Many people think a Fulbright award for teachers involves being placed in a school and teaching. Not true! I can see why someone would think this and I believe it's how the award worked in the past. However, nowadays this award means I come to New Zealand with a "project" in mind and I take classes at Victoria University of Wellington (aka Vic) and spend time in schools learning whatever it is I want to learn in support of my "project."
The trick is, I have to get into schools. And even though they are everywhere it would be weird if I just showed up at the front door and asked to watch. And so this week begins a process of trying to get myself into some classrooms. As a point of comparison, it would be like if I was in college, needed to do my student teaching, and had to cold call people to find a placement for myself. Only this is NZ so I don't really know the etiquette for this kind of thing and people don't really know what I'm asking for (heck, I don't know what I'm asking for) when I call or email them.
This is all hypothetical at this point. I've only emailed one person, so I can't really speak from experience here. But I emailed him this afternoon and he still hasn't emailed back! (Oh the joys of checking and rechecking one's email when it is completely ridiculous to do so.)
I met with my advisor today and she gave me a list of all the schools in the Wellington area. I went through it, making a list of all the secondary schools and now I've spent a few hours googling away, trying to figure out which schools look interesting and are close enough for me to get to via public transportation. Here's what I know: there appear to be 53 secondary schools in the Wellington region. Of those 13 are way too far for me to visit on any regular basis, so I'll save contacting those for later when I am hoping for one-off visits. Of the 40 remaining schools, 9 are private (same definition as the US) or state integrated, which means they were formerly private and have been integrated into the public system. Lots of religious schools appear to be in this category. I'm up for visiting anywhere, but the reality is that the private and integrated schools are almost always less diverse in terms of race and economic status, and if I'm going to spend a lot of time in a school I'd prefer to be in a school similar to ones I work in at home.
So that leaves 31 schools, some of which are still a little over an hour away. At this point I have "connections" to three of them, and I'm using that word very generously here. Plus, this doesn't even take into account my project, which requires good social studies teachers. I suppose I could learn from some non-examples, but that would be a bummer.
All of which is to say, can we just fast forward this part? I'm fine with sending out 31 emails asking if I can visit, but the next step of asking, "So can I hang out here a few times a week for the next 6 months?" feels awkward to me.
The trick is, I have to get into schools. And even though they are everywhere it would be weird if I just showed up at the front door and asked to watch. And so this week begins a process of trying to get myself into some classrooms. As a point of comparison, it would be like if I was in college, needed to do my student teaching, and had to cold call people to find a placement for myself. Only this is NZ so I don't really know the etiquette for this kind of thing and people don't really know what I'm asking for (heck, I don't know what I'm asking for) when I call or email them.
This is all hypothetical at this point. I've only emailed one person, so I can't really speak from experience here. But I emailed him this afternoon and he still hasn't emailed back! (Oh the joys of checking and rechecking one's email when it is completely ridiculous to do so.)
I met with my advisor today and she gave me a list of all the schools in the Wellington area. I went through it, making a list of all the secondary schools and now I've spent a few hours googling away, trying to figure out which schools look interesting and are close enough for me to get to via public transportation. Here's what I know: there appear to be 53 secondary schools in the Wellington region. Of those 13 are way too far for me to visit on any regular basis, so I'll save contacting those for later when I am hoping for one-off visits. Of the 40 remaining schools, 9 are private (same definition as the US) or state integrated, which means they were formerly private and have been integrated into the public system. Lots of religious schools appear to be in this category. I'm up for visiting anywhere, but the reality is that the private and integrated schools are almost always less diverse in terms of race and economic status, and if I'm going to spend a lot of time in a school I'd prefer to be in a school similar to ones I work in at home.
So that leaves 31 schools, some of which are still a little over an hour away. At this point I have "connections" to three of them, and I'm using that word very generously here. Plus, this doesn't even take into account my project, which requires good social studies teachers. I suppose I could learn from some non-examples, but that would be a bummer.
All of which is to say, can we just fast forward this part? I'm fine with sending out 31 emails asking if I can visit, but the next step of asking, "So can I hang out here a few times a week for the next 6 months?" feels awkward to me.