End of TP2

And then there was none. May 15^th arrived faster than I thought, and just like that, my teaching practice at Villa Maria ended. The day before, myself & the other student teachers put together a special Morning Tea for the VM faculty as a way of saying ‘Thank You for putting up with us.’ Up for grabs were savouries, egg sandwiches, cherry tomatoes, biscuits (crackers), and chocolate cake. By the end of the lunch hour, everything was gone.

Counter to my hunch last week, I taught 11 lessons for my last week instead of 15. For Friday, my associates took over their classes because us student teachers needed to sort through everything & return any borrowed resources, such as textbooks, charts, and/or maps. As well, we were debriefed by the assistant principal, stating what we liked & disliked, and suggesting any needed improvements.

In my mind, Villa Maria is a well equipped school, with every classroom having a projector & computer, and the working environment is quite orderly. Of course, students will always get unruly on any day – it happens – you just have to cope and make sure they don’t burn down the classroom. My associates were quite helpful during my term but I could sense that they were a little annoyed that I had to use their laptops for some of my lessons because mine is obsolete.

As I observed my classes for the last time, the students were sad to hear that I was leaving them, but they applauded my teaching abilities & wished me all the best. I was even more surprised when one of my Year 11 classes presented me with a Thank You card. Unlike men, women enjoy given cards to people for any kind of occasion.

What makes NZ education system unique compared to North America is that it’s more activity based rather than content based. Confused? It means that students are to learn & understand the content through activities that promote self-discovery. My main weakness is that at times I still fall back on the old North American way of teaching, labelled as ‘chalk & talk’.

Where do I go from here? Well, back to the College of Education of course! For the next five weeks, it’ll be college lectures like before & then I’ll be finished. I’m already pondering on what my classmates will say when we all meet on Monday. It’s been 9 weeks since we were all together – there’ll be much to share. Come to think about it, it’s been 9 weeks since I last stepped onto the college campus – maybe the layout has changed?

Even though teaching practice has finished, it doesn’t mean that the flow of work has stopped as well. This weekend will be spent cleaning the flat, doing the laundry, and preparing for lectures on Monday. Rather than get a head start on Friday night, I just treated myself to Pure Blonde beer & partied with my flatmates. Ilam Village is always loud on Friday nights; thankfully I have earplugs.

Speaking of loudness, there’s some sort of a cult gathering happening above the small computer room where I’m writing this post. It may be hippies or a Christian student group but they certainly love banging a loud drum & chanting a chorus I can’t understand. Well, whatever, the laundry machines are calling.