1st Day at M.E.S.S.

Today was our first day at Morayfield East State School! We got to see the campus, meet our teachers and class, and spend about two hours in the classroom. I met up with my teacher in “The Hall.” (It’s like an auditorium for us). The Year 3 – Year 7 students were having “Parade.” Australian School have Parade each week. It’s basically like a school assembly. A lot of times it’s
ran by the Year 7 students and administration. They take time to talk about things that are going on in the school, behavior, student recognitions, and singing Australia’s National Anthem.

Before my on-site advisor dropped me off with my class, she pulled me aside to discuss with me how different my class is. She said that Mrs. Brett (my cooperating teacher) is an extraordinary person. She explained how extreme my class is due to the behavior issues. My advisor said that this class is probably the worst one in the entire school, but that Mrs. Brett goes above and beyond to meet their needs. So I wasn’t surprised when we walked back to the classroom to see a few boys jumping on each other, throwing each other off the side walk, and yelling so loudly the whole way back.

Mrs. Brett introduced me to the class and I was able to hop right in and help with their spelling lesson. I sat with two students to keep them on task, which was helpful in guiding me to where the ability level of this class is at. Mrs. Brett even took time to explain to me which students are
on which levels. Out of twenty-five students she pointed out three students who are identified with Special Education, five students who are being assessed, and one student who has anger management issues. On top of that, as we were talking she pointed out multiple students that have troubles staying on task.

I had noticed the seating arrangement of the classroom as soon as I entered the room. At first, it really bugged me because all the students were spread out from each other but not even in rows. However, once I observed the students’ behavior I quickly realized they were all spread out in
attempt to keep them from talking to one another and distracting each other. Today was the first day she was trying the stop light behavior cards with the class. She started them all out on green and said if they could make it an hour and fifteen minutes, they would get a reward. She told me that this was the best day they had had so far. So, their reward today was a game. Mrs. Brett said that if taking ten minutes to play a game after every lesson would get these students to do their work and behave properly, that it would be the savior for their year. She had the students move their desks to the walls and drew a soccer field on the carpet with chalk. The students got into teams and played “Floor Soccer” with tennis balls.

After we were finished at Morayfield East, we headed back to Uni for lunch. We had the opportunity to talk together about what we saw this morning at Morayfield East with the Uni staff. This was helpful because we all got an idea of what is going on in the rest of the Year levels at this school. Then we joined another Uni class. This one was Art. The instructor had six stations set up of different kinds of prints we could do. We had a nice time playing around there but it was nothing too exciting.

One piece of big news is concerning “Holiday.” At the beginning of this year, Australia changed their school holiday schedule around. Instead of the country taking ten days off for Easter break, they are taking a full two weeks off. Unfortunately, this means we spend one less week in our
classrooms while we are here. Since there is a bit of a money shuffle in the mix of that, the Uni is going to be paying for us to take the train into the city and attend a Rugby game two weeks from tomorrow. Rugby is a big deal here too. Our host dad, Bruce, tells Kari and me about it when it is on the tele (TV). All Aussies and New Zealanders have specific teams that they cheer for and
there is no swaying from your team.

Anyway, so since we now have another week for taking trips, we had all the more reason to sit down as a group to plan day trips, weekend trips, and other excursions while we are here. All of us went to Melanie’s home stay to talk about dates and ideas for where we want to go. We came up with dates for a trip to Sydney, going to Moreton Island, taking a Riverboat ride in
Brisbane, going to the Gold Coast, and the Sunshine Coast. We pretty much have something planned each weekend and every other day during Holiday. I just can’t wait for these adventures!

Also, you know our whole “No shirt, no shoes, no service,” idea in the States? Believe it or not, that doesn’t quite hold true in all civilized parts of the world. Kari and I have seen multiple adults and children here walking in the mall, in parking lots, and along sidewalks who aren’t wearing shoes! For a country who pushes so much safety for the public, you would imagine they would have some type of health standards in place as well!
Australia: Shoes optional ;)

Indicator – blinker on a car
Full stop – period at the end of a sentence. (That would
have been nice to know before I worked with my students for thirty minutes
today when they were writing sentences.)
Jersey – a sweater