Let the semester begin...

Hi again,

I know I just updated the blog yesterday, but since my return to Auckland much has happened so I figured I would keep you all posted! Semester one started yesterday and with it my class and internship began.

Due to the way my program works I am only taking one class this semester and doing a 250 hour internship. I am going to be doing my internship monday mornings and then all day Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. I am taking a Personality Psychology class, which I was really excited for because I have honestly missed psychology. However when I walked into the classroom I was completely overwhelmed because it is a class of 380 people! To put that into perspective, the largest class I have ever been in at Brandeis is 120. Quite a difference! Anyway due to the large number of students, the professor kept telling us that we cannot e-mail him because it is just not possible for him to respond to all of our e-mails. Therefore a discussion board is set up online for us to ask the tutors questions. We have a 2 hour class every Monday then a 1 hour on Wednesday and a 1 hour 20 person tutorial (mine is Wednesday afternoon). Then the professor moved on to scare us about how difficult the course is going to be, and although it is a level two class and I have been taking more advanced ones at Brandeis for the past year, he succeeded in scaring me. Furthermore, he informed us that we should begin working on an essay that is due May 17th immediately. However, I think it will be a good course and put a lot of other psych that I've learned into perspective since we will be learning about a lot of the big name theorists. It was nice to be in a psych class again!

I'll get to my internship in a minute, but a quick word about transportation: I took the bus on my first morning and got completely lost going from my bus stop to the internship. It was supposed to be a 15 minute walk and although I gave myself plenty of extra time, I got lost and ended up in a coffee shop with my map asking where a street was. The people working there did not know, but one of the people who had just bought a coffee helped me figure it out and then gave me a ride there - it was SO nice of her! I thanked her a million times and ended up at my first day on time!! Anyway, the buses are pretty expensive and the schedule is a little off so as of today I am officially the owner of a bike!! It is red and fantastic! Anyways onto my actual internship. As part of my internship requirements (since it counts as a class), I need to write a bi-weekly account of what happens at my internship. Below is my first entry. I think I am going to put my entries on my blog in case you guys want to read them, but don't feel like you need to!

My internship is in one of the Carlson School for Cerebral Palsy satellite classrooms at the Oranga Primary School. The Carlson School is a school for children with cerebral palsy. The base school is where most of the children attend, but those who are higher functioning are given the option of attending one of the two Carlson satellite schools. There are two Carlson classrooms in Oranga. The classroom that I am interning in has six children, one head teacher and three teacher aides. Two of the children are girls and the other four are boys. I was specifically interested in working in this classroom because I would love to see how the children in the Cerebral Palsy classroom are integrated with the mainstream children. Going into the internship I was a bit nervous because I have never worked with anyone with cerebral palsy, but mainly excited about this opportunity. One of the reasons I had decided to come to New Zealand was because I heard that they are well known for their special education. This internship seems like a great way for me to learn about special education in New Zealand and incorporate myself into the society.

The first day of my internship was a bit overwhelming but fun. It was not a typical day though: not all of the children were in attendance and we went swimming in the morning. Every monday morning the children go swimming as part of their physical therapy routine. Only four of the children were able to come swimming. We first had to fasten all the children into the vans which was quite difficult, but eventually everyone was strapped up and ready to go. The children were taken into the pool two at a time by the physical therapists and did various exercises. Since I did not have my "togs" (bathing suit), I stayed on the site and was with the children who were not in the pool. I still do not really know how to communicate with children with cerebral palsy since although they are very limited in how they can respond, their comprehension level is higher. Hopefully I will learn the correct way to do this. It was interesting to watch how different movements in the water were helpful to the children, as well as the different devices which exist to help bring the children into the water. After they all went swimming we went back to the school and I had to leave to go to my class at the university. It was a good first day but it made me realize how much I need to get used to wheelchairs since they are a very prominent aspect of these children's lives.

Today was a more typical day in the classroom and was my first full day. However, one of the teacher aides were not there so the classroom was a bit short-staffed. We started off with fitness which consisted of getting the children out of their wheelchairs and placing them on the floor. Then each teacher was in charge of one child and was basically stretching their muscles. Since they were short-staffed, I was trying to learn and do along as the teacher was doing the exercises - it was really hard work! Hopefully I will get the hang of it soon, but I just kept feeling like I was hurting the child I was working with. Then one of the children told us using his device and with the help of his speech therapist about a camp for kids with special needs that he had just been to last week. It was really cool to hear about the camp from his perspective and the device that he uses is awesome! I didn't realize how great technology was, but it seems to be quite advanced in the cerebral palsy world. Then we had morning tea and it was shocking for me to see how much effort goes into their eating. The children vary in the amount of help they need to eat, but for all it seems to be a big process. I mainly just watched a child who is pretty good at feeding himself and just had to adjust his fork a bit. The children then went outside for 15 minutes. Then we learned about the differences between carnivores and herbivores, but most of the children were tired. We then moved onto lunch followed by a 30 minute break while the children were outside again. Four mainstream children came to help bring the cerebral palsy children outside and played with them during the recess. I found this to be so exciting! Hopefully I will get a chance to observe their interactions and to learn about how this program is set up. Also one of the children went to a mainstream classroom for part of the day - hopefully I'll be able to accompany him one time to see what that is like! Then we had "jolly phonics" where the language teacher sings with both classrooms about the different sounds the letters make. Today one of the letters was "s" which was for "snake." As we slithered "s" and make snake motions, the language teacher turned to me and exclaimed "oh Lara you must have seen a snake before!" to which I responded a startled "yes." The other teachers got so excited and made me act out what I would do when I see a snake. It was so strange for me but I realized that they have never seen snakes before because there are no snakes in New Zealand! That was the end of the day and I was surprised at how fast it flew by.

I noticed a few differences between how the school is run in NZ vs how they are in the US. Back in the US I have been in many preschool and elementary school classrooms. First of all every child wears a uniform, which is a remnant of British influence here, but it was really interesting to see every child wearing the same clothes and hats. The entire structure of the day is also different since they have a snack time followed by a short recess and then an hour later have lunch followed by a longer recess. It makes the day go really fast, and I can't imagine US schools giving two recess'. One of the things that was hardest for me to watch is that a lot of the time the children are just sitting there in their wheelchairs and the teachers are paying attention to another child or doing something else. I do not know if this is common for classrooms with children with cerebral palsy, or if it is typical of NZ classrooms, but from my experience, most US teachers do not allow a child to sit there without being intellectually stimulated. Another difference is just the nature of the teachers in the classroom: they seem to be way more reserved and less welcoming than what I am used to in the US. They are very nice, just not as overly friendly as I am used to. I also did not receive as much direction from the teacher as I am used to. Overall, it was a good first couple of days but just very overwhelming. Hopefully it will get easier!

That's all for now!
Love from Auckland!!