Day 13 Prac EDB031 ED90 sem1 2005

I am slack in not blogging this.

Day 12 Prac EDB031 ED90 sem1 2005

Coming soon

Happy finger muscles

The muscles in my fingers returns after bouldering during study break. Starting to feel pumped a bit even though what I did was pretty light. I am happy. I can feel the endorphins kicking in. As I typed this in the computer lab, I can smell the sweet scent of a woman. My sences are enhanced. I am on a high.

The Return

I stopped by the cliffs on the way to Shorinji Kempo (Jedi) training to see Marcia as she said she would be there. She wasn't there, but I met Cho and Damian instead. Damian looks well and resembles Monkey a bit with his sideburns and gaunt face. I did a bit of kicking while they climbed Halva. After they have finished, I went to Jedi training before Marcia had arrived if she was to show up at all. On the way, Josh saw me and we chatted a bit. I walked away feeling good. Maybe the place you really belong is where people still remember your name even though you don't remember theirs. I felt like I wanted to climb again, but this time I will bring with me the Zen philosophy which is what my climbing always lack.

After Jedi training, I don't feel as tired or stiff as last week. I felt that my power and flexibility had returned, but my concentration strayed a bit. Now all I have to do is my assignments then I will feel free again. If I succeed, then my mind will feel free to fall as I will free-fall in order to get back to my best climbing days in the past.

Day 11 Prac EDB031 ED90 sem1 2005

Don't want to think, will blog this later - next year, maybe.

Day 10 Prac EDB031 ED90 sem1 2005

I went to the "new arrivals" class today. "New Arrivals" means refugees.The teacher in charge tends to also take on a social worker role. She seems to have a lot of visitors in the morning. Mostl of them being parents or volunteers who want to assist in one or another. While she was talking to the visitors, Samuel a student from Barundi picked out a book to read. I urged him to read it to me. He was a bit shy but he seems to be able to complete the task and comprehend what the book was about. I then did some flash card words with Juma another African kid and Nagis the bright Afghan 4th grader. After that, we continue on with the multiplication table. During this time, the kids go in and out to their mainstream class for music. They are reluctant to do so. I found this strange as kids from these cultures should be really into music. I spoke to the ESL teacher about this later and she said that our music is a bit different from theirs. Their music is more hands-on and emphasis is more on beat and rhythm - the way music should be. I have to agree with her on that.

The process in which these people come into the country is through The Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA). They are first interview by The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). Once they are on the short list they are then screened for any medical problems and character checks are performed on the adults. If they are medically unfit such as mentally handicapped then they are rejected purely for the reason that they will be a financial burden on the host country. However, if it is just minor physical impairment then that can be overlooked.

On arrival, they are located in temporary housing owned by DIMIA for four weeks until they find permanent housing. The housing cost is subsidised and they will have to pay back the loan in the future. During that four weeks, the parents can choose to either send or not send their kids to school. The Multicultural Development Association (MDA) is subcontracted by DIMIA to established these people by registering them with Centrelink; obtaining a bank account, medicare etc. Trauma counselling is referred to the Queensland Program of Assistance to Survivors of Torture and Trauma (QPAST). QPAST also perform a physical and mental health check on these people upon arrival.

The New Arrivals Program has been operating since three and a half year ago and has recently received it's eighty-third student. fifty percent of those are from Africa. It operates from the morning to lunchtime. In the afternoon, the kids stay in their mainstream class. This is all part of mainstreaming. The family are welcome to visit and are encouraged to do so by the teacher. This holistic approach is so that the parents can become involve in their children's schooling. In the past during the assimilation era, parents of refugee children were not so involve in the schooling of their children. The long term effect of this combine with the assimilist policy is that there is cultural clashes leading to the displacement of identity of the children. Another positive component of the program is the support staff. They either have the refugee experience or they bring with them a similar culture to the children which the main teacher do not have. The children's original cultures and languages are valued. A lot of these chidren may speak up to five languages, however they may be illiterate as they may not have formal schooling. In Africa itself, the languages are mainly oral. The children stayed in the New Arrivals Program until they reach bandscale 3 or up to the teacher's jurisdiction before going into an ESL class. In the first few weeks of ESL class, the ESL teacher usually take them on a one-to-one basis until she feels that they are ready for group instructions.

School uniforms, lunchboxes, schoolbags and basic needs are either donated or taken from the New Arrivals Program's budget. ESL is available for these children for the first three years.

Within these kids, some of them are actually quite gifted in the areas of art, music or sports. The teacher detects these talents and placed them in a selected multiple intelligence (MI) program. To further nurture their talents, the school may arrange to sign them up to a club.

ESL is interesting in that we can make shitloads of money out of teaching in rich country or we can assist displaced people coming into our own country. In return for the latter, we continually grow to become better people.

Day 9 Prac EDB031 ED90 sem1 2005

Too busy, blog later

Day 7 Prac EDB031 ED90 sem1 2005

too tired, blog later

Day 7 Prac EDB031 ED90 sem1 2005

too tired to blog. Will do it later

Day 6 Prac EDB031 ED90 sem1 2005

Upper school have mediavel fair day with guest speakers talking to kids about life in the middle ages. Props include: swords, lance, armour, chainmail, bows and arrows. They supervised the kids with activities such as archery etc.

We (the student teachers) help out with the cooking and washing up for most of the day.

Day 5 Prac EDB031 ED90 sem1 2005

Coming soon

Day 4 Prac EDB031 ED90 sem1 2005

coming soon

Day 3 Prac EDB031 Course: ED90

Morning assembly occurs every Friday morning. This was attended by some parents. The children lined up in their classes. They sat on a mat which they brought with them in an undercover area. Control of the proceedings were shared between the principles and two selected members of the student body. In total, I calculated that the school has about under 200 students. Everyone stood up to sing the national anthem to start proceedings. The kids sung sweetly accompanied by a funky didgeridoo and tappining sticks sound. Although it was better than "God save the Queen," I personally think that the national anthem is a bit outdated and "We are Australian" reflects more of Australian society of today. The purpose of assembly was to communicate any problems that may have arisen throughout the school and to give out awards or praises to the kids.

After assembly, the class had (Health, recreation education) HRE. This lesson was provided by another teacher. In HRE the kids discuss issues regarding right and wrong feelings, behaviour and actions. I believe that this is one of the reason that the kids at this school are so well adjusted. Although, I did hear a little boy swore in the playground, in which I immediately reprimanded him. PE is next which I am sad to say hasn't changed much since my days at school. They still play the same lame games like tunnel ball which teaches the kids nothing useful.

Next the kids spent their times cleaning up the school. Collecting recycling paper from each class and cleaning the tanks that houses the mice, etc, In my days, we use to throw everything in the incinerator, but we live in an environmentally friendly society now and incinerators had been banned by the council for years now.

From 13:30 - 15:00 the kids are split up into activities which they call multiple intelligence programs. These are: art enrichment, soccer, rock and water, netball, jump rope/dance, and ICT. I am not sure what some of these activities involve, but I went with the soccer group. They were to played my old school, West End. It turns out that West End's soccer team were all girls, which is a bit strange. We anly have one girl in our team. The suburb of West End has definitely changed a lot since I have been there. Before, it consisted of working class families from ethnic backgrounds. The majority of which are Greek and Vietnamese. So the soccer team then were very strong. It was considered a rough area but when I was there, I didn't see anything bad happening. I think now, it is filled with middle-class families but still retaines it's cosmopolitan feel. A soccer team without any boys in a state school is very odd.

The star player of our team is an African ESL student. For a 13 year old he displays exceptional skills. Perhaps it is through arrogance or that he is frustrated with the skills of the rest of his team mates that he tends to not pass the ball around. So even though, he is the star player, he is not popular within the team. It must be brought into consideration that he is in a strange land and this is the only thing that he is good at, so it may be the only way for him to express himself. Sports and are a great form of escapism. When, he was off the field, I told him that he is very talented but he could become an even better player. I told him that soccer is played with the feet and the mind. He had already shown the opposition how good he is by running through all of them but that when they all crowd around him his team mates are left in the open and he could use them by passing the ball. I don't know how he took that as he remained quiet as usual.

It is a pity to see his talent go to waste after primary school. I went and research for some high schools which would nurture and develope his skills further. Kelvin Grove College and Cav Road High has an "Excellence Program" for soccer, but these tend to be geared towards the middle-class. Kelvin Grove would be good as he has an ESL unit as well. I will try to talk to him further to let him know of the options that he has.

Day 2 of ED90 Prac 2nd Year

From one institution to another, this is the second day of my prac at a local primary school. The school is comparatively small with a diversity of students and an ESL unit for recent arrivals mainly from Africa and the Middle East. "Recent arrivals" is probably the politically correct buzzword for refugees. The school fosters cultural diversity and tolerance which is evident in the behaviour of all the children. I found great joy in watching the little grade one girls from different cultural background holding hands and playing together at lunch time. It is a very supportive school environment and the atmosphere is relaxed. A far cry from my own school days where we had to line up for assembly in the hot morning sun; listening to a bad rendition of "god save the queen" by the school band of recorder players. In those days the emphasis were on discipline where being quiet and sitting up straight were promoted as being essential to becoming an acceptable citizen. It worked on me for awhile but I eventually woked up to it. To promote docility is to promote stupidity.

My first day of class was just to observe. The school applied the principal of learning through context in it's upper level class that is the students are mixed in a class of year 5, 6 and 7, probably because this is one of the smaller primary school in Brisbane. I found this interesting in that there were a lot of collaborative learning involved within the groups of students regardless of what grades they are in. The downside to this is that there are a lot of interruption as students move in and out of class to their own level of the subjects. The ESL kids do the same subjects with an ESL teacher. The role of the teacher here is more of a traffic controller than a policeman. The theme for the context of learning is the SOSE subject of "Medieaval Times." Almost all of the subjects they do revolve around this theme. That is: in English and Italian, they learnt words and readings of that era, in art they made or paint activities realating to that era, etc. I am a great proponent of this method of teaching started by M.A.K. Halliday. Although I don't know what relevance "Medieaval Europe" have on the kids, especially the ESL kids who cannot relate to the subject of "Medieavel Europe" at all. Historical themes are always controversial in that it is all subjective. Although one need to ask what do these children really require to know for anything to be relevant at this developmental stage and that can only be the skills to go through high school.

Today, my second day of prac, I took the SOSE class on "castle" that I had observed yesterday as the teacher was away. I thought it was easy and it went quite well and in order for the children to understand better I relate the information to the movie "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." Time management is something that I have to work on a bit. Also to select kids to answer questions who don't put their hands up as the same kids tend to want to answer the questions all the time. This could make the kids in the background lose interest. An amount of control is needed. For me there is the dilemma of whether to discipline the misbehaving children or not, because in my view the misbahaving kids are the ones that are street-smart and have innitiative. Although that innitiative is misdirected, it is still innitiative. I guess I have to work out a balance.

I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed that this isn't a rough school. From my experience kids are much easier to deal with than corporate managers.

You don't know what you're missing when you got a hole in the back.

I have just been released from hospital today.

The first 5 days were spent in my own room with nothing but Christ on the cruxifix to look at. There wasn't much that I could do. After being in theatre, I was transferred to this room. A drip flows into my vein. I had a catheter through my back into my left kidney and one up my penis to drain the blood and urine.

Lying in my room...

Lying in my room with nothing to do...

lying in my room not being able to do anything except looking at Christ on the cruxifix. Throughout each of the days, a nurse would come in and give me some pain killers and at different stages of the week remove each of the tubes stuck inside me.

On the day before my release, I was transferred to a different room. My room was being prepared for another patient. I don't know what he was in for but any staff who enters the room have to gear up with protective clothing. He was a one man work place health and safety hazard.

Next to me was a guy with pancreatitist. He had been there for about 9 months. He was gaunt. He told me what he had been through.

Despite the professional care of the nurses, I was glad to be released. Hospitals are prisons for ordinary people, for those who take too much drugs, smoke too much, drink too much, but there are also innocent people in there who don't drink enough water or those who take care of themselves but ended up with a capricious pancreas for no reason.

So look after yourself; drink plenty of water; eat the right food or you'll be more likely to end up on a bed in a room sharing the same bathroom with two other people. Unable to do anything and relying on others to take care of you. It's part of a life wasted.

Now that I'm out, I swear that I won't waste my time ever again.