sick of getting sucked into the internet trying to book accomodations in a country I know very little about that I would much rather have scrubbed tile than do what he was doing.)

Let's see, so after the bathroom, the kids went into the family room (which they call the lego room for good reason) and played nicely together. For the most part. I made dinner, from scratch, for the umpteenth night in a row. Everyone helped get it on the table and we sat down together for our evening meal. For all the Waldorf people reading this, we've learned a new blessing. Email me if you'd like the words. It's lovely.

After dinner, Mark did dishes, kids took baths, I was probably returning emails. Once the kids were in bed, Mark and I went out on our back deck, lit the citronella candles and talked while we watched the thunderstorm light up the sky and drench the ground. Did you notice that I didn't say the phone rang all evening?

So that is what life is like here some days, most days. We like to have adventures on the weekends which have been fun, exploring the country and coast within an hour or two drive from here. But none of us are feeling pulled to separate from each other to do other things. This family time we're having has been, by far, the greatest unexpected gift of this entire trip up to this point. I wonder if that will be the case all year. I'm guessing it might.

So here's to family, both immediate and extended--as far around the globe as it reaches.

Mark's school update

Hello out there in Blogland. Here is a school update from Down Under.

It is now the end of week 4 at Cardiff High School and I am getting considerably more settled in. The routine is more familiar and I know when and where to go most of the time. Although they got me again when on Thursday a bell rang during recess and all my Maths colleagues that were enjoying their morning tea got up and walked out of our office. I had no idea why. After sitting alone for a couple of minutes finishing my Diet Pepsi (I am the only soda drinker and not interested in quitting – though it is a shocker to pay $9 a twelve pack – but oh so worth it and anyway, who wants tea when it is 80+ degrees outside), I took a peak outside to see the entire school (700+) lined up for an assembly. Apparently there is a special ring to the bells for an unscheduled assembly and they all knew what it meant – I clearly did not. So I quickly I scurried outside to the Quad where everyone was gathered to hear a special announcement that students were permitted to wear Newcastle United Jets attire on Friday as the local soccer team had made it to the national finals this weekend in Sydney. I must say it was bizarre to hear the kids the last couple of days hooting and hollering “Go the Jets!” I kept asking people why they say “go the Jets” instead of just “Go Jets”. No one had a good answer, and they all looked at me quite quizzically, so I suppose we’ll just go with it.

Here are some thoughts I have garnered the past few weeks about school here versus what I know at Thornton.

Curriculum – really pretty similar to ours, though they do have some funny names for some things like “surds” for rational numbers and “indices” for exponents. I have to be sure to adjust the language of any worksheets of mine that I use from previous years or else the kids are thrown into a complete tizzy.

Resources - not even close, they lack so much that we take for granted. From whiteboards to LCD’s to printers and copiers, all of which they have but on a much more limited basis, it is a step back in time. The text books are adequate but geared for better readers and some are quite antiquated.

Student ability – for the most part similar to ours but here they track students by the beginning of year 8 based on end-of-year 7 exams. So, as a teacher, it is wonderfully easy if you get a top class and torture if you get a bottom one. I am really getting a close up view of the benefits and shortcomings of tracking. I have a top year 8 class that is a dream and bottom year10 class that may drive me back to the grog. It must be so demoralizing for the kids who are in the lower classes years 8 through 10 to know they are identified school wide as the “slow” ones. Students are able to move up based on improved performance but the lower level classes do not easily lend themselves to scholarliness, as they are usually a controlled riot at best. I now at least have some understanding why the US is so keen on mixed ability classes.

Student Behavior – This is the one area I struggle with identifying clearly yet. On the whole, my classes are louder, rowdier and more unruly than anything I have ever experienced at Thornton. On the other hand, the kids are more respectful, honest and kind hearted than most at home and are genuinely interested in my experience here. It appears that mainly, they just want to have fun and they don’t want school to stand in the way of it. The work ethic is moderate and the work product so far is pretty mediocre, (except of course for that top year 8 class – they are like the IB kids at home. I gave two of my year 8 boys some extra work to do yesterday to improve their understanding, and while I did not even have them on my schedule today, they came and found me this morning to show me what they had completed so far and to ask a couple of clarifying questions so they could finish over the weekend!)

Hours – Absolute luxury! School starts at 9 am and ends at 3:20. You can imagine how it freaks me out each day at to look at my watch, see that it is 8:15 am and think, oh, I better get going to work! It is wonderful to be able to get up and get some exercise before school and still be able to see my family before starting my work day.

And then there is Sport. Every Wednesday the kids get early release at noon to do sport - and I have the tough duty to take 20 of them to Newcastle beach to play beach volleyball. They love when the other teacher and I get in there and play with them – and so do I. Then the kids head back on the buses at 2 pm and I get to hang on the beach until 3:30 when Nancy and the kids come meet me for some more beach play. I am working hard to encourage a few kids to sign up for golf next term so we can go play nine at a nearby course.

Last Friday was the swim carnival where the whole school went to a nearby pool for a day of swimming races and relays. I cannot tell you how blown away I was by the whole experience. I got to watch 500 teenagers hang out all day and have nothing but good clean fun. It was seriously unreal. Not one fight, no one sneaking off to get high or smoke, and most kids even participated in the swimming events.

Faculty – They are entirely lovely. Everyone is incredibly nice to me and it appears that they are actually nice to each other too! They seem to be genuinely interested in each other and the students – I even heard an English teacher offer to cover a class for a Maths teacher who was attending a funeral of a students’ parent. Of course there are some personality issues that pop up, but they seem a bit less frequent than I am used to and usually joked about rather than festered.

General - There is no PA (public address system), no campus security or cop, no tagging (at least not on the school grounds - there is plenty around the city), teacher extra duty is 20 minutes twice a week during "recess" or lunch - yes they have both recess at 11:15 am and lunch at 1:30 pm, with the whole school at the same times. Every Friday the faculty do a special “tea” where a group of teachers provides treats and we all gather for a chat up with the Principal.

Finally, the Temperature: Blessedly, it has been much cooler the past few weeks. The downside is lots of rain which has put a bit of a damper on outdoor play some weekends. The best news is, this past week, as it has warmed up again (near 90 ° today) I am not sweating like a waterfall any more and really do not even feel it as much. I seem to have acclimated somewhat.

Bottom Line – School is good. I have had to work hard to find ways to best help each of my classes – each of which have a unique group personality and needs - but I like that part. I am having some little successes with each class, of course not as frequently as I would wish for, but that is the challenge of teaching. I am forming some nice relationships with kids and am enjoying the staff. The schedule is a breeze and I am excited to see how the rest of the year unfolds as we move into fall and our first round of term exams.

Thanks to everyone for their support and well wishes along the way. Blessings on you and yours,

Mark

Drought-busters

THE RAIN
We have been dubbed, by Mark's co-workers as The Drought-Busters. It has rained here more this month than it has in 12 years during the same time period. So for all of you who have told us that you were jealous of our having summer while you are enduring the cold and snow, mostly we are watching sheets of rain fall from gray skies.


It's good for the land, I know. Selfishly, it makes me a bit sad, however, to watch our only summer in Australia trickle away, day after day as we spend most of our time inside. I do feel a bit justified about complaining as most Aussies we talk to are whining too.




THE MOZZIES
Other than the rain, there are the mozzies. (I'll just get the whining out of the way first.) The mozzies (mosquitoes) are rampant and hostile. My poor children are covered in mozzie bites. They look like walking chicken pox casulties. I have to spray myself with bug spray just to drop the kids off at school each morning.





This is the view from our backyard. Can you see all the mozzies???

THE CULTURE
The other thing, while I'm complaining, is that there is this weird cultural thing we've noticed that continues to baffle us. I've come to call it an
invisible membrane that surrounds most Aussies I meet on the street. They seem completley oblivious to us and won't give us the time of day or help us if we're struggling or even smile as we pass on the bike paths. UNLESS we ask. If we approach them, they are more than happy to help or say hello or chit chat about all numbers of topics. But you have to break through this membrane (that is frankly pretty off-putting) if you want to engage with them.

For the first few weeks we were here, I was bound and determined to continue to say hello and smile at everyone I passed while running, thinking maybe this one American could infiltrate the country with friendliness toward strangers on the street. I got to a place where I wanted to shake each of them and say, "Be happy! You're in Australia! You're one of the lucky ones!!" But it's gotten disheartening to get so little response that I've all but given up. We went to a party this afternoon for all the exchange families who are here from the US, Canada and the UK. We had a conversation with a few other people who've noticed the same phenomenon so I am pretty sure it is not just us.

What is important to note, however, is that once we engage an Aussie, they seem thrilled to talk with us, learn where we're from and how we're finding it here or how we're getting on, and they will go to great lengths to help us if we ask. When we are just walking by each other or conducting normal business in a store, they don't seem to see us. But as soon as we say hello or start chatting, their faces light up like they hadn't even see us there. I look forward to finding out what the Aussie perspective is on all this.

THE KIDS
I think those are the only complaints at this point. Other than those very minor things, we are still having a good time here. The kids finished their first week of school. Gabe has made lots of friends, he bounds out of the car every morning consistently forgetting to say good-bye to me. (For those of you who have seen him in the halls of Front Range Waldorf School over the years, he's come quite a long way from the boy who screamed hysterically if he thought I'd forgotten to give him hugs and kisses before I left the building! Now I'm the one who wants to cry if we don't say good-bye to each other.) And at the end of the day, he is covered with mud, happy and exhausted. He tells us lots of stories of what his class does throughout the day--also a big change from when he was younger and we heard very little about what went on while we were apart. On the second day of school, he said he was more comfortable because he knew more what to expect. He had difficulty understanding the teacher some of the time so he just followed the mass of kids wherever they went. He pantomimed what it was like to hear the teacher say, "Okay, blah, blah, blah" and the kids would go running off so he'd just hurry up and follow them, having no idea where they were headed. By the end of the week he said he still didn't always understand what she said but he had a general sense when it was lunchtime and where they went to eat.

Jordan had a wonderful week as well. Her teacher told me that she was very engaged, happy, smiling, talkative and wonderous all week. She apparently found a hiding place during one of their games where no one could find her. Literally. So after the whole class went inside, her teacher noticed she wasn't there. She said her heart started pounding, she sent another teacher out to look for Jordan and he found her, sitting happily in her spot feeling very proud of herself that no one could find her. (She's had issues in the past with hide-and-seek, feeling like she never could find really good hiding places.) Because she didn't know that she'd essentially been abandoned or that her teacher was on the verge of a heart attack, this was a big success for her.
She loved eating the corn on the cob picked fresh from the school garden and having Dulcie the cow and her calf Daisy to visit daily. She has proudly learned two songs already and is confident enough with the words and tune that she's performed them for us. Her one criticism of the school thus far is that, "This school is all about the sun. We sing songs about the sun, hear stories about the sun. We can only paint with sun colors. It's getting sort of boring to have everything be about the sun all the time." I assured her I'd meet with the principal to discuss this catastrophe first thing Monday morning.



















Jordan's hair gets mighty curly in the humidity!



























Big fun fig trees to climb here.


MARK
Mark continues to learn more and more about his school, the kids and his role. He has two classes that each contain about 3-5 kids who are off the charts unruly. Those kids may have the power to make or break my sweet husband. I'm optimistic that they will help him refine and clarify for himself who he is as a teacher but there's always the chance that they will be the death of him. Keep a good thought! He also has several classes of quite lovely students who he enjoys very much. He loves that they call him "sir" and they play all kinds of games with him and his American accent and lexicon. He is enjoying his Wednesday afternoons as the entire school does "Sport." This means that all the students sign up for one sport each term and on Wednesdays, they leave campus and scatter about Newcastle engaging in that sport with several of the teachers as chaperones. Mark signed up to take students to the beach for beach volleyball on Wednesdays (there were no kids who signed up for golf so he's already started recruiting a few to sign up for next term,) so he's enjoying that. Because of the rain this past week, the temperature was signifcantly more comfortable in his classroom. He said it was nice to be just hot rather than dripping with sweat.

ME
I had a lovely week. I dropped Mark and the kids off at their respective schools at 9:00am and picked them up at the same places at 3:2o. In between I wrote and swam and laid on the beach (because the only sunny parts of this week were in the mornings) and got a few things done around the house. This lifestyle suits me. I have a few phone numbers of women I've met who I would really like to get to know better. But the thing is, these new people might get in the way of my new-found freedom. I'm not sure I'm ready to share this time with anyone else but me just yet. Maybe this will get old at some point but right now I feel like, after being stranded in the desert for years, I've got an endless supply of water in front of me and while my body may not be dehydrated anymore, I'm still really thirsty!

We are working hard at planning our holidays that will be coming up in the next few months. It's a bit daunting to figure out where we want to go while we're here. Imagine if you had several chunks of time and weekends to visit all of the US knowing very little about your options. Where would you go? How would you decide?

Until next time...

LIfe in Newcastle

I’ve been racking up a whole list of things to tell you all about. So this will be a sort of potpourri of Australiana.

Birds

Australia has good birds. We also live very near a Reserve that probably increases the bird population around our house. I’ve learned a bit more about them since my last blog entry about the birds. There are Rosellas and Cockatoos who make me feel like I’m living in a pet store. Cockatoos—you may know—are the big white birds with yellow tufts on top of their heads and very loud voices. They are the squawkiest birds in the ‘hood.

Rosellas are smaller than parrots but flaunt the same display of primary colors. And we always see them in pairs which is endearing. I haven’t separated out their song yet.

Then there is, I swear, the Kookaburra. And, yes, we sing that song most every time we see one. “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, eating all the gum balls he can see. Laugh, Kookaburra laugh, Kookaburra save some just for me.” And they are the birds who sound just like monkeys laughing.

There are, unfortunately, many, many crows whose volume hogs the stage. They are just as annoying, loud and ever-present here as anywhere in the US. That part is a bit disappointing.

But it is the crows who alert us to the nightly event that has captured the attention of our whole family since we first saw it. I mentioned when we first arrived in Newcastle that we saw a huge flock of birds flying in the same direction as though they were being blown out of a bubble machine. Well, on our first night back from New Zealand, we saw it again. This time we were on our back deck. Directly above our heads, there were literally thousands of dark birds who, upon closer inspection, looked more like large bats than birds, all flying from one specific place to another. We watched this show for close to 30 minutes before they were gone. It was clearly an event and since we’d seen it once before, we figured it was a regular event. We looked up bats on the website of this Reserve near our house and found out that they are in fact bats called flying foxes and they have a wing span of up to 3 meters! They all come from the reserve and fly inland where they spend their nights eating nectar and pollen and fruits. All 10,000 of them go out together at dusk. And all 10,000 of them come back home at dawn which I’ve had the pleasure of seeing several times when I’ve gotten up to run. It is funny that in the morning they are much slower flyers and fly much lower in the sky; they are clearly, night owls. I look forward to sharing our bat show with those of you who are able to make it out to visit us this year.

Language

It is a different kind of English down here. Mark spends a lot of his time at school, he’s told me, trying to keep up with what everyone is saying. Their accents are strong enough and they speak fast enough that he really has to listen closely to them and by the time he’s put together what someone was saying in the last sentence, he’s missed the follow-up sentence and gets behind quickly. He said he wonders if they think his personality is flat because he stands sort of dimly by while the teachers around him banter on. Most of you know Mark is not one to sit quietly in the midst of banter so I think that is a little tough for him.

I spent this weekend in a writing workshop and had a similar experience—I was on high alert trying to understand what everyone was saying. Sometimes I would just let pass a few paragraphs at a time just to keep up. I felt a little bit like Lucille Ball when she was working on an assembly line that was going too fast for her to do her part. The harder she tried, the more the objects piled up in front of her. It was best to just let a bunch go and start fresh with the next one.

There are a few words and phrases that I really enjoy:

*They tell people to “give it a go” rather than to try.

*When people do things smart or well, they refer to them as clever. Like when Jordan revealed that she understood a joke that an adult was trying to keep over the kids’ heads, the adult told her she was very clever.

*They don’t think about things, they “have a think.” This morning at the kids' school, one little girl was holding a snail and the other little girl said, "Can I have a hold?"

*Ha ya goin’? rather than “How’s it going” or “how ya doing?”

Culture

There’s this attitude in Australia I had heard about before arriving here and was looking very forward to experiencing. Aussies don’t hesitate to “Question Authority.” Actually, I’m not sure they really question it, I think they just defy it. Knowing their roots as a people, it is not surprising that they aren’t a country of brown-nosers, but it is an interesting behavior to see in action.

The other morning, I was running out onto the almost mile-long jetty. I was about halfway down when I came to a big fence, blocking off access to continue on. There was no sign on it but it was clearly put there by someone with some power. So, being a good American who sometimes does what she’s told, even though she doesn’t like it, I turned around and stopped these two surfers walking by. I asked them what the fence was up for. They guessed maybe there was construction or something on the other side. I said, “So I shouldn’t run around it, should I?” And they said, without hesitation, “Oh, you can run on, if you like.” So I did. That made perfect sense to me—there was no reason for that fence that I could see, and no one is the boss of me, so I ran past it. Aussies are a little less rebellious in their rebellion—they don’t necessarily feel the need to justify their actions when they don’t do what they’re told, but nonetheless, I agreed with them and was thrilled to live in a land where my idea of what I want to do won’t get stymied by someone else’s rules. The funniest part was that after I’d turned around and was on my way back from the end of the jetty, I passed a fisherman and then I passed another runner and when I got to the fence again, someone had moved it completely out of the way. And I thought I was bold!

Kids Start School

Yesterday, the kids went off to their first day of school. The night before, as I was saying goodnight, I said the same thing to each of them, “Tomorrow is your first day at your new school—the day we’ve been talking about for months!” Gabe started jumping up and down in his bed, more excited than I’ve ever seen him, even on Christmas Eve. Jordan dove under her covers, poked her head out and said, “Yikes!”

I dropped them off and Gabe was like a flash of light zipping across the parking lot headed straight toward the open field filled with boys and balls. I didn’t see him again until I picked him up 6 hours later. Jordan and I went over to the sand pit and I stayed there with her for about an hour which his how they have it set up.

You can drop kids off anytime between 8:30 and 9:30 and they all play outside, supervised by a handful of staff milling around. The grounds of this school are vast and look like a lush botanic garden designed just for children. It is a magical place where you can find children weaving under and around flowering arbors, darting out from bushes, balancing on big rocks lining a garden, and making up games in the open field. They don’t require the children wear shoes outside, except in the wood-working shop, so most of them weren’t. It looked like summer camp in fairy tale land.

So while Jordan played in the sandpit, I chatted with the teachers and other parents until it was time for her to go inside. Most parents dropped their children off and left and I’m sure I’ll work my way to being able to do that too. When it is time for the kindies and primary school children to start their day, someone rings a sweet bell and they all head off to their classrooms. That is when all the remaining parents leave. Jordan knew it was time for me to go, said good-bye to me and followed her new teachers and peers up the stairs into her classroom. I walked away with tears in my eyes and I realized they were tears of pride. I know how scary this is for her and I know that if she truly doesn’t want to go, she will refuse and not back down. But she was ready for this and, mustering up all her courage, she started a new school. I am so grateful for her Waldorf experiences up until this point as I am sure they are a great source of her courage.

When I picked them up at the end of the day, Jordan came out first, she ran to me, gave me a quick hug and then stepped back a bit, looked me in the eye and said, “I want to come back again tomorrow.” I think she said that both because she knew she’d made it through the day and that the jury had been out until she had, but I also think she said that because she knew I was a bit worried about how she’d feel--I felt her reassuring me by the way she told me it was good. Then she immediately told me about the sick bird they found and how they made a nest for it and, and, and…

Gabe came out a few minutes later with a very happy look on his face. He’d just come from wood-working and said he couldn’t wait to come back again tomorrow. Jordan said she made one friend, which for her means that she genuinely connected with and enjoyed somebody and is looking forward to seeing her again. We’ll get her name here at some point, I’m sure! Gabe counted off the number of friends he made which for him means that he played with them at some point in the day—again, we’ll work on names down the road.

Mark is so funny; he wanted to know all about their days at school, of course. But a few hours after we’d returned home, he asked them how the temperature was in their classrooms. He’s so uncomfortably hot in his that it seems as though this may have become the most important factor in a school—the temperature in the classrooms!

And I spent the day by myself. First I went to this big mall-type shopping center because I was committed to spending as much time as it took, without children, to figure out how to make that place work for me. It seems as though everyone else thinks it is a wonderful place to go to the grocery store, but the parking and the layout of this center are so unmanageable for me that I actually had to turn grocery shopping into an activity and commit a whole morning to figuring it out. Half-way through my whole-hearted attempt, I gave up and walked out, vowing to never return again so long as I live here. If you can picture Colorado Mills with no outdoor parking, only underground, and the grocery store is inside, and the parking garage has more non-useable space than parking space, and one-way arrows everywhere, and only about 20 spaces near the “Parking close to Woolworths” sign (Woolworths being the grocery store) and that once you finally surrender to parking far away, you walk in the closest door you can find and discover that the grocery store is literally on the other side of the huge Colorado Mills-sized mall, and that when you go into a closer store which is Kmart, they only have ¼ of what is on your shopping list so you decide to go back out to your car and drive around to look again for a closer parking spot to Woolworths and in the process of looking for a closer space, you get lost again in the underground parking garage, you might give up too.

So I went home and started working on my writing project and had a lovely day. I had to remind myself several times, when I got anxious that my day was almost over and I hadn’t gotten it all done yet, that I was going to have another day like this tomorrow and then 3 more after that and then a whole slew of weeks like this all year long. Then I’d smile. It felt like the difference between having a really small ice cream cone and spending the whole time you’re eating it wishing it was bigger, and owning the whole damn store. Who said less is more?

I best move on to my next thing now and let you move on with yours.

mark's school

Hello all you faithful GoodmanDownUnder Bloggers. This is my first crack at the blog as Nancy was not willing to write about my experience at school this week for me – can you imagine? I will tell you that I will probably do about as much blogging as I do driving here when the four of us ride together – Nancy has pretty much dominated that activity, partly because she has mastered Newcastle navigation a bit better than I at this point and mainly, I believe, because she likes the adrenaline rush of driving on the wrong side! No surprise there. I have done plenty of driving by myself though and find it entirely consuming in that I really have to focus on what I need to do next in the car as opposed to what I usually do at home which is think about anything but driving! My biggest challenge remains finding the correct door in which to enter the car – I cannot count how many times I have climbed into the passenger side only to discover that someone moved the steering wheel over.

So week one at Cardiff High School is now in the books. Thanks to all of you who sent your well wishes earlier this week– they were much appreciated. I will begin by saying I really like it, the people are great, the kids are lovely (for the most part – of course it is high school so there are still plenty of knuckleheads) and I am entirely grateful for this amazing experience.

Main office/entrance

Now for the meat:

I began the week on Tuesday with a day of teacher meetings and preparation time. A number of things of significance occurred that day: First of all the day started at 9 am – just a little odd for someone used to leaving the house at 4:30 am - I must say that I love that I am now able to see Nancy and the kids every morning rather than sneaking away in the dark of early morning like at home, Another was when the faculty sat down for our first meeting I noted that there we only about 40 people in the room and I wondered where the rest of the staff were. It dawned on me about half way through the meeting that forty teachers was all there were! I then came to understand the true difference between a school of 675 students and Thornton High which has over 2000 students. The second entertaining event occurred at 10:15, when after meeting for only 75 minutes we broke for “tea” which consisted of tea, instant coffee (the standard here) or water (no one drinks soda here L - but not to worry , I bring my own Diet Pepsi)and a massive assortment of muffins, bickies, pastries and fruit. Tea time lasted for 30 minutes followed by one more hour of meeting and that was it for teacher training. My Maths colleagues, who consist of 5 other men and 1 woman, all of whom are hysterically funny at times and incredibly helpful to this rookie, then invited me to the local pub for lunch where they each proceeded to consume two beers along with their meals before returning to work at 2 pm. We followed that with a short department meeting and about 30 minutes planning time before 3pm when they all ran out the door.

When school officially began the next day I had my first look at Aussie students – all neatly decked out in their school uniforms (Yellow shirts with grey shorts/skirts are Cardiff’s colours). The kids were organized in the outdoor assembly area and sent off with their year advisors to get their timetables (course schedules) before going off to class. My first class was a group of 7^th graders – oh my word, are they tiny compared to my THS high schoolers! They were lovely and chatty and oh so polite (Sir this and Mr. Goodman that) and asked a million questions about America. We had a great time and before I knew it (I have no sense of the bell schedule at all – I just react when it rings!) off they went to their next class. I followed this class with an off period and the next thing I knew it was lunch time and then “Sport” for the afternoon. Apparently every Wednesday the kids finish after three classes and then do Sport for the afternoon. The choices they have are wonderful ranging from surfing and swimming to golf to snooker to indoor games and so on. What a great system!

My classroom

Thursday and Friday were normal days and I finally got to meet the rest of my classes. I have another year 7, a year 9 level 3 (yes, they do tracking here – level 1 being the strongest - I’ll let all you educators know how well it works after I get a better sense of it), a year 10 level 4 (almost the lowest and it shows!), a year 11 General Maths (also a low group but older and more willing to work) and finally a year 8 level 1 (these were Prue’s favorites and clearly will be mine too).

The biggest challenge up until today has been the heat. It has been fairly moderate here since we returned from New Zealand but this week (naturally, as school is resuming) someone turned up the furnace. The daily temps were well above 90 degrees and sadly there is no air conditioning in the building. With my office and classroom both being on the 2^nd floor, the room temperatures were easily over 85 degrees – not to mention that the humidity here is constantly between 65 and 80%. It was a trifle embarrassing to be standing at the board or leaning over a student’s desk and be dripping sweat off of my shiny head! Every time I’d finish a class I would go back to the office to sit under one of the ceiling fans and just as I would dry off it would be back to class for another sweat-fest. The kids were extremely gracious about it and one little bloke was kind enough to ask:

“Sir, do you find it a bit hot here?” I could not help but crack up at that one and just wipe my head and move on. Thankfully last night a rain front moved in and it cooled to around 78 degrees. As I sit and write this on Friday evening, it has been pouring for last two hours and we have probably had over 2 inches of rain just tonight. Hopefully my body will acclimate before it heats up again here – otherwise I will just grin and bear it for another month until it begins to cool off here (all the way down to the 60’s I hear!) and bring a towel for wiping in the mean time.

So I can conclude with these thoughts: Teachers and students in Australia are much the same as in the US. Just like my colleagues at home, the teachers are committed, creative and sincerely involved in giving students the best possible education. The administrators still administrate and the teachers still want to be left alone to teach. The students, while maybe a bit more polite than some of our kids, would still rather be on vacation than back in school. The facility itself is not nearly as modern as most of the schools in the US, but the basic underpinnings are identical.

The Quad

The final story I will share highlights what may be the most significant difference I have noticed so far. The principal, in her address to the teachers on the first day, brought in a video from a speech she had attended in 2006 given by an Australian educator named Dr. Paul Brock, who has a fascinating story in his own right, and who has an incurable disease and a compelling message. Our principal’s message was: We must as educators, teach our students not only to be academically capable but equally as important, to be morally aware and actively involved in the social world around us. I loved it! Finally a principal that sincerely encourages teachers to educate the “whole child” as opposed to exclusively focusing on data and testing proficiency as the cure for all ills. Below is the link to Dr. Brock’s speech for those of you with the time and interest:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/amid-apathy-a-voice-of-sanity/2006/04/14/1144521506024.html

Blessings on you all from Down Under,

Mark