First Day of School

My first day of school went spectacularly! I was a bit nervous, but I think I will assimilate into the school quite well. The school was built in the 80's so it is a bit old, but beautiful. The campus is an outdoor one and the buildings are formed in the shape of a nautilus shell. The art rooms are such the artist's studios with paint on the walls and dripping with artwork.

The structure of the school day is quite different. There are 6 periods, 1st - 9:00-10:20 (80 min), 2nd - 10:20-11:10 (50 min), Recess 11:10-11:30 (20 min), 3rd 11:30-12:40 (70 min), 4th 12:40-1:30 (50 min), Lunch 1 1:30-1:50 (20 min), Lunch 2 - 1:50-2:10 (20 min), 5th 2:10-2:50 (40 min), and 6th 2:50-3:30 (40 min). Since the periods are different lengths of time, classes rotate each day. So if we had Year 9 for period 5, they would then shift up to period 4 and period 4 would shift to period 3 and so on. Wednesdays are sport days and every 7th day, the a class drops off. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it, but Leanne has expressed it is quite difficult to plan as class lengths are rotating every day.

The way art education is structured is much different as well. Art is compulsory up until year 11, whereas in America students might be asked to take two arts related courses their entire four years. Students are also kept within their respective years, so while an American art class might have 9-12th graders, Australian art classes are organized by year. They also explore several mediums whereas American art classes are more specialized according to medium. For example, year 7 is doing a unit on Animalia. To begin, they look at several different artists and discuss the thought processes and theories behind their decision to portray animals the way they did. They then do several projects with different mediums. So, at the end of the unit they might have a pencil drawing of a animal with machine parts, a ceramic sculpture of an animal, a watercolor portrait of their pet, and a collage of an imaginary animal. This is different from America where we are starting to progress into themes, but at my placement in Fishers they were not used. We do not dive as heavily into theory or thought process and spend weeks creating one artwork. Leanne explained that doing several small projects allows them to explore the many different processes and techniques and keeps them stimulated as they easily get bored. Another difference is that in America high schools, classes often focus on one specific medium whereas in Australia they continue to work in several different mediums and in year 12, if they choose to study art in University, they then can choose to specialize in one medium.

As I observed today, I noticed students were much more openly defiant. I don't know if this is just how it is here, if it's representative of Australian children, if it was just because Leanne had been gone and this was her first day back and the students hadn't met her yet, or just typical teenage behavior. I was quite fortunate at Fishers to have very compliant students, but I did have one class that gave me difficulties. One girl was very interested in my experiences in Australia so far and what America was like. She expressed that she couldn't believe I picked Byron Bay because it was the most "boring" place in the world. This shocked me as I feel like everyone in Australia wants to come to Byron Bay and I think it is so beautiful and eventful, but I guess if you grow up with it you don't appreciate what you have. When she asked where I was from in the states I said I was two hours away from Chicago and she replied, "So the outback?" I explained that here the further away from main cities you go, the sparser communities become whereas cities are spread out all over the US. She then asked if I had been in a school shooting. I found that interesting since that was a very hot topic in the media earlier this year. They were curious to know what Australian's did that I perceived as weird, but I couldn't of anything specific off the top of my head.

Year 12's were sitting exams today and I was astonished by the level of difficulty in the essay questions for the theory portion. I would have struggled myself.

I am excited to collaborate with Tarryn. I think we will both benefit from each other's support. She has already adapted my Adinkra project I completed with my 3rd graders. She has her year 8 students creating symbols by combining 3 symbols to create a new one. They draw general, recognizable symbols such as their initials, a symbol of a hobby or interest, and another symbol the represents them on tracing paper. They then take a fourth piece and begin rotating the other three pieces to create a new and interesting design. I think this was a great way to create more original, less stereotypical symbols. I am also going to design the clay project for year 7's Animalia unit.

I'm sure I've left out plenty more, but I'm excited to jump into it!