Threshold Thursday

Stevenson Block -- Home of the AGHS English Department

I have quickly discovered that I am completely useless after about 3:30p.m. on Thursdays. By Thursday night I’m ready to kick back, have some dinner with the flatmates, and watch re-runs of Grey’s Anatomy. While it’s not the same as watching with Tracy, this new routine suits my NZ life.

I remember the first few weeks of practicum being overwhelmingly overwhelming, and this final Professional Semester is proving to follow suit. Not only am I learning the basics -- figuring out the routines, schedules, rules, staff, students, grounds, timetable, pigeonholes – but I’m also navigating a completely new curriculum, sifting through resources in the English department, picking brains, and writing down my plans. I am trying to be mindful that this experience is about learning, and I don’t want to get lost under all the paperwork.

I have now met ALL of my students and spent a few classes with each group. In these early days I can sense a great difference between the groups, not only in terms of their expected differences because of their ages, but it just seems that each class has its own personality. For example, my Year 9s are very cooperative and sweet; my Year 10s are chatty, and energetic (and perhaps a bit tiring)!; and the Year 11s are particularly interested in life on the other side of the world.

Each class sits at about 30 students, leaving very little room in the classroom to breathe. Seating plans are an integral part of keeping the chaos to a minimum, and to this point all the seating plans have been designed according to the alphabetized class list. However, a seating plan change for my Year 10s is in the works (it seems that the chattiest girls are also clustered around the same surnames!). The other difficulty with my Year 10 class is that I have 4 Alisha’s (all spell their name differently), 3 Emma’s, and 2 Jessica’s. Identifying students is kind of like a process of elimination!

I’ve volunteered for a number of positions around Avonside:

- a Professional Learning Group to discuss professional development and collaboration with teachers from a variety of subject areas;
- Welfare faculty to address and resolve issues related to students and staff at Avonside.
- Staff sponsor for the Junior Tennis team. We meet once a week to compete with other teams from Christchurch, and are currently making arrangements for a weekly practice.

I’m also sitting in on the weekly meetings for new and provisionally registered teachers. The insights into the budding teaching life of NZ teachers is informative and I suspect a lot of similarities (particularly frustrations with classroom management) exist between the early experiences of teachers all over the globe.

So, as Threshold Thursday comes to a close, I’m taking a moment to reflect and appreciate all the new ideas, people, and opportunities that are coming my way.

Thanks for reading,

Larissa