Christmas Time!

This week at Swanson Primary has become less and less formal in terms of teaching. School for Swanson, and all of New Zealand Primary Schools ends on December 17. I have had the privilege of seeing the students of Rm 34 through many interesting changes. This week my coop and I were told that we would need to move classrooms - moving from our current RM 34 to Rm 6 in preparation for next year. Next year, because of reduced enrollment, Swanson school will be loosing four of their prefabricated classrooms. Therefore, the entire school is undergoing a major change that will shift the rooms around into the permanent classrooms that had previously been used as storage rooms. This movement means that I have had the unique experience of teaching and cleaning a room at the same time. Since our new classroom has been empty for the majority of this year, we were told that we needed to start moving so that the teacher moving into RM 34 would be able to start moving herself as soon as possible.

This week was also the week for the school Christmas concert. For this concert each class prepares a song that they will sing with another class. Rm 34 was paired with RM 33, and we decided that we wanted to do something different so we did a parody of Krytonite that I created called Santa Man. I then organized the choreography for our second, fun song, Walkie Talkie Man. During this song, we had one student who was dress in a Santa suit dancing to the music during the verses in a taunting manner. He was then chased by various groups of students in their pajamas to give the effect that they had been waiting for him to arrive and then catch him unaware. The concert was originally scheduled for Tuesday evening, but it was cancelled and moved to its rain date of Thursday. That was an interesting experience for me, because I have never seen a Christmas concert performed outside. However, on the rain date of Thursday, the concert had excellent weather, slight cloud cover and a gentle breeze. We had asked to be last in the rotation so that we could leave everyone with a happy and fun last piece, and that is exactly what the students did. Simply put, they were fantastic. The entire crowd was laughing and enjoying the students performance. I was so excited for them, because they worked so hard for the past week to meet my standards of perfection. It was extremely exciting for me to see my effects with the students turn out so well. I had many students and parents come up to me after the concert to tell me how much they enjoyed either performing or watching.

I am coming up on my last week at Swanson, and I could not want to stay more. I have loved every experience with the students. I hated hearing the students ask me when I was leaving because they were hoping that I would be their teacher next year - not just the students in my class, but students from the four other classes in Koromiko. I know that when I first came to Swanson, I was not sure that I would like the Primary level. However, my experiences have taught me a valuable lesson - never judge a class of students before you actually meet them. There are so many experiences that I have had at Swanson that have taught me so much about what Primary school truly is. I love being able to get to know a class of students so well and watch them change and improve before my eyes - it is a unique experience. I look forward to next week at Swanson with both excitement and dread. Excitement to see the students for another three days and dread that we only have three more days. However, I also am looking forward to my return to the states where I can share my experiences and become a better teacher because of everything I have learned.