A Journey of Discovery: Life, Lessons, and Kia Ora: Where I Put My Feet in the Sands and My Head in the Clouds

Cairns (Cans):

Where I Put My Feet in the Sands

and

My Head in the Clouds

Cairns, Australia, home of the Great Barrier Reef, is not only rich in beauty but a wealth of talented teachers, innovative schools, and supportive professionalism.

While I was able to put my feet in the sand, my mind was whirling in the clouds from my tantalizing school site visits.

I had the fortunate opportunity to visit Cairns through receiving the Fulbright Professional Development Grant. I visited three very different schools, each with unique qualities, however all with progressive thinking professionals.

I was warmly and openly welcomed into each school. It was interesting to visit three school settings that are quite different from any of my school visits that I have done in New Zealand or even any schools that I have been to in America. These Cairns area schools are: Freshwater Christian College, Cairns School of Distance Education, and Trinity Anglican School.

Head in the Clouds

Upon reflection, my craft of teaching has been effected by each staff member, administrator, and instructional coach that I met with and observed in the Cairns area. Some key take-aways from my school visits are as follows:

WALTs for each subject area (Mrs. Dee Wells, Year 1, TAS)

Student goals: Students have specific goals that they are able to utilize during their learning process. For example, Johnny (prep/kindergarten student) has a card with three targeted goals for writing. These goals might be “Always use correct spacing”, “Put a full stop at the end of each sentence”, and “Check the word wall for words I know how to spell”. The student then will bring the card to his table when he is working on his writing to remind him of his specific goals.
WALTs- While I have seen these used in New Zealand (“We are learning to”), I noticed that many of the classrooms in Cairns had WALTs in each subject area. The learning goals for reading, writing, math, social/emotional, history, and science are all listed separately with student work samples attached.
Students as interviewers and interviewees- In one particular classroom (year 1), while the students were working independently, another student was given permission to “interview” their classmates. The “interviewer” went around the room asking students (with a play microphone)- “What are you doing? Why are doing it? How are you doing it”. This allows students to verbalize what, why, and how they are working on a specific goal/task.
Students need to be in-charge of their learning. I observed students working independently, in small groups, and whole class. I saw students starting the day by reading math vocabulary. I also observed students working collaboratively and supportively with one another in small groups to brainstorm ideas for writing, and youngsters turning and talking about what they would create in their literary reflection window.

Students in charge of their own learning- Putting on hard work shorts! (Mrs. Shannon Rankin, Prep, TAS)

Cross-curricular units work! Again and again I observed cross-curricular units of science, math, and the creative arts as springboards for responding to texts and writing prompts.
Collaborative coaching: Using the GROWTH Model (or similar), is imperative to productive and effective colleagueship and conversations. This allows for problem solving using one’s own schema and allows for teachers to positively make changes for student growth.

Specific Student Writing Goals (Mrs. Shannon Rankin, Prep, TAS)

Of course, the use of assessment is critical to student growth. Specifically, I was given an Emergent Testing Kit at Cairns School of Distance Education that was created by the Far North Queensland Department of Education, Training, and Employment. This will be useful to Kindergarten and Grade 1 teachers within my school district, as well as for students with significant needs and/or who are nonverbal. (A big thank you to Erica Green for all her efforts in the creation of this document).
Affirmation that guided reading is the most effective strategy to teach the process of reading and reading comprehension. I saw the extensive use of book rooms with many different leveled readers. I did not observe and have not observed in NZ any teachers using a basal reader that is published by a big conglomerate- Differentiated Instruction and Guided Reading are the way to go.

Book room selections for guided reading

Support from strong administration that set high expectations for students and teachers is critical for the success of students and for the innovative thinking of teachers. For example, one administrator told me she would like to have her teachers make connections internationally. I started to think about this as a powerful professional learning platform. This same administrator supported an exchange between a teacher at her school and a teacher in Scotland. What an amazing opportunity for educators and for students!

More WALTs (Mrs. Shannon Rankin, Prep, TAS)

Feet in the Sand

Kuranda Village

Cairns is a wonderful platform that offers visitors the opportunity to be minutes from the rainforest and minutes to beautiful beaches. Cairns, itself, has a lot to offer with shopping, restaurants, and a beautiful Esplanade. There are a lot of backpackers but also lots of very nice hotels and places to get some R&R (which I didn’t really do because there was too much to do!). However, I was able to squeeze in some tourist site seeing between school visits.

Cairns Infinity Community Pool, The Lagoon- Seamless into the ocean- on the Esplanade

Hot spots included:

Kuranda Village-

A village that was started by “hippies” and has grown to a larger village with markets and restaurants. Also, it is home to a few wildlife sanctuaries. I was able to get up-close-and-personal with kangaroos while they rested in a patch of grass that was not gated. I also was able to hold Frank, my koala friend. Other native Australian animals abounded: wallabies, wombats, crocodiles, gliders, native snakes…

Click to see Kangaroos

Crystal Cascades-

A short hiking path to swimming holes and amazing waterfalls. The water was refreshing and crystal clean; an amazing opportunity to swim in the rainforest! I could not get over the large old trees with their trunks that wrapped around looking like something out of ‘Alice in Wonderland’!

Port Douglas-

An hour drive from Cairns, along some of the most beautiful coastline that I have ever seen, is Port Douglas. This is where the “rainforest meets the coast”. After getting out of Cairns, the road opens up to a magnificent view of blue, turquoise ocean….just stunning. Port Douglas is a very quaint town with some upscale shops, many restaurants, and lots of resorts.

It is also home to 4-Mile Beach with its warm, dive-right in water.

Great Barrier Reef & Green Island-

I was able to take a day trip to Green Island (about an hour boat ride) and then over to an outer reef of the Great Barrier Reef. What a trip! Green Island has a resort on it but is also a national park that is protected. It has a few shops and a restaurant but also a breathtaking beach to snorkel and explore.

Unfortunately, that was the end of breathtaking scenery for a while…the boat ride to the outer reef of the Great Barrier Reef was horrific. Being raised on the water and being on some pretty treacherous seas on all size boats, I didn’t think anything of it when the crew announced it would be very rough seas. I even laughed to myself as the crew started to hand out little white seasick bags…until I had to take one myself. I have never experienced anything like this! I really thought “This is how it is going to end: American teacher dies among Great Barrier Reef tourists”. I mean, there were things falling from the ceiling of the boat, people were incapacitated, passing out, and getting violently ill. A fellow American decided she would not be able to take the boat ride back and paid $350 to helicopter back to Cairns, and I didn’t fault her one bit…it was THAT bad!

FINALLY, we arrived and although it was not as sunny as I would have liked…I was in the Great Barrier Reef! I dove in and snorkeled as much as possible. There was one resident fish that I was able to get close to and touch. He was so close I wanted to kiss him, but I held back! Even though the boat ride was pretty gnarly, it was well-worth the trek. There is nothing like it in the world!

Click to see the video of Great Barrier Reef Snorkel Video 1 and Video 2

One place I did not get to on my trip was the Daintree Rainforest. This is the oldest rainforest in the world! It is an hour and a half from Cairns and I just did not have time. However, do you know what that means? I’ll just have to go back!