What am I doing?

"wow"

Lake Wanaka

I will be at a beautiful school in Auckland, New Zealand. The education system in New Zealand has three levels. The first level is, early childhood. This level covers ages from birth to a school entry age. Which kicks into the second level, primary and secondary school. This level tends to cover ages 5 to 19. Lastly, a further education which usually includes all higher and a vocational education.

School is only 6 hours a day and tends to be more hands on. There is a principal and a few deputy principals as well.

The school I will be student teaching at is considered the school with no rules. During play time people, may see the students being chaotic however, the principle likes to consider it, “organized chaos.” If this isn’t the school for me… I don’t know what is.

While diving deeper into the school’s website I found the most unique school vision. The vision is, “Our vision compares our children to the Kauri tree. The Kauri is the largest, strongest tree in the forest, and that is what we would want our children to be like; stand tall and strong, and be leaders in their communities. The branches represent the core skills we would like our āko to develop: be resilient risk-takers, who are inclusive and have mana, while the leaves break down these skills into qualities. At the heart of the tree, there is hauora, because our main aim is to ensure the holistic well-being of all our children: taha whānau (social well-being), taha wairua (spiritual well-being), taha hinengaro (mental and emotional well-being) and taha tinana (physical well-being). The roots represent what we believe we need to be like to ensure we feed the tree, and support it to grow and thrive, always drawing our strength from the New Zealand Curriculum and Treaty of Waitangi.”

I have never felt so connected to a school’s vision until I read this. I think the world had another plan for me and plan was to go to New Zealand.