Kapiti Island

This Saturday I went to Kapiti Island with Barb.  It was wonderful to leave the city and see a bit more of this beautiful country.  I am really looking forward to having the time and energy to travel.  I cannot believe how fast time has been going here.  We went for a hike to the top of the island, stopping along the way to listen and look for birds.  We also talked with a lot of different people from all over the country.  It was really amazing to be outside and walking through the woods.  The birds are so loud here.  I got to see so many different kinds of birds and I really enjoyed learning about them.  On the way down we saw a Kaka while we were standing and listening to birds.  In came down on the ground and I was excitedly taking some great close pictures.  It then flew unexpectedly onto my backpack.  I freaked out and Barb and I had a great laugh over it.  Apparently it is quite common for them to land on you.  I’ve never seen a parrot in the wild before and it was amazing.  

My friend the Kaka!

Barb and I on the boat trip back.  She has been a wonderful host.

Just to give you an idea of what the woods looked like.  AMAZING!  I wish you could hear the noise that the birds make.  Barb described the morning birdsong as, "the dawn chorus," I think that's a very beautiful way to describe it.  I cannot wait to hear it while I am out tramping (backpacking) in May.  

How they get the boats in and out of the water.  They literally just attach them to these tractors and back them into the ocean.  I have never seen anything quite like it.  

I am still incredibly busy at school.  For all of you slogging through Dead Week and Finals back home, let me tell you know, it has NOTHING on Student Teaching.  I am plunging into a labyrinth of school demands and requirements for my practicum.  

Challenging Cultural Differences

I want to start this post off by saying, I am safe and I am not writing this to cause concern.  When I decided to write a blog while I am here I wanted it to be honest, and this experience made me think a lot about my own culture.  Below is an excerpt from my teaching journal.  If you just want to know the happy stuff about my trip, go ahead and skip this bit, it is simply some food for thought.  

After an assembly during spell 4 on Friday the assistant principal, who is our acting principal because Bruce is in China, came into the hall to tell us there had been a bomb at the school.  Apparently a student she expelled earlier that day came back with a bomb.  During this assembly the wing had been evacuated and the rest of the school had been informed.  She also said the fire department and police had cleared the building and we were safe to go to class.  And that was it.  Only I didn’t feel safe at all, I felt terrified.  At home violence in schools is a terrible reality.  One as a future educator I have taken very seriously.  At home even the threat of a bomb is a big deal.  This would have meant a school lockdown while the suspect is being apprehended, and the end of school for the day.  Also tons of media attention and a lot of very scared parents.  That was all of the information I went into the last spell of my day with.  I had my difficult year 11 class and they came in joking about it.  Trying to keep cultural differences in mind, I explained to them that where I am from violence in schools is a reality, and it’s terrifying.  I just asked them to please not joke about it and that the school had said we were safe so there was not cause for concern anymore.  But it was hard, because I felt VERY concerned.  I almost started crying in front of them.  After school Mr. Douglass came to talk to me about it, I think to make me feel better.  He explained that the bomb was simply a bottle full of gas with some nails in it, and it was never going to explode.  He also said that the students probably just wanted to cause trouble, and were never going to blow up the school.  Honestly though, that didn’t make me feel better about it at all.  Just because the kids involved didn’t know what they were doing does not mean the issue should be dismissed.  In my mind just the fact that a student put anything resembling a bomb in the school has a very clear and scary implication.  It means that someone had the intention to cause harm to the school, students, and staff.  The staff and students gave the general idea that this just wasn’t a big deal.  I kept trying to get my head around the idea that this country as a culture has never had to face the deaths of students and school teachers, and that changes the perceived level of danger.  I felt like I was being overdramatic about it.  Even in trying to explain my reaction to Barb I really struggled to connect my perspective with hers.  The way I think about it is so different that I am not sure people that do not share the cultural history of Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, and a whole slew of smaller incidents of violence can understand.  After talking to people from home about it I feel like my response was validated.  It is an unfortunate and painful reality of my culture, and I hope that people here never have to understand it.  

I think I am still processing this in some ways.  It isn't that I am worried about anything going wrong, or that I was ever really in any danger.  The way the people here responded to the situation created one of the most significant moments of culture shock I have experienced here.  I felt like no one around me understood my thinking at all.  It is one thing to explain to people why you feel afraid, but quite another for them to understand.  My Kiwi colleagues and students were respectful of my feelings, but they just didn't get it.  And like I said, I hope that they never do.  

Constantly I am faced with small realizations of my own identity as an American.  In the last few years I have grown to feel a sense of pride about being from the North-west, but I haven't ever really considered what it means to be a member of my country.  I know the basics, I get it, but traveling has a way of making you realize the subtitles.   

Some Fun Things

Last weekend was lovely.  I started off with a kayak trip with some of the staff down the Hutt River.  The kayaks belong to the school and have presumably been buried in storage somewhere since the late 80's.  I got invited Friday morning, so naturally I was wearing a dress and longing for my board-shorts and sperrys waiting for water fun in my closet.  No matter, I borrowed some loaner PE gear and hopped in a Subaru headed to the river.  Our trip was around 3 hours and no one was home in time for dinner.  It was wonderful though, to be out on the water and enjoying the river I go over every day on my way to school.  I really enjoyed the kayaking as well.  It is such a different way to interact with the water than a sailboat.  Went over some small rapids, and did a lot of scooting over rocks.  Wonderful afternoon and a great start to the weekend.  

 

Saturday I went out to Evans Bay to help with the learn to sail class again.  I just did some coaching from the markboat this time, but it was still great to be out there.  It feels really good to teach something I have a lot of experience teaching.  I know someday I will hopefully feel that way about English, but there is just nothing quite so wonderful as sharing sailing with people.

After sailing, Remy, the coach for the day, drove me up Mt. Victoria on his way home.  I am never sure if it is ok to take people up on this kind of taxi service because it's a bit of a cultural difference.  This is the 2nd time someone from the club has driven me around after sailing.  Last weekend a different coaches wife, Sue, drove me into town for ice cream.  Anyway I found myself at the top of a very large hill...erm mountain....in the middle of the city.  It was beautiful and seeing Wellington from that angle made the harbor suddenly seem so much smaller and less daunting.  Just full of exciting new places to check out.  Remy pointed out a lot of landmarks and told me about some local hikes.  He also kindly pointed me in the direction of home, "pretty much walk down the hill and keep going down until you get to water," right sounds good.

As I was sitting there I could hear the reggae music from the city way down below.  After I ate lunch I tromped down the hill and through the city to the train station.  It's in about the middle of the picture to give you an idea, so my tromp was around 3 hours long.  I loved walking through Wellington and just running into things.  It reminded me at lot of the way I stumbled through NY a few years ago.  Only I am so much less afraid now, and so much more ready to explore.  It turns out the music was coming from a Jim Beam event at the waterfront.  I have NEVER seen so many wasted teenagers at 3pm in the afternoon.  The drinking age here is 18, which apparently really means like 16.  A bit of a culture shock for sure.

The weekend ended and I went back to school for another week.  Only the Kiwi germs took me out for two days this week.  I finally got back to school today.

Things haven't honestly gotten much easier down here.  This is by far the most I have ever challenged myself as an educator and person.  My weekdays are consumed by teaching, but I think that's how it is supposed to be right now.  I am learning and changing every day.  More than anything each hour in the classroom gives me more confidence in myself as an educator.  In a short few weeks I will be a certified English Teacher.  So hard to believe it is actually so close.

The past three weeks have taught me so much about myself.  I think the biggest lesson is to ask for help, and accept that it's ok to make mistakes.  For me these are things I have always known, but never really understood.  Truthfully I am learning to balance holding myself to the high standards I have always expected, and living the rich and full life I have learned to value.  I really love teaching, genuinely, or there is no way I would have made it through the last couple of weeks.  The English Department at Heretaunga has done a wonderful job looking after me and I cannot imagine what the last three weeks would have been like without them.  Lisa described them as, "a village raising a child" and I consider myself lucky to be that child.