Getting settled

Hello from Brisbane!

The last week has possibly been one of the longest on record, the immediate nature of doing things once you arrive in a new country is incredibly testing and has meant that the actual enjoying of things has been slightly put on the backburner in place of admin tasks!

My impressions of the city and people varies tremendously, as with anywhere in the world, some people can't go far enough to help you, others really try to put block in your way, but it is most definitely all good!

From a geographical point of view, Brisbane is a fascinating place. It has a wonderful multi cultural aspect to its demographic, with a large proportion of native Australians, a huge number of immigrants (1st,2nd and 3rd generation) from both the Pacific Islands and the Asia states and a surprisingly large amount of Irish!.

There seems to be a mild form of almost ghettoization to where these groups live. Socio economic factors dictate that many people from far northern Queensland seem to live in the far suburbs of the city and use the very effective public transport to get into the developing and industrial areas for work. The CBD is obviously for the higher earning professional residents, although a large amount of high rise buildings are in fact family owned immigrant houses or apartments. Having only been here a week however, these are some generalisations, although with our extensive housing searches taking us all over the city, I can offer some backing to my claims!haha.

As with any modern city, the universities of the cities dominate the inner city housing directly outside the CBD, with thousands of shared housing and what seems slightly sub standard housing.

The levels of redevelopment and gentrification within these inner city housing areas are huge and almost seems to include redevelopment of redevelopment in some areas.

I would love to create some GIS work on the demographics of the city and map the findings on a mapping program-something that I may look into for possible lessons.

In terms of job hunting and changing the face of teaching of Geography, this may have to wait a little longer.I have registered with a supply teaching agency for the last academic term of 2010 and hope that this will provide an insight into the schools and provide much needed funds for rental housing!Supply is far better paid relatively speaking here than in the UK.Comparatively speaking, it works out as about £220 quid a day after tax, which would be very good to get some of.

In summary, the other side of the world is far from easy and for those who plan on moving to the sunshine, be prepared for the fact that it is not cheap in the slightest and will take a significant amount of savings to set yourself up in the country!

I will update you soon!

Going!

Right, I am going to presume that this will be my last blog for a couple of weeks as our visas have arrived, flights have been booked and we are packing up our lives for the trip of a lifetime! I am hoping that during the course of the next year or so I will discover the other side of the world's views on education and hopefully do my own part to stem to what Alan Parkinson has called the slow death of Geography in Australia!

Now, whether I can personally stem this death is undecided but I would love to give it a go!

Speak to you all soon and if anyone wants to get hold of me, I will be available via email and hopefully my first post from Oz in a couple of weeks will be about starting life, getting a job and making lots of new mates!haha.

The Aussie curriculum

This afternoon, I have been studying the drafts for the new Australian curriculum for Geography. The reasons for this are two fold, firstly, I feel that it is imperative that I have a sound knowledge of the structure of the curriculum before I attempt to teach it and secondarily, I am genuinely intrigued by the differences in the curriculum of different countries and areas of the world.

The thing that struck me about the aussie side of things after reading this was the nature of skills based 'learning' versus the 'knowledge' aspect that underpinned the curriculum and how it almost came across as slightly contradictory. On the one hand, it seems to be promoting some of the key geographical vocabulary that David Lambert alluded to and on the other seemingly wanting to distance itself from this and align with a far more independent enquiry perspective.

Now before people say, well, they are interchangeable and that's the way it should be, I think I agree with this view, they are. What I found odd was the reference paid to a Uk curriculum that is different in many aspects and in tone. Does a Uk curriculum draft make reference to it's Australian brethern and seek to compare and contrast ideas on how Geography should be taught and what should be included in the curriculum?Personally, I feel this would be a fascinating avenue to explore within Geography teaching. I am a great believer in the idea that Geography is about learning of the world around you and what better way than to ask 'experts' or collegaues from other parts of the globe to offer advice. I may be very naive in this point, I am only a 2nd year teacher and clearly have much to learn about what is realisticaly achievable within educational circles, epsecially in those upper echelons of Geography teaching, but wouldn't it be lovely to really embrace the idea of global learning and learn from those people who live in the areas we talk so much about in lessons?

I felt that I really agreed with David Lambert's points within the livinggeography blog regarding the requirement for students to have at least a working knowledge of the world's oceans and places, something that I have tried my best to include all in all my teaching over the past two years. However, my old Geography teacher always said that it was pointless to know the location of somewhere if you knew nothing about it. This is the other side of the coin as it were, how can we push the need for locational knowledge and for the specifics within these sectors? It is the eternal battle as they say. The Australian curriculum outlines the need for case studies not to be confined to class wide work but indepedent and individually led. Although I have yet to try these ideas out in practice, I must say i was a little disappointed by this, I like the camaraderie of a shared experience and case study, that the entire class can debate and discuss, unlike the sometimes disparate and wildly varied outcomes from individualised case study work. Surely a class wide case study can be equally independent when conducted in the right manner and in the right conditions?

All in all, this is an area I could do a shed load more reading in and hopefully will do, more likely now as my visa has been delayed and I will have to do a little supply work before I get to Oz.

It is very rare I feel compelled to write at such length about an issue, but it is one I feel that as my move to Oz comes closer, will be really important to my own CPD and hopefully I can impart some of the knowledge of my own area to the wilds of Greater Brisbane!

Setbacks

After such an awesome week, the news that we won't be getting into Oz until at least the end of September is a massive disappointment, especially as everything has been cancelled, phone, bills etc!. But, what better way to occupy the next few weeks than by roadtripping it around the country, see some sights, drink with some mates and generally have a good time!Advice to everyone trying to go to oz, go out on a working holiday visa and then sort it all out once you get there!

The last few weeks have really been lovely and allowed me a fair bit of thinking time about new ideas, cool stuff that i want to do and where i want to go, very exciting times lie ahead and there is no better person to share them with than who i am going to!

p.s found a house in brisbane, its awesome!