Practicum: Week 1

This week we started our practicum.  I am at Ranui Primary School where I work with a class of 16 year 1& year 2's; this would basically be Kindergarten.  I have children from all over the Pacific, including Samoa, Tuvalu, and the Cook Islands.  I also have children from India and local Maori's.  We are only 3 weeks into the new school year (as we are entering Fall here in NZ) so things are still rather new.  We get a half hour for morning tea (recess), and hour for lunch, and basically play after lunch.  As such, time goes by quickly.  My mentor teacher is very nice and quite funny, and the teachers have been great about making us feel welcomed at the school.  On our very first day, the Maori bilingual students had a mini powhiri (welcoming) for us and it was just the cutest thing I ever saw.  On Tuesday we will be participating in the "official" powhiri with our 3 participating schools.  The children sing beautifully and I love to listen to the Maori language.  I hope to learn some of it while I'm here.

Things are very different in our school than they are in the States; for one, it is very diverse with a different mix of students.  The majority of the student body is Maori, followed by a large Samoan population.  We have large numbers from Tonga, other Pacific nations, India, and some Pakeha (NZ white).  Interestingly enough, there is not 1 Hispanic child in the school, and a total of 3 Asian students.  Very interesting.  I do love the extra break time, and also, everyone receives swim lessons so there is a swimming pool at the school and my class has lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  We've done most of the pre-assessment on them so starting next week we will probably begin lessons and you better believe I'll be in there with them!  Well, maybe.  There's a lot of germs between 16 five year-olds.

Interesting fact: There is a large population of Tuvaluan people here because as we speak, the island nation is sinking beneath the ocean surface.  People are being evacuated for in a few years, it will be completely submerged.  While the people are very concerned for their home, another issue they face is keeping their culture alive when the place where they're from no longer exists.