Any teachers out their done an exchange in australia?

[Brian Ashton]

Just wondering what you thought of it.

[Ian Moone]

Not an exchange, and also not a school teach.

BUT

My sis is a school teach all her life in Oz and I live here in Oz all my life.

What do you want to know about Oz?

If I can help you out somehow, I will.

Cheers

[Yonak Hawkins]

Re : "Any teachers out their done an exchange in australia?"

Brian, are you a teacher ?

[Brian Ashton]

Re : "Any teachers out their done an exchange in australia?"

Brian, are you a teacher ?

At the moment going into teaching, just doing my first prac now.

Long story short, I did a couple degrees in Australia a few years back, left for Europe and explored my options back in Canada... Found out, in this present economic climate that the typical Australian degrees isn't worth much outside the country. Even universities in the UK or Canada weren't interested in giving me credit to get the degrees up to an international standard, pretty much told I'd have to start from scratch. So came back to aus to upgrade to something that would be reasonably internationally recognised and thus landed on a grad dip in teaching...

Fast forward to today... To say the least my first prac has been an eye opener. Having not been in a high school since the early eighties in Canada and none in Australia at all I was wanting some perspective. In the eighties I went to a fairly rough couple of schools, but here it's been an eye opener. Packs of rabid dogs scrounging around for fresh meat would be a pretty good description of what I've seen. So far, I've been teaching grade 7, 8, 9, 10 and 12 sciences. Other than the grade 12s the others have a break down of 60% complete drop kicks (the usual description given by all the other teachers), 25% under achieving by choice but not trouble makers and the rest trying to get through as best they can. Maybe I have selective amnesia but I don't remember the sorts of antics I see play out every day in the class here happening when I was in school. The school I'm at doesn't even have that bad of a reputation... So my initial question was just about wondering if that's what the world of teaching has become since I graduated. Asking other teachers who have a North American and Australian take could probably shed some light on where things have gone or whether what I'm seeing now is a more regionally specific phenomenon. If it's an Australian problem I can stick it out because I don't plan to stay but if teaching has become more a battle with feral chimps I think I'll pull the pin on it.

[Jim Koepke]

If it's an Australian problem I can stick it out because I don't plan to stay but if teaching has become more a battle with feral chimps I think I'll pull the pin on it.

My experience in the 1980s was with a school system in Hayward, CA. I was a blue print machine technician with a few high schools on my service route. It shocked me at how misbehaved students were in drafting classes. All be it this was just an outsiders look, the idea of feral chimps might be an insult to the chimps.

On the other side of the bay, I did one repair in a class room in Palo Alto, iirc. That class was actually quite well behaved.

jtk