Around about a year ago I wrote a blog about music. I wondered what songs would help to define my experience in Australia. I think I envisioned campfires and friends listening in rapt wonder to The Tragically Hip. I dreamed of a soundtrack that never happened.
0 Comments
It’s hard to catalogue the events of a year. I’ve tried before; when I first began this blog I commented regularly on what I had been doing at that time the year before. It was easy, in many ways. Easier than it is right now, at any rate.
A year ago I was about to begin my second year at Pioneer School, knowing that by Christmas I would be in Australia. The funny thing is that, other than the students I taught, I don’t really remember a whole lot about the four months leading up to my departure. I vaguely remember trying to organize our house, trying to plan lessons for the teacher who would take my place, trying to make sure animals were taken care of, and trying to complete paperwork and police checks for visas and schools and various other governmental agencies… but I don’t really remember much about life during those months. I remember the students, though. I think, in many ways, that is what I will remember most about Australia, too. I thank my lucky stars that I opted to participate in two very important, but dramatically different, extra-curricular supervision activities while I have been here. First, I was invited to participate in the Muswellbrook High School Performing Arts Tour. Like so many things in life, it was more through luck than good management that the opportunity arrived. It was suggested by someone (probably through the ATA exchange program meeting) that we join activities we enjoy. I considered asking to coach rugby, but I kind of felt that I might be a little out of my depth there. As much experience as I may have as a coach (both for football and for rugby), I think that any Canadian would find it humbling to see the sheer extent of involvement Australians have with rugby. I can only compare it to hockey. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, has played it here – to one extent or another. Even the most unenthusiastic kid knows how to pass the ball. It’s as natural to Australians as ball hockey is in Canada. The kids at the high school have been playing since they were four or five years old (or possibly earlier). Most won’t ever go pro, but like so many Canadian kids dreaming of scoring the winning goal in the Cup Finals, almost every kid here has dreamed of scoring the winning try in the State of Origin. I knew before I arrived that I would be in rugby country, but I didn’t understand the extent… or the difference between Union and League. Once I realized just how out of my depth I truly was, coaching here became unrealistic (besides, how could I consider coaching a game which has no rucks or line-outs?!). Then one day, in the daily notices, I read an invitation to students to join the “Guitar Ensemble”. I was intrigued. Back home, at both WCHS and Pioneer, I offered introductory guitar lessons during REAL time. I don’t consider myself a good player, but I have several guitars and I know enough chords to keep kids busy. I went down and spoke with the teacher in charge of the Ensemble. She encouraged me to show up, so I did. It was awesome. The sheer talent of the kids involved blew me away. I was the least skilled person there, but I kept showing up. We practiced weekly (I practiced nightly). Then, about a month in, the teacher in charge asked if I wanted to participate in the Performing Arts Tour. I said I did without knowing what it was, just eager to be involved in something different from anything else I had done here. Yeah, I’m with the Band. We rocked a tour along the Gold Coast. Every venue we played was packed… standing room only. I got arrested. (You laugh, but… well, let me tell you a story…) It was the final day of the Tour. We were in Tweeds Head or King’s Cross… I don’t really remember. We had just finished our last set and were chilling on the beach, staring across the white sand beach at the sinking sun. A couple of the kids came up and asked to go to the 7-11 which was just up the street. Now, back home (at least at WCHS, where the kids are 14+) I think I would have simply said, “Sure… just be good.” Then again, maybe I would have insisted that an adult accompany them. As it was, when in Oz… CYA. As a teacher, you don’t let kids go anywhere on their own… ever. It’s a duty of care issue. Frankly, I believe both Canada and Australia have gone too far in this particular aspect – we have become so afraid of what could happen (in a worst-case scenario) that we refuse to let kids have the freedoms we, ourselves, would have taken for granted at their age… still, as I have observed before, I don’t make policy – I just abide by it. So I said I would escort students, in groups of 10, to the 7-11. It seems like a simple thing. The walk to 7-11 was uneventful. I told the kids that I wanted no more than 5 students in the store at any time, so the clerk wasn’t overwhelmed and so that other patrons could access the store effectively. Five waited outside, five went in. I stood just inside the door where I was accessible to any of them as needed. As I stood there, a scruffy-looking fellow walked in. He was long-haired, long-whiskered, and long-overdue for a bath. He walked over to the coffee-maker and got a cup. Then he glanced up at me. He stared at me for long enough for it to make me uncomfortable. I gave him one of those, “Hey, how’s it going?” nods and tried to pretend his staring was polite. Then he walked closer to me and said, “I know who you are.” He was intense. Have you ever stood in front of someone you could say with absolute certainty was crazy? If you have, you might have a sense of what his eyes were like. His entire demeanour was enough that, from that single statement, I saw three of the girls back by the pop cooler stop and move further away from us, shrinking into themselves a little. I laughed. “I doubt it, mate,” I said, trying to use an Aussie term to diffuse what I saw as a potentially hazardous situation. “No, I know you,” he insisted. “I saw the footage. I know your face.” “I think you’re mistaken,” I told him calmly, thinking from what he’d said that maybe he had mistaken me for a celebrity. “No. I know your face. From the ______ massacre. The footage was clear. It’s you. I know your face. Do you know who I am?” I was stunned. He pulled out his wallet and flipped it open… to a backwards driver license. “My name is ____, and I’m placing you under arrest; you have the right to remain silent…” At this point I gestured to three of the remaining girls in the 7-11 to wait outside. Two others were far enough away that, if things became violent, they wouldn’t be at risk. “Look mate,” I began. “I think you…” “I’m placing you under citizen’s arrest,” he insisted, getting close enough that I actually braced, getting ready to fight. “Hey!” a new voice called out. “You!” I glanced over to see the clerk charging over at us. I couldn’t tell who he was yelling at, but I was bracing myself for the worst. The two remaining girls looked at me in what seemed like terror, knowing something was wrong but not sure what or why. “What are you doing here?” the clerk demanded. “Last time I had to call the cops! Get out! Stop harassing my customers!” “I’m arresting…” “No!” the clerk yelled, then when the scruffy man hesitated, he snapped, “I’m calling the police again.” “I was just trying to get my coffee…” the man whined, then bolted for the door, cup in hand. The clerk watched him go, then turned to me. “Sorry, mate. He keeps showing up in here and pulling shit like that.” So yeah, that was the time I got arrested by a dero (an Australian term) in Australia. Frankly, having replayed the event over and over again, I really think he was just angling to get a free coffee… The second excursion was very different. My second excursion was to Goodooga. It’s a small village in the far north west of New South Wales. It was to attend the Aboriginal games. Like the first excursion, I lucked into it. As many of you may remember, I wrote a blog a long time ago about my interest in exploring Aboriginal culture and comparing it to First Nations experiences. Early in my time here, I had the opportunity to mention that interest to, and then discuss comparative experiences with, the coordinator of the Girls Academy and the Aboriginal Resource Centre. At a lunch event months later, she mentioned that an opportunity to go to the Aboriginal Games had opened up. They needed a male supervisor. She was looking at me when she announced it, and I eagerly took the opportunity. I don’t know what I expected. It was a long trip to a very, very flat part of the world. I know just how flat. I did a 10km run there. All I saw was dead animals, dying trees, dry earth, and a brilliant blue sky. It was beautiful, in a dry, dangerous kind of way. It looked like someone had flat-ironed the land itself. The Games were fun and engaging, but it was the sheer diversity of the people who identified as Aboriginal that really stood out to me. I know that there must be a similar range of people back home who identify, actively, as FNMI, but it was still startling to see the acceptance of difference in appearance here. People didn’t seem to judge, but seemed to accept. Now I know that is a broad generalization, but I wonder how accepted a similarly diverse group of people would be at a First Nation event in Canada. I would like to believe that there would be no discrimination, but I just don’t know. Of course, as a school event, I know I only saw a slim section of Aboriginal culture, but I was impressed by the openness and acceptance that I saw. I only wish we saw the same everywhere. Again, however, in both excursions, it is the students that stand out. In the performing arts tour, it was the sheer talent and respectful behaviour which stood out. The kids were amazing. They performed beyond expectation, and were wonderful to spend time with. On the Aboriginal games tour, the kids (which ranged in age from 10-16) were joyful and energetic, excited to be involved and brimming with enthusiasm. I could not have asked to be part of better excursions, and it is the kids who will remain in my memories. As I draw closer to the end of my time here, I know that I will treasure these kinds of things… the moments when I stepped outside of the classroom with students from the school, where I saw kids doing what they were best at, what they loved, what they were born to do. I am so honoured that I got a chance to see that, to be a part of it. I know, without a question, that a year from now, even ten years from now, I will remember these months. The halfway mark has passed, and tomorrow I commence the third Term of classes here. I approach it with a renewed sense of optimism as I think I can begin to reconcile the demands of the department I work within with the needs of the students I have observed over the last two terms.
That said, I needed the last two weeks to recover and to refocus. Two weeks is not a long time, if it is not spent well. This break was spent well. To begin, April took off to Melbourne to meet up with our friend Jennifer, who flew in to visit us from Edmonton. I took the girls for a few days, and then we drove to Sydney to pick up April and Jennifer. We all spent the next few days exploring Sydney in greater depth than I had previously had an opportunity to do. April and Jennifer went on a Haunted Sydney tour, as well as to Madame Butterfly at the Sydney Opera House, and the girls and I went to the Botanic Gardens. We all also visited the Taronga Zoo and the Maritime Museum. While it doesn’t sound like a lot, it was more than enough for me (especially considering how crazy driving in Sydney is). After Jennifer left, we went to Cairns (pronounced Cannes, like the film festival place, for my Canadian readers). That was the break I needed. Cairns is a beautiful place in the “winter”. It ranged between 25-28 degrees Celsius during the days, and dropped to about 15 degrees at night. Of course, there were still people dressed up in jackets, but it felt like perfect summer day in Canada to me. We went to the beach. We explored the Great Barrier Reef (a part of it, anyhow). I went bungee jumping again for the first time in 25 years… We unwound in the most amazing way. Most of all, we spent it with friends, as we met up with and stayed in the home of another Alberta exchange family. We shared homes, we shared stories, we shared experiences, and I came back rested and refreshed. I spent this two-week break with other Canadians, and it helped to remind me that Canadians are fundamentally similar to Australians. And then there are the other moments where our differences are highlighted… like today during our Visible Learning Professional Development Day, when one of my female colleagues approached our staff table carrying a cup of coffee in each hand. "Double fisting, I see," I observed laconically. "Double parking," another colleague interrupted quickly but matter of factly. "Double fisting is something else entirely." And so began one of the most uncomfortable work conversations I have ever had. Being the only man at the table, I couldn't make eye contact with any of my colleagues for several minutes. I was the object of much hilarity. Holding two drinks at a time is now, and evermore shall be, "double parking". If you aren't sure why, ask Google. Anyhow, with classes starting tomorrow, it’s back to the grindstone. Still, the grind is less daunting somehow, especially knowing that spring is in the air. I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but somehow six months have passed. The exchange is halfway over. Back home, student have finished classes and teachers are breathing a sigh of relief. Canada Day is a few days away. Summer, such as it is, has dawned on our winter wonderland. It is the first time that I have missed a graduation from the school I was working at. While I was at West Central, I attended every Grad ceremony (save one, where I was marking diploma exams). At Pioneer, while not quite the same as graduation from High School, I was there at the Grade 8 Celebration to wish them success and provide what advice I could for what to expect. I won’t be there this year, and I didn’t realize before how much those celebrations actually meant to me. We all have our traditions, our tiny celebrations. As we grow old the celebrations of the young mean less to us in many ways, but when you are young those milestones and celebrations mean more than older people remember. They are the clichéd “rite of passage”, the proverbial steps to adulthood. Still, it isn’t until you are removed from the familiar that those familiar traditions become so important. I miss some of the familiar traditions. That said, some of the traditions here are worth looking at. First, there is the structure of school here. The schools here exist on the (end of) January to December schedule, based around four ten-week terms. Now, while I love summer break back home, there is something to be said about ten-week terms. Not only do the terms lengths give teachers (and students) a defined time to work within, it gives us all a definite end point. There is more than one benefit to that, though few but teacher will understand it. I don’t know how often, during April and May, I have stared bleakly at June 28 and wondered if I could make it. The push from January to July is a hard one, and having a week off (and it being extremely inconsistent when that week will fall) is barely sufficient to either staff or students for so long a stretch. The fact that the teaching/learning timeframe runs along an actual calendar year rather than according some concocted “school year” concept is pretty awesome, too. Born in 2020? Cool. You start school in January of 2026 and graduate in December of 2032. They still have a “long break” (after Christmas), where they have a month off from school, but the other breaks are more evenly spaced. Second is the tradition of Houses. It’s a concept I first noted in Harry Potter, but never believed really existed. It exists. It is alive and well in New South Wales. At Muswellbrook High there are four Houses (I’m a member of House Hunter, and we wear green at events); each House is governed by a House Sponsor and led by a selected student Captain. Houses gain points through activities (which are called Carnivals – which are related to our Track and Field Days). Winners of events like the 50m front crawl (at the swimming carnival) score specific points, but massive points can be gained by House participation in “fun” activities (which are like doing lengths in the pool, either assisted or unassisted). At the end the points are tallied and one of the Houses wins. I’m told that the “buy in” to Houses has dropped in the last 20 years, which saddens me, as I think this is one of the coolest traditions that I’ve been a part of. There are, however, other traditions here about which I am less enthusiastic. Most of those revolve around assessment and reporting of student success. I won’t criticize these too much, however, as it is not my place to comment on either school policy or national directive. What I will say is that I find reporting to be far too focused on propriety and “proper structure” than upon effective teacher feedback; as for assessment, I find the same problem in Australia as seems prevalent in the US and (increasingly, again, sadly) Alberta/Canada – a disproportionate focus on standardized tests. Sadly, here the structure of assessment has entrenched itself so deeply that students will refuse to complete a teacher-assigned task because it has “no actual value” (read all class-directed activities/formative assessments). This is especially true at Year 11 and 12 levels, where student grades are ENTIRELY dependent upon 3-4 governmentally assigned tasks. That means if a student fails to properly submit the first two tasks of the year, there is no chance of them successfully finishing the year. Class-based assessment has NO VALUE in the final mark of Year 11 or 12 students, but you still can’t “teach to the test”… But enough about the academics of it all. Things are moving forward. I head off on my first field trip tomorrow. It is a five-day excursion with the Performing Arts group. I’m playing in one of the Ensembles, which makes me ridiculously pleased with myself. Still, it’s been a ton of work, and now the supervision starts. I’m just glad I have great colleagues who are taking care of the hard stuff. That makes me want to make an observation. I have been truly blessed with the colleagues I have had the pleasure to work with. That applies back home at both of the schools I have worked in, and here at MHS. At WCHS, the staff was large but we invariably worked together well. At Pioneer we were a close-knit group (and there are several faces I will deeply miss when I return) that worked effectively together. Muswellbrook High is bigger than any school I’ve worked at since Ross Shepard. There are close to 1000 students, and I honestly don’t know all of the staff. Even so, the staff I have dealt with here are amazing. It takes a while, but once you get to know them, they open their hearts and home to you. I have been humbled by the welcome I have received here. I hope, when I return, that I bring with me a piece of Australian hospitality. But, as much as I have more to say, the night grows late. As I head out on Tour, however, I leave you with this: For those about to Rock… we salute you! I wrote a blog last week, but I didn’t post it.
It felt forced… contrived… I didn’t post it because I felt… nonplussed by it. No… I felt annoyed by it… No. It was a pretentious piece of crap. It wasn’t untrue or inaccurate, yet it wasn’t really… well, it wasn’t much of anything at all, really. It was what I would call “writing for the sake of writing”, or more specifically writing because of the expectation to write. It touched on politics (poorly), it touched on elements of the trip south… but really it just touched on my gag reflex. I’ll toss some of it in at the end of this blog as a bit of a travelogue. This week I actually have something to comment on. One of the challenges I feel faced with during this exchange is the recognition that I represent something more than myself by being here, and consequently I am constantly aware of the unspoken expectation that I actively interact in my environment based on that. Moreover, I am constantly reminded that I have so much to see here, so many places to go and things to do, and that an opportunity like this will only come around once… I feel pulled in a hundred directions, and I won’t deny that despite a two-week break from work, I’m feeling a little frazzled. I am an ambassador. As such, I feel an obligation to document this experience, and to represent both Canada and the teachers of Alberta to the best of my ability in both a professional and personal manner. By and large, this has been easy for me. I love my country, and I am honoured to be able to represent it (in a small way). I would like to believe that people here (students and adults alike) are more interested and aware of Canada because of me. That said, knowing that the first question I had to field with my year 10 and 11 classes was “Is it true that pot is legal in Canada?” makes me question a number of things. Let me begin by stating that I think the decision to legalize marijuana in Canada was a good decision. I say this not because of a personal desire to use the drug, but because I believe a law which prohibits using something a large percentage of people are already using is neither realistic nor cost-effective. By choosing to legalize pot, the government has demarginalized a significant percentage of the population while simultaneously opening up a potential gold-mine of social taxation. Wisely managed, this could pave the way for health-care and senior-support funding on a scale we haven’t event considered. If every dollar of (well-managed) taxes from pot went directly to funding old-age support programs, the elderly in Canada would have a different future than they would otherwise. That said… It saddens me that the thing we, as a nation, are best known for (among Australian youth, at any rate) is that we have legalized a drug (and hockey… in which none of our teams made it past the first round of the playoffs). Admittedly it opened up a great discussion with some of my year 11 students about drugs, addiction, and the impact of substance abuse on families, but I wonder why our societies still struggle with this. So, as an ambassador, I have to try to explain the decisions and policies of Canada to a group of people who have only a vague grasp of where Canada is (if are sitting there in smug condemnation after that statement, I challenge you to tell me the names of all of the states and territories in Australia and who the last Prime Minister of Australia was). On the other hand, I am also expected to see as much of this country as I can. That is almost as exhausting as teaching itself. So, Australia is big. Really big. I know that Canada is bigger, but that doesn’t take away from just how big Australia is. We travelled from Muswellbrook to Melbourne on our two week vacation. We wanted to visit Tasmania (which is an island a few hundred kilometres south of Melbourne, if you didn’t know), but it wasn’t in the cards. That said, getting to Melbourne was like driving from Calgary to Vancouver. We took 4 days getting there, spent five days there, and then raced back. Two weeks is not enough to see anything. No, we didn’t see the penguins on Phillips Island (though we wish we had), but we saw some of the street art that makes Melbourne so famous. No, we didn’t see the Twelve Apostles (though we hopped onto the Great Coast Road and saw a lighthouse on the south coast that was in a television series here…) No, we didn’t make it to Tasmania, but we had a close encounter with a kangaroo in a campground in NSW… No, we didn’t see everything. That’s like saying, “Oh, you plan to get to Port Renfrew from Calgary? Make sure you visit the museum in Drumheller, the lodge at Jasper, spend some time in Banff Park and Lake Louise, visit Frank’s Slide… oh, and be sure to hit Whistler and Prince George on the way.” And that was just going south. Now we are facing questions about July. Don’t get me wrong… I want to see as much of Australia as I can while we are here, but sometimes you just need a break. We are thinking about Queensland in July, but part of me wants to just hide out here. We haven’t been constantly “on-the-go”, but the time we’ve been in one place has been challenging enough as it is. Between work (for me) and school (for the girls), there is so little time left. The short breaks that make up life here every term leave us yearning for more time. We probably won’t see Uluru. We probably won’t make it to Lightning Ridge or Coober Pedy. Canberra, Perth, Adelaide, and Darwin will most likely will remain unexplored… but I actually know where they are, now. I’ve seen Sydney, Newcastle, and Melbourne, visited Lake Illawara, Port Stephens, Eden, and Scone… For the first time, Australia is more than just a place on a map. It’s a world unto itself, and we’ve had a glimpse. We won’t reach every dream, but it isn’t the achieving of a dream that makes dreaming so special. In striving to reach our dreams, we extend ourselves beyond what we ever dreamed we could do… that, more than anything, is really what makes dreaming so important. Only by dreaming do we really find the capacity within ourselves to stretch ourselves to unknown limits. Dreams, not reality, are what define us. Now, for anyone who wants to waste few minutes… the blog I didn’t post: Sometimes I wonder why I haven’t focussed more on writing novels in the last few years. I mean, it’s been almost three years since “The Sword and Satchel” was published, and longer for the others. I have an almost half-finished manuscript of “Obliteration: A Will O’Donnel Novel” (which I just looked at and actually shivered at the ending I’d left it at, which should tell you all something about what I am planning…), but still I don’t act. I suppose a lot of the reason behind my limited productivity is simple lack of time. Time… I need more of it. I learned just how true that is this break. Two weeks is not nearly enough time. I came to Australia with these grandiose plans of seeing the entire continent. I mean, I knew it was big, but I also knew it was smaller than Canada, and I’ve seen… … …well, a fraction of Canada… … …which should give you an idea of the feasibility of seeing ALL of Australia (in a lifetime, let alone a single year). The plan was to go to Tasmania. We didn’t make it. We made it to Melbourne. The cost of the ferry to Tasmania was prohibitive. I could get into a rant about how capitalism undermines the capacity of general society (and specifically for parents/teachers) to experience the entirety of cultural opportunities because of the concept of supply and demand catering to the wealthy, but I won’t bother as it won’t change a damn thing in our messed up world; suffice it to say that what should have cost $100 (during regular season) would have run close to $1000 around Easter… which is the only time we had to visit Tasmania, so we stayed in Melbourne and spent 5 days exploring a city. I can’t comment on Tasmania, but I can say that I would happily spend more time in Melbourne. I have lived in Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, and on the outskirts of Tokyo… I have visited cities on five of the seven continents, including Moscow, Tangier, Paris, London, Stockholm, New Orleans, Barcelona, Mexico City, Cairo, Quebec, and Sydney… but at present Melbourne is not only my favourite city in Australia so far – it is currently my favourite city in general. Why? You know, I can’t actually put a finger on it. There are just so many things to like about Melbourne. I could get into the ease of getting around (which is unlike Sydney), or the cultural aspects (like the street art/graffiti so common in the various lanes), but that wouldn’t be complete or fair… it’s more of a feeling. Some cities resonate with me and some don’t. Melbourne is a place I would consider living in… and that’s saying a lot. It was a long trip, though. It’s not an easy thing, travelling around a country. There just isn’t enough time to see everything. Yes, we got to Melbourne, but there was so much we didn’t see… so many places… It took four days to get down, and by the time we reached Melbourne (by car) we needed a break. We spent five days there. Coming back took two days, and we were pushing hard. We could have spent so much more time in all of the places we drove through, between kids puking in the back seat (we forgot to give them Gravol on the last day), cops pulling us over (random breath tests… I’ve had four now), and the awareness of impending school (unit planning is more intense here), the break was somehow not as restful as I might have wished. I still have the weekend, though. I wonder what the world would look like if people paid less attention to the daily grind and more attention to the experiential aspect of who we are. How different would our society be if we had four-day weekends and three-day work-weeks? In four days, people might actually have a chance to connect with the natural world, to spend time in an area and learn what the people there value… instead we are stuck getting snippets on the two days we are given. Even if it was three day weekends and four day weeks, would we not get a chance to see more of our world, and by that become more invested in improving it? Why are we stuck on a system that was constructed for us in a past which no longer really pertains to the world we have? More and more I hear companies questioning what they could do to improve productivity and employee satisfaction… yet the obvious answer of providing employees with more family time, more nature-based time, more away time never really gets considered… why? Is the 9-5 M-F schedule really so beneficial? Yes, it makes the share-holders happy… but… …But this isn’t really the time or place for a foray into theoretical socio-economics. I still have the weekend. I wish I had more time. Can you believe it’s almost May? That means that this exchange is rapidly approaching the half-way margin. We are a third of the way done… Australia is a place that demands more time than we have. In that respect, it is very much like Canada. Both are beyond the scope of a single lifetime. We may get glimpses, but nothing more. This has been a good week on a variety of levels.
|
AuthorJust me. Unabridged. Archives
March 2019
Categories |