QIEU Teacher Exchange Program
From +35◦C to -35◦C; Reflections from an Aussie Exchange teacher As I write this article, the time left on my teaching exchange to Canada and to the Louise Dean School here in Calgary is rapidly running out. What a year it has been! I arrived on the second of January having left Townsville, my hometown in north Queensland, with temperatures at a balmy +35◦C and desperately tried to acclimatize to the -30◦C temperatures and snowfall. I also quickly got used to putting on thick socks, boots, gloves, a scarf, a beanie (or toque as they are called over here) and a big jacket EVERY time I went outside and I too became obsessed with checking the weather (and ski) report at every available opportunity. To say that the initial learning curve was a little steep, would be a considerable understatement, but thanks to the welcome I received from staff and students at Louise Dean and to the friendships that I formed mostly with other exchangees from Australia who were ‘in the same boat’ here in Calgary, the transition was surprisingly smooth.
Looking back on the past 11 ½ months and forward to the remaining few weeks left here, I have mixed feelings. I am excited to return home to reconnect with friends and family, but I am also melancholy to be leaving Canada. As I reflect on the time spent teaching in Calgary, it seems fitting to compare my Australian and Canadian schools. The school that I left (and will return to) in Australia has approximately 1200 students
and is a private co-educational day and boarding school. There are approximately 60 teaching staff and I am one of 12 in our Science department. This contrasts noticeably with my Canadian school, in that here I am the only Science teacher (and one of only 12 teaching staff) and the students (of which there are only about 150) are all either pregnant teens or already parenting infants or toddlers.
So it was with some nervousness that I began my exchange. Not only did I have to cope with the Calgary weather (Who knew that you had to plug your car in once the temperatures dipped too low? Or that the doors could freeze shut resulting in the driver having to spend 10 minutes thawing out the lock with a hairdryer?), but I was not sure how I would cope with teaching at such a specialized school. However, it didn’t take me long to realize that ‘kids are kids’ and even though the students I had taught previously and the students at Louise Dean are from opposite ends of the planet, they really are not that different from each other in terms of their emotions, behaviours, reactions and abilities.