Just a Couple More Weeks

A Few Things Left to Tell You!

Hello Elementary Friends,

It is hard to believe that Mitch and I will leave our 2016 home in just a couple weeks.  We have such mixed feelings about it!  We are eager to get home to family and friends, but we will have some bittersweet good-byes to say before we get there.  We have made some Aussie friends for life, and we will miss them so much.  We have been telling folks that we now have an excuse to come back!  

The past week has consisted of lots and lots of school work!  Any of my teacher friends know what life is like at an elementary school during the last three weeks of May.  Well, that is what I am experiencing now.  We are finishing up end of year assessments, reports to parents, preparing for our End of Year Presentations (awards assemblies), lots of special activities and programs, and trying to stay focused on a bit of remaining learning until the last bell rings!  Whew!  Mitch can tell you that I have been falling asleep around 8:00 each evening for the past week or so!

Taking 54 Students to Swim Lessons for the Past Two Weeks!

I have shared on several instances how impressed I am with the primary education programs that are in place for children ages 5-12 in Australia.  I definitely have some ideas to take home and share with my district and school in Colorado.

The past two weeks I have accompanied 54 Year 2 students each day for a Swimming Program provided by the NSW Department of Education.  I was fascinated with the organization of the program and with the increase in skills of the students over the course of the 10 lessons.  Here is a bit of history of the NSW Swimming and Water Safety Program:

Aquatic activities play a significant role in the lifestyle of many Australians. Therefore, it is essential that students are aware of the importance of water safety and are equipped with the necessary skills of safety and survival.

The NSW Department of Education and Communities, School Swimming and Water Safety Program commenced in NSW Government primary schools in 1954. It provides students with Government funded free swimming and water safety instruction. It is the responsibility of the participating schools to meet pool entry and transport costs.

The School Swimming and Water Safety Program is a learn to swim and water safety program that develops water confidence and provides students with basic skills in water safety and survival for students in Years 2 and 3.  The Program operates daily lessons of 45 minutes over 10 conseOncutive school days. The intensive nature of the lessons provide the most beneficial student outcomes. 

The students received report card certificates outlining (in detail) the skills they possess, are learning, or next steps of instruction.  The vast majority of them are now considered pool safe and can swim 25-50 meters and can tread water for at least two minutes.  I was very proud of the accomplishments of my students!

My Visit to Truscott Street Public School

On Wednesday of this past week I was fortunate to visit a school about 20 minutes away which is home to a special supportive education program for students with disabilities.  I was eager to see it as I am interested in special programming due to the Center for Children with Autism at my school back home.  This center is a traditional neighborhood school with the addition of the special unit.  Three classrooms are dedicated to the program along with three teachers and several support staff.  I was especially impressed with the following during my day at Truscott:

1.  The teachers are highly qualified, and have extremely high expectations for their students.

2.  The students (some with significant disabilities) seemed to know exactly what they were supposed to do - routines and procedures were clearly in place.
3.  The principal has established an inclusive learning environment where the special program is seen as a integral part of the school as a whole.

4.  Academic instruction was a top priority in the classes that I saw - life skills were also taught, but not to the exclusion of teaching the students how to read, write, and understand mathematics.

5.  The regular education teachers are very positive about the program at their school - they welcome the inclusion of the students into their classrooms and programming.

6.  The regular students of the school are also eager to welcome the special students and play with them at recess and accept them into their groups during class time.

7.  The support staff are highly competent and trained in how to work with the students - a few have been involved with the program for many years.

I was very appreciative of the opportunity to see such a positive learning environment for all of the students at Truscott Street!

What Are Possum Bridges? 

Each day as I drive to work I travel through urban streets and then I come into a rather "bushy area" known as Lane Cove National Park.  When I first learned that I would travel through a National Park on my way to work each day, I was intrigued.  What intrigued me more were these rope bridges suspended over the road.  I did not know what they were for the longest time, so one day I asked my friend, Anne, to explain it to me.  What she told me was rather amazing - they are possum bridges.  The constituents of the area decided that there were entirely too many possums being killed on the road, so they constructed these over-the-road bridges so that they could cross the road safely.  Of course, it is interesting to me that the possums could learn to use the bridge instead of the road. What, does the smartest possum instruct his friends how to use the bridge?  Anyway - I did a bit of research on these possum bridges, and here is what I found out:

A new conservation measure designed to reduce the number of possums killed on Sydney's suburban streets is proving to be a success.  A scientist from Macquarie University, Tracey Adams, is using her Masters degree to study the impact of vehicles on ringtail and brushtail possums.

She embarked on her mission two years ago, after noticing an increasing number of dead possums on her way to work on Sydney's upper north shore.  Ms Adams has pinpointed roadkill hotspots using data including lighting, vegetation, speed limit, weather and even moon phases collected over the past two years.

She says Lady Game Drive at Lindfield is the most dangerous area for possums on the north shore. "One possum per day is dying on a single 40-kilometre stretch of road," she said.  "I think that the numbers that we're seeing on these roads aren't sustainable."

But with the help of the local council, two suspended possum bridges at a cost of $5,000 each have been installed on the road.  Made of mesh and steel, the tunnel bridges allow possums to walk through, or on top of the bridge.

Here are some photos of the possum bridges on Lady Game Drive - my pathway to school each day!

Possum Bridge Over Lady Game Drive

Possums Using the Bridge at Night

Christmas in Summer!

Finally, here is a contribution by Mitch of his views/observations of the Christmas season being celebrated in summer in 90 degree heat!

I guess it's difficult to break with holiday traditions of any sort after having established them over a period of many years.  The rituals and behaviors we establish for ourselves can transcend the Christmas season and become a way we measure the passing of the years.  There is a great deal of comfort in this and the pattern it gives to our lives. Removing all that is familiar will disrupt this pattern and place you in an alternate universe.  Such is Christmas in Australia.

It's fortunate that the holiday season is coming at the end of our Southern Hemisphere experience rather than at the beginning as it's afforded us the opportunity to experience a year's worth of differences in the process.  We're used to everything being on the "other side of the road."  Otherwise the culture shock might have been just too much.

Having grown up in Southeast Texas I never expected an White Christmas.  It was something that we heard about but never really believed existed - like unicorns or Camelot or color television.  If we were able to have a non-air-conditioned Christmas it was our version of the Polar Express.  Even this, however, failed to prepare me for a summer in Australia sort of Christmas.  Temperatures near 100 degrees, Santa on the beach, mangoes, Christmas barbecues, schools letting out for end of the year summer vacations - it all seems a bit surreal.  I've even got a bit of a suntan.  I never tan.

These physical changes are difficult to accept but the cultural ones are even more challenging.  I don't think there a great deal of an Australian Christmas culture that has developed over the years.  What I do see is the adoption by Australians of British and American popular culture surrounding the holidays.  This would be okay if British and American popular culture could be easily adapted to the Southern Hemisphere but it can't.

Snowflakes and reindeer and icicles simply don't translate.  There is no relevance in singing "Let It Snow" in a place where it will never snow.  It's comical and a bit sad to see storefronts decorated with snowmen and winter-in-New-England scenes. Walking through a mall and hearing Jingle Bells playing over the sound system while in your shorts and tee shirt having just come in from the hottest day in 7 years is so counter-intuitive as to make you feel you are in some black hole time warp sort of thing.  It's just not right.

This being Australia, however, it wouldn't be right if it didn't include a final attempt to kill me by some weird and exotic method.  I never thought the end would come dressed in red and white,  Cause of death - Santa Claus.

Having made the mistake of not being in the room when the end of school/Christmas celebrations were being planned, I was selected to be Santa for the Kindergarten to Year 2 class event.  Asking me to do so was superflous.  I could have made a pretty strong argument that I wouldn't be the best choice for any number of reasons, not the least of which being the fact that I am the only person most of these kids know who has an American accent.  Detection of my Santa fraud would be sure and certain.  No matter - it was decided that it had to be me.

The next problem, at least from my perspective, is the fact that the celebration will be held outside, in the summer, in 95+ degree heat, in a Santa suit.  I'm sort of experienced in the Santa suit thing having done so many times at Karla's schools over the years.  One constant that I have discovered is that regardless of the school or the location or the weather outside, Santa suits are always their own little doorways to hell with regard to temperature.  It can be -10 degrees outside in the middle of a blizzard and I will be sweating bullets in the Santa suit.  Doing it in summer outdoors and in the semi-tropics is not going to be pretty.

However, some lovely faculty members took pity on me and helped me arrive at an alternative plan -

Aussie Santa!  While I still have to do the beard and stocking cap thing, Aussie Santa wears shorts and a luau shirt instead of crushed velvet and fur.  I think this will make the whole thing tolerable, if not totally comfortable.  And as I'm doing this 2 days before we fly home I think Karla is relieved that she won't have to use a sponge to mop me up and put me into a bottle for the trip home.  Ho, ho, ho....see you soon.