Oct update

My holidays started without me realizing it. Time really flies. I did my 5 days work attachment in OPC on my first week holiday. I was supposed to co-instruct with another OPC instructor, Brett. Our group was a group of 10 kids aged 11 – 12 years old. We had mystery day on the first day, which made team building relatively hard for us. Brett chose to bring the kids on the sit – on - top kayaking in a canal. Brett’s style was a complete contrast from Ali, my first instructor. He’s more flexible and not too structured, in fact, quite “disorganized”. Haha..Through him, I learnt flexibility and patience with the 11 years old kids. The 11 years olds need a lot of “spoon-feeding” and hand - guiding. They were very receptive towards us and have high energy level though.

On the second day, we had snow fight on the mountain. It was a terrible mistake. They got so cold and miserable that they all wanted to go back to their lodge by noon. It was then we realized that many of them wore cotton beneath their fleece. As a result, we “hid” them into an emergency sac to keep them warm before they were “warm” enough to walk back to the van. Two kids simply refused to participate in the next activity, caving, despite much coercing.

We “learnt our lesson”, so on the third day, we not only reminded, but visually checked that the kids have no cotton in any layer of their clothing. The kids finally got the message.

The work attachment in OPC was very relaxing and fun for me, probably because the activities need not be physically strenuous and demanding for the young ones. The camp ended with an overnight sea kayaking round the lake, instead of the usual overnight tramp.

The important learning point for me during the week was : Each instructor run camps in their own style. Most of the time, very much inclined towards their expertise. Ali was a rock climbing instructor, so many activities were “Land”. Brett was a raft guide prior to being an instructor, so his activities were more inclined towards “Sea”. We need to be very patient and hand guide participants who are younger. The 11 years olds have very high energy level, but got discouraged and tired easily.

Group consensus may not work at times, especially when the group was discouraged. A negative peer influence may result instead. So as an instructor, it is essential to know which style to adopt at different situations.

My second work experience was with a group of 14-16 years old kids from Dargaville School. They were a complete contrast to the kiwi kids I interacted in OPC. Most of them are Maoris, not too motivated and physically unfit. The group were welcomed with the traditional Maori welcome ceremony : Powhiri. The ceremony ended 4 hours later.

Me and Annie, looked at each other and “frowned”. We sensed that we were going to have very long days for this week attachment.

The program did not require us to be very skilful as other instructors will be engaged for different parts of the program. We were told to take care of the sessions on skiing, caving and tramp. The most memorable part of the program was the visit to the National Army Marae. I would never get a chance to go to the Army Marae if it was not for the work attachment. The teacher and the organizer for the Dargarville happened to be the soldiers from the First NZ Battalion stationed in Singapore way back to the early 60s. So there was a comfortable sense of identity and familyness among us while we shared. I was even more pleasantly surprised when I saw a Merlion carving on the Marae. It was a gift from SAF to the NZ army to symbolize good will and friendship between the two countries.

The work attachment allowed me to ski with the kids FOC. The school paid for the ski and snow board lesson, but the kids chose not to attend the lessons. Though it may be a waste of money to some of us, it was a necessary procedure for the teachers to ensure the kids were sufficiently equipped with the knowledge to ski/ snowboard. This is part of the risk management steps they took for the program. Annie and myself took the opportunity to go up to the higher valley to practise our skills during lunch hour.

Through my interaction with the teachers, I got to hear about the Alternative School Education Conference scheduled in Christchurch. It was a pleasant surprise to me when Clive and Andrew, the teachers of Dargaville, invited me to the conference. I happily accepted the invitation since I will be in Christchurch then.

I travelled down south via coach and reached Christchurch the following week. I met up with Andrew’s friend, Woo, a Malaysian, NZ PR and a resource teacher in learning and behaviour. He got very interesting view in education and a “humanist”. He find Singapore Education System very “Behaviourist” and can ask me very “provoking” questions to stimulate my thoughts. I found some of his questions very intrusive and uncomfortable especially when we just knew each other for a few days. I was intrigued by the many people “drawn” to his thoughts and sharing and took opportunity to know more about him during my week stay with him. Undeniably, he got very interesting ways of dealing with AE students and was undeniably a good father and a good teacher. I adopt an open mind towards these different theories and adopt what suit me best as a teacher in future.

In the conference, we choose our sessions to attend. One interesting session I attended was : Graffiti Art. We turned graffiti into an art. Another session was a session on Funding Access. Alternative School Education does not belong to the mainstream and the teacher was not paid by the MOE. Every ASE kid is allotted NZ $11 000 per year and this includes the salary of the teacher, operation and overhead cost. An interesting view is some of the ASE program can apply to be a non-charitable trust so that they can apply for more funding from the community instead of getting the fund from MOE only. It was not easy to be ASE teacher because it takes up a lot of time from the teacher and the teacher was not well-paid at all, considering the amount of time they put in. A lot of teacher stayed in ASE largely due to their passion.

Another take away was the Restorative Practice [RP] presented by Kaiapoi High School. It was very similar to the Reformative Practice adopted by St Andrew Secondary School. Restorative Practice was also practised on the young offenders aged 13-16 years old in NZ where families of offenders, victims, police, social workers and other concern parties will meet to reconcile the wrong doing. The whole process is called the Family Group Conference, FGC, and it adopts the similar structure of RP. FGC seeks to reconcile, heal, and encourage the offenders to acknowledge and take responsibility for their own actions. In event when FGC fails, the young offender will still be brought to court.

One more interesting session : The student’s story.

With regards to experiential learning and therapy, the role of stories play an integral part in the following ways :

- The story that is created from the experience determines the meaning given to the experience.

- The stories determine the real effects, type and degree of transfer of the experience.

- The stories select which aspects of the experience will be highlighted and then given expression.

- The stories encompass the learning, and helps us store information in our memory so that we can later generalize to other experiences.

As teachers seeking to promote learning and development, we can help individuals co-create their new stories that are developed as a result of their experiences as well as to help them re-create more positive perspectives of old stories. By helping them become aware of and articulate the narratives they have developed, it gives a richer meaning to their lives.

School starts next week. I will have 2 weeks of white water kayaking, 2 weeks of rock climbing and finish my course with A BIG BANG : a 8 - 10 days expedition.