“Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there.”
― Gary Snyder
― Gary Snyder
I have just had my second move to a new town in 18 months. Not unusual when the average house in Australia turns over ownership every 9 years. That is just the average with renters and people between 22-44 years moving more frequently.
The trouble with this frequent moving is that we never really get to know an area before we move. This is a problem because we need to know an area very well before we can use local examples to illustrate things that we are teaching. Students need to see that what they are learning has a relationship to their lives and where they live.
Fortunately I lived in the Macleay valley for 15 years and as we threw ourselves into living in that close knit community we learnt a lot very quickly. I have very eclectic interests and so learnt about the history, natural history, geology, and local identities of the area. But I am still amazed by stuff I have learnt about the Macleay valley, since leaving, while researching for my Classroom Macleay website. For instance practically every major event in post European Aboriginal history has a local example in the Macleay.
So when I move to a new area the first thing I do is look for the educational opportunities there. I start with the tourist attractions, council website and local tourist website. It is well worth drawling right through local council websites because there is a wealth of information there on history, cultural events, environmental impact statements, maps and facilities. I learn the local history from library books, the internet and the local museum and think about how it fits in with the curriculum. I walk around the streets, to both orientate myself and look for opportunities for learning. I take lots of photographs of what I see so that I can use them in my teaching and upload them to Flickr to share them.
The NSW BioNet lets me find out what animals and plants are in my new region. The NSW Environment and Heritage website is useful for finding out the significant things in my new area. The Bureau of Statistics Quick Stats page lets me understand more about the population of the town and the Bureau of Meteorology Climate Data lets you download data about the climate.
Going to local events helps me to become familiar with the area but also gives me something in common with the students I teach.
What would be fantastic would be to find a website already in existence that gave me this sort of information, like Teaching the Hudson Valley. However building my own, such as Classroom Canberra, Classroom Macleay and Classroom Queanbeyan gives me the incentive to research and curate what I find out. It is worth the effort this takes because not only can I be "a local teacher" but I become a local inhabitant a lot faster.
The trouble with this frequent moving is that we never really get to know an area before we move. This is a problem because we need to know an area very well before we can use local examples to illustrate things that we are teaching. Students need to see that what they are learning has a relationship to their lives and where they live.
Fortunately I lived in the Macleay valley for 15 years and as we threw ourselves into living in that close knit community we learnt a lot very quickly. I have very eclectic interests and so learnt about the history, natural history, geology, and local identities of the area. But I am still amazed by stuff I have learnt about the Macleay valley, since leaving, while researching for my Classroom Macleay website. For instance practically every major event in post European Aboriginal history has a local example in the Macleay.
So when I move to a new area the first thing I do is look for the educational opportunities there. I start with the tourist attractions, council website and local tourist website. It is well worth drawling right through local council websites because there is a wealth of information there on history, cultural events, environmental impact statements, maps and facilities. I learn the local history from library books, the internet and the local museum and think about how it fits in with the curriculum. I walk around the streets, to both orientate myself and look for opportunities for learning. I take lots of photographs of what I see so that I can use them in my teaching and upload them to Flickr to share them.
The NSW BioNet lets me find out what animals and plants are in my new region. The NSW Environment and Heritage website is useful for finding out the significant things in my new area. The Bureau of Statistics Quick Stats page lets me understand more about the population of the town and the Bureau of Meteorology Climate Data lets you download data about the climate.
Going to local events helps me to become familiar with the area but also gives me something in common with the students I teach.
What would be fantastic would be to find a website already in existence that gave me this sort of information, like Teaching the Hudson Valley. However building my own, such as Classroom Canberra, Classroom Macleay and Classroom Queanbeyan gives me the incentive to research and curate what I find out. It is worth the effort this takes because not only can I be "a local teacher" but I become a local inhabitant a lot faster.
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