Teaching Exchange

As a teacher, do you enjoy school holidays? If you teach in Australia, you have just begun or are almost halfway through our latest. From here, we head into summer. Our last term is hot, especially the final weeks ahead of Christmas.

These breaks are essential for us. We recharge and prepare our learning programs for the coming term. The summer term is also a time of assessment, report writing and interviews with parents.

There are many administrative tasks to perform. To say the term is hectic is to understate it.

I undertook a teaching exchange for a calendar year in a Canadian school. School began for me in early January. I was just off the plane from Australia, having traded 30-degree heat for a minus 30-degree deep freeze. (Those temperatures are in Celsius for the Americans who may be reading.)

Students had already been in their current year level since September of the previous year.

The hectic part in Canada came in the lead-up to the summer vacation–July and August. The new school year began in September. I felt I was getting to know my new students when I had to leave and return home in December.

The summer vacation was fantastic–plenty of warm sunshine. If you teach in such a chilly country, you have my admiration. On the other hand, Australia’s stifling summer heat can be just as challenging.