the first day of relief or here is some stuff i learned

So the first day of relief is over. it was educational, no pun intended. for example i must remember to take into account the slight variations on the english language.

"once I have checked your work please put it in the bin" (and then i pointed to the bin). this worked fine until i forgot to point to 'the bin'. turns out the previous children were to polite to mention it and just put the book where i pointed. this young lady though got quite upset "i don't want to put it in the bin". its just over there i responded, put it in the bin. "why do i have to put my book in the rubbish", she was quite upset now. right so the correct phrase is not "put it in the bin", or "put it in the basket" its "put it in the box". the other two mean trash to them.

so there was the newbie mistake of the day. now for teachers coming over here i have learned something important. yes you need to go through the NZQA and register with the Teachers Council. but that's about it, TeachNZ website says nothing more than that. so when the school asked me for my MoE number i went blank; i hadn't read anything about that.

MoE number is the Ministry of Education number. you need to put it on all the paperwork. do not panic if you do not have one; after a frantic call to the ministry at 4pm on Friday it turns out that the MoE number is automatically generated the first time your pay info comes through the system. so on Monday when the school enters my name and bank info for my relief pay I will have a MoE generated.

also i have decided that Year 2-3 is more my thing...the new entrants are...well its more like kindergarden but you have 6 years olds who go completely limp and refuse to acknowledge you when they don't want to do something. if you are looking for an Ontario grade 1 type class you may want to stick to Year 2-3 over here.

Things i'm taking home after 1 day:
1)my Maori is going to need a massive jumpstart,
2)they don't have 100s carpets (never heard of them),
3)teachers physically take hand (ie. i saw a teacher grab two boys, pull them apart, drag them both to the door and order them out to run 5 laps; they were 6, i was a little shocked),
4)teachers touch and hug kids all the time.

the other thing which really blew me away was the trust. a child in my class missed leaving with the group for after school soccer. the other teacher scolded her for goofing with friends instead of going to line up for soccer and said "well i guess i'll have to drive you up". i said (i was curious) how far away was the stadium and she turned to me and said "oh not far, could you walk her up the hill"....hold up you're going to just hand me a child and tell me to take her to where she needs to go, no calling parents, needing a note and all that jazz....YES!!!!! finally a country thats not so overprotective it seems stupid.
turns out her older brother missed the group too, he ended up grabbing her instead but still i was blown away by the different attitude.

what i took away from today. keep an open mind, everything is different enough here so be prepared for anything.