Becoming a Kiwi

My first week in New Zealand has absolutely flown by. I realized that if I did not get my Blog up and running soon – I would be flying home without having shared my trip with anyone.

After about 30 hours of travel time I landed safely in Napier airport in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand on Monday April 30^th. Based on my past experiences with flying and airports I was incredibly blessed with no delays or cancellations. A 13-hour flight through the night is quite an experience. The Air New Zealand flight attendants were wonderful (I loved the pitchers of fresh ice water with lemon that they walked around with) and I was luckily able to sleep and watch TV without any problems. By the final leg of my trip I was so exhausted that I apparently fell asleep mid-conversation with a man from Switzerland who was sitting next to me. He politely woke me up as we were to descending so I could see the beautiful view when arriving in Hawkes Bay.

Emma picked me up at the airport and brought me back to her house (my new home for the next 8 weeks!!!) to shower.  We are now roommates in a two-bedroom house in Clive – which is a small area in between Hastings and Napier. Emma just moved in at the end of March so we are learning the joys of the house together. I have already become hooked on Shortland Street – a NZ drama we are able to enjoy five nights a week and we both share a love of Criminal Minds every Monday night. Tomorrow is my first night to cook dinner, but I don’t think tacos will be too difficult.

For the first two weeks I am working in Room 2 – an Apple Digital classroom with a 2:1 ratio of students to computer. My teacher Amanda has developed an inquiry-based curriculum for her thirty-one Year 7 and Year 8 students. During my first couple of days the students were researching about trees native to NZ in preparation for their trip to camp (which will be Week 4 of my time at the school). While I am moving around to different classrooms during my eight weeks I am lucky to be able to return to Room 2 to share the camp experience. On Friday I developed an inquiry lesson on Indiana. I pitched to the students that I had come up with a list of ten people/places that I found interesting about Indiana. Instead of me teaching them about where I am from I gave them the challenge of using Indiana books I brought and the computers to research Neil Armstrong, The Jackson 5, the Indiana Dunes, the Indy 500, etc and creating Powerpoint slides to teach their classmates about Indiana. The students immediately jumped into the project (see pictures below) and I am so excited to see the finished products this week. After teaching myself how to use a compass, the plan is for me to teach the students how to use a compass and create a scavenger hunt across the school grounds for them to practice their skills. Will definitely keep you updated on that!

It has been wonderful to get to know my students in Room 2 as well as different students throughout the school. I was introduced at the Assembly on Thursday and I encouraged all of the students to ask questions to learn about the States and help me to learn about New Zealand culture. Some of my favorite questions so far have been: “Is it sunny in the States?” “Have you met any famous people” and “Can you spell Mississippi really fast?” That last one gets heaps of laughs from the students. They are teaching me different Maori words and about their families.

This weekend was GRADUATION back at IU. I was incredibly blessed by the opportunity to spend graduation day with three girls from IU – Bridget, who is also teaching in Hawkes Bay, Erin, my roommate from school who is teaching in Auckland, and Amy, who is teaching in Auckland. Erin and Amy took a bus down to spend the weekend with Bridget and I. Emma took us to Clearview Winery for lunch and then we pulled over at a spot on the beach to take graduation pictures. The group pictures are on Amy’s camera, but there are some of Erin and I. Even though it was a cloudy day and these NZ beaches are rocky and too dangerous to swim – it was beautiful to see the edges of the Bay in both directions and hear the waves on the shore. We all wore matching red IU shirts as we wandered around Napier shopping and grabbed dinner at an Ale House by the marina. It was sad to be away from IU on Graduation day; however, standing on the beach in New Zealand with old and new IU friends was definitely the second best place to be.

More about school and life in New Zealand to come!

Love, Becca