Educational Differences

This is the same post I posted on Facebook for those of you who saw, but not everyone did so I'll post it again!

Over here, the students begin primary school at about the same age as we do. Rather than saying "8th grade", they refer to their grade as years. So primary school is year 1 through year 8, and then the high school (or college as they sometimes call it) is year 9 through year 13. So high school over here is a total of five years, and then they go to university for only three years. So that is a little different.

Another difference is that rather than having separate classes for algebra, geometry, pre-calc, etc. with a mixture of grade levels and the teacher switching what classes they teach every so often, in New Zealand, a teacher is assigned a class of Year 9's. In this class, she teaches all the subjects (for example they do a little of algebra each year, a little geometry and trigonometry, and some other kinds of math) but they are not all done in separate years. Then, the same teacher teaches this same class in Year 10, Year 11, etc. and teaches a mixture of math content again. I think this is neat because then the teacher knows exactly where the students are at and really gets to know the learning styles of the students. So then basically since each teacher gets a new class of Year 9's each year, each teacher teaches one class of each Year or grade level each school year.

Another difference, which I think some schools may do something similar when they have block scheduling, is that they don't teach the same classes the same hour each day. This school goes by days, and there are 6 of them. So for example, today was day 5, so we had our Year 11 class, our Year 10 class, and our Year 9 class. Tomorrow on Day 6, we don't have our Year 10 class, but we have our Year 11, 9, 12, and 13 class. The hours in which we teach these classes each day vary depending on the day. The teachers are constantly checking their schedules to see what classes they have on what days, so I think it could get a little confusing.

Some other minor differences is that after two periods, the students get a 20 minute break for "morning tea". Everyone drinks tea or coffee here like 17 times a day. All the teachers go down to the staff room (which is equipped with free coffee, tea, cups, a fridge, and a cleaning lady to do the dishes) and just relaxes for twenty minutes. I think this is great for the kids and teachers to get this break. Also, there school is made up of a bunch of little buildings, so they need to go outside to get to their classes. I know there are some schools in the US that do this, but it's not that common. I told them that our school is just one big building and they thought that was the strangest thing in the world!

That's all I really have right now. I hope some of you found this somewhat interesting because my wrists hurt from writing this novel! Hope student teaching is going well for those of you in my class, and I hope all you others in your practicum enjoy the experience!