There's a Cricket in Every Cupboard - Term 1

You don’t ever really know what you’re getting yourself into. I mean, we are all ultimately limited by our experiences. It’s impossible to be objective or unbiased; we are indeed the products of our environments. One's wealth may be poverty to another. What might feel normal to one person may be completely foreign to another. Try as one may, words are of little use when trying to describe something that is out of another’s scope of experience.

Alison and I did our best to communicate with each other about what we could expect upon our arrival at our exchange placements. Even with good communication, neither of us could have been prepared for what was going to happen.

If I was writing a report card that evaluated my teaching abilities, I would probably give myself a passing grade (depending on the day of course). The comment section would likely be vague and full of generalizations and might read something like, “Kevin is typically able to complete the majority of his work with a reasonable amount of skill and competence.” What I’m trying to say is that I don’t think I’m the worst teacher that has ever been 15 years away from collecting his pension.

It’s with this level of confidence that I walk into Dubbo College South Campus for the first time. Since the school is completely surrounded by a 6 foot high metal fence, you don’t just show up. I had made arrangements to meet the Head Teacher of Administration a few days before school was scheduled to start. Besides leaning on a planter that had recently been home to a very poisonous snake, the next hour was uneventful. We had a tour and I learned about some of the software the DCSC uses to run their school. If I am perfectly honest, I smiled and nodded and made “uh-huh” kind of noises, but I had no idea what was happening. I had to process…

Something I have known about myself for some time now is that I am a pretty slow processor. I may be razor sharp when it comes to recalling basic math facts, but I need to take time if I am going to make sense of what’s going on around me. Sometimes that means taking a few breaths before I speak and sometimes it means letting something sit for a few days before being ready to confront it.

My next visit to what I will affectionately call South was on Sunday, January 27. This time I was met at the gate by the Head Teacher of Support. This was my faculty, my people. The Support Faculty is the largest faculty in the school with 10 self-contained classes and 12 full time teachers. It has classes for students with emotional / behavioural issues and classes for students with intellectual disabilities. It has classes for students with autism. This was to be my assignment, my new short-term reality.

I have been involved with students who have been diagnosed with autism for most of my career. Autism is truly a spectrum and I think that I have seen both extremes and many of the in-betweens. It is a condition that I am familiar with and fascinated by.

It was two days later that I met the rest of the support teachers. It was at a Professional Learning Day - one of three that take place over the course of the school year. I easily feel out of place and this day was no different. My normal MO is to pretend I belong, pretend that I know what I’m doing, pretend I’m confident. And so I walk in to the Dubbo RSL that Tuesday morning, full of false bravado. I scope out the room to see if I can sense where I might belong when I return from a pre-planned trip to the bathroom. I settle on a nearly empty table near the back of the room where there are a couple of other teachers who look new. As the table starts to fill up, someone looks at me and tells me I don’t belong there, that we are meant to be sitting in our faculty groups. I get up and someone else helps me find a table full of strangers - this is Support.

I really appreciate my colleagues from the Support faculty. They were so kind as I bumbled my way through the first term at South. So many questions - Where is the bathroom? How do I write a program? What is a swimming carnival? Who do I hand this form to? What is a Sentral entry? How do I make a photocopy? As I processed the idea of this being my new home, I started being more social - first it was the occasional recess or lunch break spent in the staff room; next it was laughing together about how I didn’t know what a Party Popper was or how I had never had a Gaytime before (it’s ice cream…); next it was attending the occasional period 7 over at the tavern across the street. All this to say that the staff have been great.

Anyway, the very next day was Wednesday, January 30. It was the first day of school for the year 7 students. I felt like I was well prepared for the day - there would be an assembly, and we would play some games and take a tour of the campus. It would be a low-key day and I was sure I would make it through without incident. When I met the year 7 students, I felt like I was right. I had this! If all my students were like this, I would have a great year.

Inevitably, and without fail, the sun sets and then rises again. And with that Day 1 turned into Day 2. On Thursday, I met my other students for the first time. I remember several feelings from that day and it reminded me of another time in my life. When I was 18, my sister got me a job at Boston Pizza as a server. I had just finished my first year at Bethany College and I was after a summer job. I had worked at the restaurant as a busboy before, so this was a sort of homecoming. It didn’t take long before I learned what it meant to ‘crash.’ Crashing, in the restaurant business is when a server can’t keep up with what’s going on, can’t remember who needs what or what needs to happen next. When I crashed, I panicked and felt completely overwhelmed, like I wouldn’t be able to recover. I was a terrible server. But, I am at least a mediocre teacher. I have been an at least mediocre teacher for almost 15 years. Even though I should be confident and competent, I was crashing.

Suffice to say, I was not prepared for the students that walked in my classroom that day. I believe that kids are kids, no matter if you find them in Australia, Canada or elsewhere. I think that kids want and need the exact same things even when they act like they don’t want or need those things. And yet, there are certainly cultural differences that have made this all more challenging than I had expected (and I am a pessimist).

Day 2 wasn’t easy. Janice talked me off a ledge at lunchtime and then again after school (and once again the next morning). I had a good chat with Alison which helped. I went back the next and every day after that. Gradually it became easier and by the end of the term it was almost becoming normal.

We have a pantry at the house that we live in. The pantry is full of good ingredients that Janice makes delicious food out of. When we first moved in, we heard the (now familiar) chirping sound of a cricket inside that pantry. Try as we did, we could not find that cricket. It went on chirping and we kept on looking. Eventually the chirping stopped, but it was by no effort of ours. My point is this - there is a cricket in every cupboard.

There were a lot of aspects of working in Australia that I have struggled with, a lot of crickets in the cupboards. I’m not alone - all of the exchange teachers that I’ve spoken to have struggled with similar things - language and behaviour being the most blatant. But it doesn’t outweigh the good. And there has been good. Australia has been good to us so far and we only expect it to get better.

For those of you who are interested in what teaching is like in Australia - besides this obscure essay, I will put up another blog entry with some details of what days, weeks and terms are like in at least 1 Australian school.

The Festival of Fleeces - Merriwa, NSW

This weekend was the only long weekend (besides the plethora of other school holidays) that poor teaching staff  in Australia get to celebrate, so we decided to make the most of it. Kevin did a little research on things to do this time around, and he came up with The Festival of Fleeces in Merriwa, NSW. Merriwa is about a 2 hour drive from Dubbo, in the beautiful Upper Hunter Valley Region, known for its wine, its horses, and (like a lot of areas near where we live) its sheep. But more specifically, its merino sheep. The Festival of the Fleeces is about celebrating the agricultural strengths of the area. What we were most interested in seeing though, was the promise of 200 sheep running through the town wearing red socks. When Kevin told me that little detail, I was in! 

We arrived at our campsite (just south of Merriwa, in Sandy Hollow) early in the evening. Just in time to set up the tent before it got dark, as it gets dark shortly after 5 pm during these early winter days. We were a little uncertain of how we would fare during the cold winter nights in our tent with the equipment that we had, but we stayed nice and snug and slept really well (for sleeping in a tent). We even had our own flush toilets, hot shower and camp kitchen mostly to ourselves (we are brave Canadian campers, after all!). Again, Australia's parks and campgrounds are generally really fantastic. 

An example of a campground kitchen...and of course, not pictured, are the quintessential BBQs.

The next morning we did some jousting, lolly-gagging, and ate breakfast around the fire.

The Festival! There were expert shearers demonstrating their skills all day. The kids (and let's face it, us adults too) were a little concerned with the amount of cuts the sheep were sustaining, but after asking a farmer a few questions, we learned a bit more about shearing merino sheep. Apparently, merino sheep have very wrinkly skin, so it takes a considerable amount of time to shear them and the haircut does not come without its shaving nicks. She also told us that the sheep appear to be very pleased with themselves after their haircuts, showing off by licking areas that they have not been able to lick for a whole year! All of this wool is from one merino sheep.

After wandering around and looking at all the market stalls, we enjoyed a little parade, filled with anticipation of the wild stampede of red-socked sheep that we were promised. 

Finally, the moment we were waiting for! It surely did not disappoint, but it was over so fast. It seemed the sheep were in a real hurry this particular year. If you're wondering why they all look orange, it is because the dirt here is, in fact, orange. You also may be asking yourself, why the red socks? Let me tell you why. One of the sponsors of the festival could not donate money one year, so they donated a bunch of red socks instead. The question was asked, "What are we going to do with all of these red socks?" The answer - "Let's put them on the sheep!" And so the story goes. I love Australia!

We enjoyed delicious dumplings and pizza for lunch, and took shelter from the rainy day.

Another impressive event was dog high jump. We loved watching the bigger dogs do their thing. Their owner (the man in the hat) looked like Jim Craig, the man from The Man From Snowy River. 

Later in the afternoon, we got to watch, and take part in, a few more events. One event that was really fun for all of us to watch was teams of three on horseback competing to separate three same-coloured-collar calves from the group. The competitions were timed and very lively!

Next, the kids took part in a sheep poo spitting contest. That's right. Sheep poo spitting. Or jelly beans, for those of you who were concerned. 

Rylan did not place in the 11-15 year old age group. We all laughed at our poor son, who spit air the first go, but successfully remembered to spit the jelly bean after that.

Sadly, Calla also did not place in the 7-10 year age group.

Josiah, however, our shining sheep-poo-spitting superstar, placed third in the 6 years and under group. We were so proud!

Next up - the lolly canon! Picture yummy chewy candies shot through the air with a canon, of sorts, attached to an air compressor. We discovered that this was way more fun than having candy thrown at you during a parade. 

To close this fantastic day of Australian country fun, we enjoyed sausage sandwiches, bacon and egg rolls, and hot chips before we watched some spectacular small town fireworks. What a special day!

The next day, we had a couple of disappointments. Not only were we in wine, horse and merino sheep country, we were also on the edge of Wollemi National Park in the Greater Blue Mountains. I had planned a beautiful hike for us this day (and it was sunny and gorgeous!). After taking a few wrong turns and enjoying some spectacular scenery from the car, we finally found our trailhead and headed off, only to find that about 15 minutes into our hike, the trail was closed with a NO TRESPASSING sign. What!? So, we had a look at our sad roadside map, and found another hiking trail to do. Again, we drove through some beautiful scenery, only to find that the road to our hike also had a NO TRESPASSING sign. What!? We happened to see a couple walking their dog along the deserted road and asked about this elusive hiking trail. They were also visitors, and had no idea what we were talking about. But they did tell us about the top secret Wollemi Pine. At first, I thought they were pulling my leg with Aussie humour, but it turns out they were serious. I googled it later (yes, I resorted to the most reliable scientific way of finding out instant info), and found out that the Wollemi Pine is a tree that lived 200 million years ago and was thought to be extinct until they discovered live trees in Wollemi National Park in 1994. How many fascinating flora and fauna can one country have!? Anyway, these trees are highly protected, as you can imagine, and nobody but a few scientists know their location. So the theory for the day was that our hiking ventures were thwarted for the noble cause of protecting prehistoric trees. That's our theory, and we are sticking to it! In spite of being stuck in the car for longer than we cared to be on such a beautiful day, we did get to have a lovely picnic lunch, beautiful scenery, and a stop at a picturesque winery to sample more of the region's agricultural strengths. 

I forgot our camera (AGAIN!) so I was pretty pumped that I could catch this sparkly spider web in the sun.

We keep discovering cube shaped wombat poo and wombat burrows on our little hikes. We have yet to see a wild wombat. None of us was sticking our face in the hole after hearing that wombats can break a dog's jaw or a man's hand with the thrust of their square shaped bums out of their burrows. Impressive defensive strategy!

After picking up some wine from a young Italian winemaker, we headed back to our campsite to say goodbye to the beautiful horses we met there. Calla was so happy to spend some time with them, even if it was on the other side of the fence, and we got to feed them some of our apples that froze in the communal fridge overnight. 

A good end to a great weekend!