ANZAC day and more!

Hello!

Hope you are all enjoying the spring weather in the US. Since I've been back from Australia the weather here has been pretty sunny which has been great! However, fall is definitely in the air! Today my co-workers were absolutely freezing and were going on about how winter is definitely here, which made me laugh since it was just in the low 60s. There are definitely different expectations of what winter is over here. Anyway, here is a bit of a recap about what I have done since Australia:

Sunday April 25 was Anzac day which is pretty much the equivalent of Memorial Day in the US. Here is some history about Anzac day (from www.anzac.govt.nz):

On 25 April 1915, eight months into the First World War, Allied soldiers landed on the shores of the Gallipoli peninsula. This was Turkish territory that formed part of Germany's ally, the Ottoman Empire. The Allied forces encountered unexpectedly strong resistance from the Turks, and both sides suffered enormous losses (a third of New Zealand soliders died).The forces from New Zealand and Australia, fighting as part of the ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps), played an important part in the Gallipoli campaign. New Zealand soldiers distinguished themselves with their courage and skill, establishing an enduring bond with the Australians they fought alongside. Although Anzac Day, the anniversary of the first day of conflict, does not mark a military triumph, it is a reminder of an important episode in New Zealand's history. Great suffering was caused to a small country by the loss of so many of its young men. But the Gallipoli campaign showcased attitudes and attributes - bravery, tenacity, practicality, ingenuity, loyalty to King and comrades - that helped New Zealand define itself as a nation, even as it fought unquestioningly on the other side of the world in the name of the British Empire. After Gallipoli, New Zealand had a greater confidence in its distinct identity, and a greater pride in the international contribution it could make. And the mutual respect earned during the fighting formed the basis of the close ties with Australia that continue today.

Anzac day is celebrated in both New Zealand and Australia. While the reason Anzac day was created was primarily for the Gallipoli war, today is serves as a general memorial day for all New Zealanders who have served and are serving in the army. I went to the Auckland Domain for the parade and memorial service and found it to be really interesting. NZ's armed forces are quite small so I was not sure what to expect. First there was a parade when all veterans marched into the domain. Then there were a few speakers and songs. Some of the service was in Maori and it just reminded me of how much Maori is a part of the national identity.

Everything else in Auckland has been going pretty well. My class is really interesting (but still really overwhelming with the insane amount of people - I thought I would be used to it by now but am still surprised). In my tutorial (discussion group) last week, it struck me how New Zealanders are much less inclined to speak out in group discussions. We were broken into small groups to discuss a hand-out and I felt like I kept jumping in to answer different questions, while the NZ-ers in my group, liked having more time to think about the questions and would then raise their comments in a much more laid back manner. This just reinforced what I had noticed in my geography class and at my internship. It's very different then what I have experienced in US classes. The UniLodge where I stay has been putting on some cool events for us which has been great. They took us Paintballing which was really fun (but also kind of painful) and just started offering free swing dance classes which was a ton of fun last week.

My internship has also been going really great! Here are my most recent reports:

Monday, April 19
Today was the first day of term 2. It was really nice to see the other teachers and the kids after being away from them for two weeks! We have a new teacher aide in the classroom who is really nice, and it’s great not being the newest member of the staff. Since it was the start of the new term, my head teacher did some reorganizing. She adjusted our schedule a bit so that we have a lot more time for learning math and English in the morning. To prepare for this I helped her organize the children’s boxes so we would be set to go. She had printed out a specific learning plan for each child for both math and English. They had these last term, but I had never seen them. It was interesting to see what each child’s specific goals were and what skills they are working towards. After fitness I worked with one child on English and was able to ask her specific questions to fulfill the activities on her goal check-list. For example, I asked her specific questions about what was happening on each page of the story and she would respond to these yes/no questions by raising her eyes or not. Then we moved on to math and I worked with the same girl and another child. For math we worked on counting numbers 1-30 using a communication device and flash cards. Then we split up and I scrambled up numbers 1-5 on a board. The child I worked with had to say what each number was on his device and then reorganize the numbers into the right order. Since he did so well on this activity, we then repeated the activity with numbers 1-6 and then 1-7. It was a really good activity. We then worked on vocabulary for a bit before morning tea. After play time, we each shared news about what we did over the vacation. Some parents had recorded what their child did on a communication device, whereas others wrote in the “news” journal and others printed our photos and wrote paragraphs. It was a lot of fun to hear about what each child did over the holidays.

Thursday April 22
Carlson Oranga classroom 2 is definitely in the swing of term 2 now! After fitness we went right into math/English. I worked one-on-one with a child and followed her personalized lesson plan pretty closely. For math we worked on organizing numbers in their correct sequence and figuring out which numbers go before and after each other. For English we worked on identifying core vocabulary pictures. Using the personalized education plans during this time of one-on-one learning is much more helpful than what we did last term. With their education plans in front of us, we can go through each activity and it gives more structure to the time that we are working with the kids. After that we had morning tea followed by play-time. Then we did topic work. During topic work the new topic for the term was introduced: sea animals. Each child was given a book from the national library about sea animals to look at. The child would then tell the other children what their book was about and the other children would get to look at the book. After lunch we worked on the computers. I was with a child who used a touch screen computer to match numbers with objects.
One thing that I have been thinking about a lot while at my internship, and specifically today, is how much the children gain from the activities we do with them. Their education plans make the education time we have with them much more effective, however I wonder how much the kids pick up from our cues vs. what they are learning. From what I have observed all of the teachers want the students to succeed. Much math and English work is done by asking students to choose between two or three options, and I’ve been noticing that many teachers can’t help but inflect their voice at the correct answer. While the teacher does not mean to do this, I think it comes from wanting the child to succeed and is just something that happens naturally. However, I wonder if the child is learning to look for these social cues and is not learning the actual material. Hopefully it is a mix of the two, but it is something that I will continue to be looking out for.

Monday April 26
Today was a fairly typical day. We were missing one child but all teachers were in. The focus has still be on getting the kids on the mats for fitness earlier so that they can move to their standing frames and move onto the academic portion of the day quicker. One of the kids is supposed to move to her standing frame first so that she has enough time in it, so that she can move from the standing frame to her chair during the academic block since she is only able to use her communication device while in her chair. Something that struck me today which I thought would be interesting to discuss here is the varying level of parental involvement with each child. Five of the six children arrive and are picked up from school via taxi driver. The other child’s mother brings and picks her son up every day. Not only does this mother provide her own son’s transportation but she toilets him in the morning and has a whole routine with him while at school before leaving. She has made an effort and knows every staff member by name. Every Monday for news she sends in a whole paragraph describing what her son did over the weekend with a few pictures attached and different ways for her son to construct sentences about his weekend activities. I heard from one of the other teachers that she used to live in Wellington and moved to Auckland specifically for the Carlson school. This level of involvement and commitment to her son’s education is really amazing and I find it to be very inspiring. Another child’s father comes in to feed her everyday during snack time. Some of the other parents write weekend updates in their “news notebooks” but I think the mother who I first described really goes above and beyond. She even printed out sea-animals for our sea animal unit we are covering in class. One of the children in my class goes to Wilson Home at least once a week every week. I am still not sure exactly what Wilson Home is but it seems to be a place that parents can send their children with special needs overnight. The teachers in my classroom do not speak highly of this place. While every child in general has varying degrees of parental involvement in their lives, it just makes me think that the progress that each child in my class makes must have a lot to do with what happens outside of the classroom.

Tuesday April 27
Today was another full day! We were able to do fitness relatively quickly today and had almost a full hour for academic block. I was working with one child on math with ordering numbers. He seemed to have trouble getting the concept, and my head teacher came over and explained the importance of modeling and repetition when working with the children. She put the correct number sequence on top of the whiteboard and had the child use that as a reference while ordering the numbers in the mismatched sequence. Then we worked on which numbers come before, between and after each other. We did topic work on sea animals where we painted our own crabs. We discussed how crabs have 8 legs, 2 pinchers and can be a red/orange color. In the afternoon we had a staff meeting which was really interesting. We discussed the children’s Individualized Education Plans. Each child has a new IEP every year, and this IEP is reviewed every 6 months. The head teacher, occupational therapist, speech/language therapist, physiotherapist and parent all go to the IEP meeting to create each child’s IEP. After looking over some of the IEPs, we discussed the changes that have been made for this term. The head teacher discussed how her main emphasis is on making sure the children finish with their fitness and move onto the academic block so we have an entire hour for math and English. We have been able to do most of the academic work in a one-on-one fashion, which has been really good. She went over how to do some of the different activities. It was really interesting hearing what the children’s skill levels actually are. She said that repetition is really key when working with the kids and also using consistent wording so that the children understand what you are asking of them. She said a lot of the time it may seem like you are just having conversations with yourself since you are asking questions and answering them yourself, but that the children get a lot out of it. One of the other TAs asked why we don’t always work with the same child to really get their learning style down. The head teacher said that it is really important for the children to work with different TAs everyday so that they get used to working, communicating and being comfortable with different people, since this is what they are expected to do in the outside world. She also said reading to the children is really good for them during transition time – which has been something that I have been doing very frequently. It was really good to have a meeting with all the staff and see how we all think the term is going!

Monday May 3
Since there are two new TAs at Oranga, we had a new staff meeting to go over how to physically work with children. This was a really great session led by the head physio at Oranga and I learned a lot. First she discussed the importance of making sure that as staff we take care of ourselves. She said that we need to be aware that we are doing physically demanding jobs and to ensure that we are not hurting ourselves. She gave us some back, abdominal and other exercises to do to strengthen ourselves and stretch out. We then discussed the necessary steps to lifting a child and doing other physical movements with them. She first had us sit and talk through the different steps that we take to stand up. It was a very interesting activity because I did not realize how many things I just automatically do and take for granted when I move. She then had each of us pretend to be a child and she came over and helped us stand up. She then pretended to be a child and we helped her stand up. The amount of support that she gave was incredible and I could tell really makes a difference. The goal is more to be moving with the child and having them do as much as they can themselves. A key part is making sure the child knows what you are expecting them to do and that you are wording your requests effectively. After that we went through the necessary steps to roll over and basically talked about the sequences that infants take from rolling to sitting to crawling to standing. Most of the children in our classes have not made it through these levels due to their physical disabilities. It was a really incredible session but just scratched the surface. She said that she hopes to lead more sessions for us soon. After the session I was hyperaware of my own movements and posture.

Tuesday May 4
The first thing we did today was weigh all of the children. Apparently every term every child must be weighed so that the base school has current weight on record. This is in case of emergencies if a child has to go to the hospital and is unable to be weighed in a timely fashion (since it takes a long time to weigh each child). The children would have to be weighed in their chairs and then their chairs weighed alone to see how much each child actually weights. The weight was all given in kilograms so I am not sure what each weight means, but the children I thought weighed the most do. The rest of the day was pretty standard. We made “fat fish” during topic time to continue our “sea animals” topic. One of the children was crying for most of the day. He was obviously upset about something but could not communicate it. At the end of the day during “Jolly Phonics” he was crying a lot so one of the teachers asked me to take him out. I tried reading to him but his screams were disrupting others so they asked me to take him outside. I just walked around with him for the remainder of the day. I tried talking to him but felt pretty uncomfortable because I was not sure exactly what I should be doing. He cried on and off for the rest of the time, but was okay when watching other children outside and when walking around. I just felt unprepared for this since I did not know how to help the child and wished that the head teachers had given me more direction. This child in general often feels left out and is constantly trying to get others to pay attention to him and look at what others are doing.

Hope all is well with you!