Nature According to my Children

I was hoping to have good news for you by this point, but this week was still very stressful for me at work, and J has yet to be well enough to return to work, but is still managing to be stressed out at all the work he is not getting done while he's home being sick. He was better on Tuesday, and we felt optimistic. However, he plummeted back into serious stomach upset on Wednesday, and has been feeling awful ever since. He went back to the doctor, and we're expecting results of some lab tests on Monday, which will hopefully give us guidance as to how to fix this. It has been 11 days since he originally got sick, which is a long time to not be able to put much into your stomach. I am feeling somewhat healthier, although still tired, but I'm doing a better job of being J's nurse/helper, which I like to think is making him feel a least a bit better.

In other news, a few weeks ago my Head Teacher and I presented at a university conference on Early Childhood Education, called Rainbow in my Head. It was for educators and parents, and covered a range of topics about children, development, education, etc. We had presented at a Reggio Emilia evening a few months before that, and some of the people who attended asked us if we would consider presenting at Rainbow in my Head as well, and so we did. 

Our presentation centered around leadership, and how children can become leaders of their own learning, specifically when given time and space to connect with nature. Both my Head Teacher and I find that nature-based programming provides authenticity and meaning that empower children to take the lead, make informed decisions, and become experts in the world around them. We chose to call our presentation "Voices of Leaderful Learning" and to largely let the children tell their own story. (Side note: Neither of us like the word "leaderful," but it was the word chosen by the broader group when we started an extended self-review as a whole team on how to support children in leading their own learning). 

I don't feel that I should put our whole presentation on my blog, as it was a team effort and our team research, goals, and conclusions are not mine alone to make public, but I thought I could share some of the children's voices. They are not nearly as inspiring without the accompanying pictures, but it's what I have.

So these are three- and four-year-olds, and the quotes are from a variety of conversations, some during our weekly visits to the Botanic Gardens, some at our centre (Whare Kea). Some are from impromptu conversations throughout the day, some as a result of specific questions as we tried to understand their blossoming knowledge and the connections they're making. So here goes.

While she and I were working in our garden:

“When I grow up, I might grow into a gardener. Because I’m very good at taking care of my dahlias.” 

                     

Examining a tree at the Botanic Gardens, which had blue and green moss on it, as well as sap:

“See the blue stuff? That’s how the fairies make dust.”

“What’s the yellow stuff?”

“That’s sap. It’s a trees blood. This tree is sick… the green stuff is from the fairies, and its for helping the trees grow big and strong.”

Wandering through the Botanic Gardens:

“Emma, look! Look at this place on the tree! You can see the sap! The tree is bleeding… Maybe a really big stick came falling down and it thwacked the tree!”

Playing outside at Whare Kea, wrapped up in a hammock hanging in a tree:

“Look, I’m in my chrysalis so I can turn into a butterfly! A monarch butterfly!”

Gets up and flaps his wings:

“Someone found me and is taking me over to the Bug Hotel.”

(Our Bug Hotel is a safe haven for all insects we find, so that we can admire them and learn about them while remembering that they're living creatures and we have to be careful not to hurt them. I constructed it with the children out of a pallet we dismantled, and it's filled with sticks and bark and bamboo and leaves and all kinds of things to make a bug feel at home.)

Outside at Whare Kea, she is wearing butterfly-print leggings, on which a real butterfly landed:

“There’s a butterfly on my leg. Maybe it’s talking to his friends. Maybe he thinks I’m a tree.”

A group of children lay down quietly on the grass at the Botanic Gardens:

“We’re just looking up at the treetops.”

We observed a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, and cared for it until it flew away:

“Butterflies like juice from oranges and bananas… They drink it with their tongues. Their tongues look like a really long pipe.”
(It was a good thing that he knew this, because none of the teachers did, and we didn't have any flowers, and the poor butterfly would have gone hungry without his expertise).

We saw a large bumble bee on the path in the Botanic Gardens:

“I think her has a ripped wing, so she’s crawling to her home.”

“You know, you can’t use cellotape on wings.”
(Cellotape is Scotch tape).

We moved said bumblebee off the path so she wouldn't get stepped on, and then continued our walk. On the way back, we stopped to check on her, and found her in the same place, waving a front leg:

“She remembers that we are nice to move her and we’re her friends.” 

“I think she’s doing like a wave with her leg!”

“I think she’s saying, 'Thank you!'”

Walking along a bush path in the Botanic Gardens, we heard a Tūī (a NZ bird):

“That Tūī is talking to me!” (whistles back.)“He said, ‘Hello’ to me and I said, ‘Hello’ to him!”

Observing the trees at the Botanic Gardens:

“Look at the trees, they’re all tied up in knots. It happened in the storm a couple of years ago.”

We asked, 'What do you know about nature?'

“It’s outside. It is green or brown or grey. I saw a Monarch butterfly today and it was flying high in the sky.”

“Flowers grow up… and leaves come out again. It’s bees and flies.”

“We have dead nature on the table. It’s a little bit dead, like the bumble bee. We have it so we can pick it up. You don’t pick up the bumble bees cause those ones will sting you, that’s why you pick up bugs on leaves.” (We have a nature table in our room, and it is a bit of a running joke that the most popular things that the children find and bring to the table are dead insects. We have taught them that if they want to pick up live insects, they need to use a leaf, both to keep themselves safe and to avoid squishing the insects. We have also encouraged them to be careful with bees, because even if they are dead, if their stingers are intact, they can hurt.)

“It’s all the trees. I think there’s so many trees. When I was a baby I learnt about nature and I learnt about statues.” (My best guess is that he's connecting the various lovely statues in the Botanic Gardens with his experience of nature, although I'm not sure).

“The Earth. Nature has lots of trees and butterflies.”

“That’s a path that I found. Sometimes we get to choose where we go. I like going that way because it’s where we spotted that tree that I thought broke and Dom thought it got cut.” (The children often get to choose which of many circuitous routes through the Botanic Gardens we take).

“My favourite thing in nature is the sky. I really love nature and they’re pretty awesome. Nature means you need some water.”

“Nature is something you need to learn about. You need to look for plants and birds because they might bite you.” 

We asked, 'How do we look after nature?'

“We water it.”

“The rain waters it.”

“You don’t shoot down trees.”

“You have to stop doing bad stuff to nature like putting it down and sawing it down.”

“By not cutting trees. We should recycle the paper."
(We have been reading The Lorax quite a bit - it's one of my favourites - and I have recently purchased a fancy new recycling bin, and the children are very passionate about protecting trees by not letting them get cut down, and by recycling paper).

"We need to pick things up off the ground, not things off the trees, otherwise they die.” (Our children love collecting beautiful things from nature, and making sure to not break pieces off living plants as been an ongoing conversation and growing understanding of plants as living creatures that deserve respect. This particular child is a staunch defender of all plants).

“There’s lots of kinds of nature. When you go outside there is nature waiting by themselves. Nature stays still. Except if the wind blows.”

(This may be my favourite quote).

Hopefully these few excerpts from our presentation give you at least a little bit of a sense of how confident and empowered these children are. They are connected with their place in the world and the nature around them, and when that becomes part of their sense of self, it gives them a strong place to stand as they reach out and learn more about the world. It is inspiring to be a part of it, and I'm excited to see what they will tell us and teach us as my team has more time to delve more deeply into nature-based programming and empowerment.

Rough Week

This week has been a rough one for J and me. We are both not feeling well and had stressful weeks at work, which is never a good combination.

I have been fighting a sinus infection for a month and a half, trying everything at my disposal to get rid of it without antibiotics, as I have had to take them so many times for sinus infections that I am getting very worried about antibiotic resistance, and they have even not worked several times in the past. But I ran out of other options and was feeling worse than ever, so antibiotics won out this week, and now my sinuses are slowly improving while the rest of me compensates by flaring up with all kinds of antibiotic side-effects, although I should be thankful that they are not as bad this time as they sometimes are.

Sadly, I am in perfect condition compared to poor J, who has had a violently upset stomach since Wednesday, and who I had to take to the hospital yesterday for IV fluids, as he couldn't even keep water down. A day in a busy hospital was not helpful for either of our psyches, but I was impressed by how calmly J dealt with it all, despite how sick he was. Fortunately, J has perked up a bit since his hospital stay and actually kept some soup down last night, so that's very encouraging. He will probably have to have most of this week off work to rest and recuperate, and I'm just hoping that the recuperation starts soon so he can maybe even enjoy a quiet day at home, rather than just being miserable.

J's job is continuing to be stressful, and although he is trying his best, it is a difficult situation for him and the chronic stress does nothing positive for his health. My job is usually quite positive and rewarding, but some recent changes have made for some interpersonal conflict that produces tension. While none of it directly involves me, and while my professional relationships remain positive, the tension between others really gets to me. I am sure that it will resolve itself as we settled into the new system, but that doesn't feel immensely comforting as it's happening. In addition, I found out that my child who speak French is leaving next month, which means I won't have anyone to speak French with at work, which is so disappointing, as I was loving that!

Well, that was a lot of complaining to do all at once! It's just felt like one thing after another this week, but I am sure next week will be much better.

To end on a positive note, did you know that NZ has the best French Toast in the whole world? Here they put bacon and friend bananas on it (along with syrup, of course). I thought it sounded like a strange combination at first, but it has become one of my favourite meals ever. I don't actually remember when or where I took this picture, but I stumbled across it and remembered that I definitely have a responsibility to share this delicious news with everyone I know. So, if you're ever in NZ, please make sure to eat the French Toast!

Visiting Taranaki

Unbelievably, it has been almost a year since we moved to Wellington. It doesn't seem possible that we've been away from Taranaki for that long, but it's true. J and I both wanted to visit our Taranaki jobs and friends, so we headed back on Thursday and Friday of this week.

Every time we take a road trip, I love looking out the window along the Kapiti Coast at the gorgeous  ocean and Kapiti Island off shore. Unfortunately, it's hard to get reasonable pictures out the window, but this time I managed one.

The road goes right along the ocean, with hills on the other side, and I love it!

The Kapiti Coast is on the way to Whanganui, which is about 2 1/2 hours from our house. We stopped there and I had lunch with Kirsten and J had lunch with Jonny, and then I got to stop by and see Belinda at work, all of which was lovely. Then we continued the 2 more hours to New Plymouth. I was struck again by how funny it was that we lived in New Plymouth, but neither of us actually worked there. I was in Bell Block and J was in Stratford - hence, we were going to visit Taranaki (the region) rather than New Plymouth, as our lives were a bit spread out.

Anyway, we got to New Plymouth and checked into our B&B, which had a lovely lounge for us to relax in a bit after our drive. It was run by a lovely elderly couple who were delighted to share that they'd actually been to Kansas.

It also had gorgeous views! I hadn't really thought about houses having views in New Plymouth, as it is very flat compared to Wellington, but obviously some do, and I so enjoyed looking out.

We met our friends Rachel and Stu at Sushi Ninja for dinner. We had tried to think of our favourite Taranaki restaurant and not come up with much, and then as soon as Rachel suggested Sushi Ninja, we both went, "Oh yeah! That's our favourite!" Well done, Rachel. Plus, they've upped their game since we moved and are now serving sashimi in paua shells! How cool!

Also, I believe I mentioned last week how I could eat dumplings forever - these only increased that desire. And I love that they're served over their own fire to keep them hot!

After dinner, as we walked to the car, we saw this display and were reminded of one of our hilarious moments in New Plymouth. J asked me to pick something up at "some healthy stuff store" downtown, and said it was the one with a girl in a bikini on it...

... I thought and thought, but could only remember a healthy stuff store with a picture of the glass being shattered by a big guy getting knocked down. We had something of an argument about it, as both of us were so convinced we were right...

... so we eventually drove down to see that... they're both there. Right there together on the same building, but he managed to only see one, and I managed to only see the other! 

This story makes me laugh so hard, because J and I almost never, ever display such stereotypically gender-specific behaviour, but in this case, we fit ourselves so perfectly into "guy-brain" and "girl-brain" boxes. Hahaha!

(Also, notice J laughing at me as I ran into the street to take this picture. He was entertained, but not enough to run around like a crazy person taking pictures like I was. Which is more typical behaviour for us.)

Another funny little thing - when we woke up in the morning and I checked out the view (after the storm overnight), the B&B owners had put up an American flag in our honour! What a lovely touch.

Friday was all about connecting with people at Puketapu Kindergarten and Puketapu School, which was both glorious and sad. From the moment I got there, from the first big hug from a child who is easily twice as tall as when I left, it felt like coming home. The teachers, the parents, the children, the place itself all said, "We love you and you belong here" and I wanted to stay forever! When my wonderful, loving friend Nate looked up and me and said, "I don't ever want you to leave" I thought my heart might actually jump right out of me and stay. It was so wonderful to see everyone, and so amazing to still feel like part of the tight-knit, supportive community of the kindergarten and school. I do totally love where I am now, and am lucky to be able to say that, but the children at Whare Kea come there because their parents are at the university, so then when they go to school, they go to ones spread out all over the big city, which is a totally different feeling than them all going right next door to "our" school. That is one of the things I miss the most. At Puketapu I could stay close to children and families even as they moved on, but here I don't have that same connection. I also know that there are huge benefits that I completely love about where I am now, but that's hard to see while being delightfully overwhelmed by love and connections back there.

At the end of the day, I had the honour of wearing the korowai that the children and teachers had made. A korowai is a cloak, woven with feathers, that is one of the strongest symbols of honour, prestige, respect, etc. in Māori culture. Plus, this one was woven with the love and creativity and energy of people I love, so it's even more special. They thanked me for visiting and wished me well, and it felt amazing. (My face does not look like I thought it was amazing, but that's because the universe has made a rule that all candid shots of me must be awkward.)

J had a good time on Friday, too. He visited his work, and the SPCA, where he did a lot of volunteering when we lived there. Being back in Taranaki really made us both miss Holly as well, and J went and visited the dog park we always took her to, which he reports was both healthy and sad. 

We both pulled ourselves away with some difficulty. I don't know if we'll ever end up living in Taranaki again, but it will always have a very special place in both of our hearts. And we'll definitely be visiting!

Wellington (Asian) Restaurants

Living in the capital city has many benefits, and one of them is a varied and wonderful selection of restaurants. We have just barely scratched the surface of the culinary delights here, and will have to live here for a very long time to adequately sample everything. But we have been enjoying what we have tried, so I thought I'd share a bit.

I originally named this post "Wellington Restaurants," but then as I uploaded my pictures, I realized that actually, the few places where I've remembered to take pictures have all been Asian places, so I had to update the title. I am a little obsessed with Asian restaurants, and while J is less monomaniacal about it, he enjoys them as well, so that's often where we go.

I discovered my passion for sushi while we were in New Plymouth, and then was overjoyed to discover that there are sushi places on approximately every corner of downtown Wellington. Yay! Unfortunately, many of these places only serve sushi in disposable plastic containers, which seriously dampens my enthusiasm. They are made of PET, which is pretty good on the recycling scale, but still, I don't like it. So I have found various ways to get around this issue at different restaurants.

This is at the sushi place in our tiny little local mall in Karori. I confuse the lovely owner every time I go in by asking to have my sushi there, on an actual plate. I am not convinced that he fully understands the environmental reasoning behind my request, but he's nice about it.

(Also, J always steals at least one of my takuyaki (octopus balls) and couldn't even wait for me to take the picture!)

This is a sushi place downtown, where you sit at this long bar, and the food goes by on a conveyor belt, and you just lift off whatever you'd like. How fun! Also, everything is on real, reusable plates, and the covers are reused as well, so that's a plus.

There are St Pierre Sushi places like this one absolutely everywhere in Wellington, and their sushi is delicious, but everything is already packaged in single-use plastic, so I don't go to them. (Well, I do, sometimes, but I only buy moshi, which are sweet little rice cakes with sweet bean paste filling that J and I quite adore, so we get them as a treat every now and then.)

My favourite sushi place in Wellington is Midland Sushi, which is down a little pedestrian road near the library (as all good things should be). You pick your sushi yourself, and the expectation is that you put it into single use plastic, but...

... I have my totally wonderful YumBox, which I bring with me to fill up instead. I used my YumBox in New Plymouth for packing all kinds of lunches and snacks, and only discovered when we moved here that it is perfect for filling up with sushi! The people at Midland Sushi looked at me oddly the first few times, but have now grown accustomed to my brilliance, and one lady who works there actually seems quite pleased each time she puts the little packet of soy sauce into the perfectly-sized little round container in the middle. Delicious sushi without environmental guilt - it's fabulous!

Wow, I'm thinking now that I actually should name this post "Wellington Sushi Restaurants," but I do have other things as well.

J and I went to Hede Cafe and Bar the other night, which is a Japanese restaurant. They were running a deal on GrabOne (which I've mentioned before - it's a discount website with some very amazing deals on activities and food), and we got appetizers and mains for very impressively low prices.

I got dumplings for my appetizer, and they were seriously amazing. I think I could eat Japanese dumplings for ever and ever. J got edamame, which was also very good, but didn't get a picture, as all edamame looks the same.

This was my main - teriyaki chicken, which has been a favourite of mine for a long time, and miso soup, which is always delightful.

J got the seafood tempura, which he reported was quite beautifully cooked. Please take a moment to appreciate that he actually let me take a picture before starting to eat this time! Well done, J!

Just this week, my friend Christophe and I were wandering around, and he showed me this delightful international food court, which I must have walked by 100 times and never noticed! The picture doesn't give a good sense of the diversity of this place - there had to be at least 30 little stalls with food from all over the world. I'd say that the majority were Asian, but there were also plenty that weren't. Christophe and I both enjoyed our meals, and I'll be excited to go back and try out some of the others. (This is another place to be careful of disposables, but I think that they can be avoided with some intentional choosing on my part.) Next time, I have to find a place that serves Pad Thai, because I haven't had any since Canada (where it was abundant and fantastic) and I miss it.

Next time I do a food-related post, I will endeavour to have a wider variety of cuisines represented, but no promises. I actually like food from pretty much every culture (that I've tried), but I just keep coming back to Asian cuisine, and I'm very lucky that it is so popular and easy to find here. So I take advantage!

Bicultural Commitment

Last week, I spent Thursday and Friday at professional development courses related to understanding, implementing, and documenting authentic bicultural practice in early childhood (and primary/secondary education). I have done many courses like this over the years I've been here, and they are always enlightening and inspiring. I thought I would share some of the more interesting aspects of NZ's bicultural education system with you.

As an overview, for those of you who don't know, Māori people immigrated to NZ a long time before Europeans (here called Pākehā) came here. There are some different theories about where they came from and whether there were other people here when they got here, but the major point for me is, they were here and living in thriving communities before Pākehā came, and so are considered NZ's native people. As has been true in many places that Europeans "discovered," colonization was horrifically destructive of Māori culture and well-being, leading to many intergenerational, nation-wide issues over the years. Fortunately, in some ways things did take a different trajectory here than they have many other places. I like to think that Europeans have learned some things over centuries of colonization and tried to make it a bit better this time, but that may be overly optimistic on my part, as some truly terrible things happened here.

More recently, however, things have truly made a change for the better, especially in the education sector, where all curricula include bicultural practice and acknowledge the unique place Māori hold as native New Zealanders. Just in case I was ever short of reasons to be proud to be a teacher, which I wasn't, NZ has provided even more. I'll just share a few of them.

1) The goal of bicultural practice is cultural equality. NZ has two official languages (English and Māori) but they are not equal. Māori culture is intended to be as widespread and celebrated as Pākehā culture, but it is evident that it is not. Not yet. But the education sector is committed to changing this by bringing up the next generations of children in a context of mutual respect, understanding, and appreciation, so that all New Zealanders can be proud of both aspects of their bicultural heritage.
(Side note from my personal experience: I've been teaching my children lots of te reo Māori (language), and they're going home and teaching it to their parents. One of my (Pākehā) children informed me the other day, "I'm a Kiwi so that means Māori is MY language." If that's not progress, what is?)

2) In that it is based in equality, this bicultural curriculum in no way decreases or disregards the value of Pākehā culture. In fact, it encourages teachers to help Pākehā children have a strong, positive sense of their own culture, as we understand that feeling confident in who you are helps you to be able to truly appreciate and celebrate who others are, even if they're different from you. I realize that I didn't grow up here, but from my perspective and experience as a teacher here, there doesn't seem to be anyone in the education sector who is trying to put the blame on any group for the struggles of any other group. We just want all Māori and Pākehā children alike to feel good about their culture and succeed educationally and socially. Unfortunately, in order to do this, we have to acknowledge and respond to the fact that many Māori children are born into some disadvantages in terms of reaching these goals, so it is our job to figure out how to support them so that they have the chance to succeed like everyone else.
(Side note from my personal experience: I have found, outside the teaching field, that some people are very unhappy at the suggestion that Māori people might need "extra" help because of the underminers in their history. I feel privileged to work in a field where this is not (in my experience) a barrier to helping children move forward.)

3) Bicultural practice and respect is not an optional buy-in for NZ teachers. All NZ teachers have to prove that they meet 12 Practicing Teacher Criteria in order to be licensed as teachers. We must continually document this and have it evaluated every three years and if we don't meet some criteria, we can't be licensed, and some of these criteria are about bicultural practice.
~~~ Practicing Teacher Criteria #10 requires us to prove that we are implementing bicultural practice in authentic and meaningful ways. This includes using the language, teaching and respecting the culture, telling the legends and stories, building relationships with the local tribal elders, etc.
~~~ Even more amazingly, Practicing Teacher Criteria #3 requires that teachers prove and document their commitment to bicultural practice. Basically, this criteria says that it's not enough to just do it, you really have to believe it. You have to see and embrace the intrinsic value of building up and celebrating Māori culture and bringing it to life in the world views and self concepts of our children. We talked a lot about this in my most recent course, and when someone asked what to do if a teacher didn't care about this and just went through the motions without commitment, the instructor said that that person was not eligible for a teaching license. Of course, she explained that every effort should be made by that person's team to inspire them to see the value of bicultural practice, but that if, in the end, the person couldn't commit to it, then they shouldn't be teaching in NZ. She went on to say that open-mindedness and respect towards cultures different than ones own is one of the major things that universities look for in evaluating applicants to teacher education programmes, and that the Education Council examines when deciding who to approve for provisional (initial) licensure. She said that they are trying to make sure that people who are unwilling to appreciate and embrace true, respectful, authentic biculturalism are not entering the education sector, because they too effectively undermine the beautiful work that we are trying to do in moving society forward towards equality. I think that this is extremely hard to implement in the mixed-up reality that we live in, but what a wonderful aspiration! NZ is committed to remedying the educational achievement gaps between Māori and Pākehā children, and understands that teachers who believe in and appreciate Māori for who they are will be the ones who make this happen, so those are the teachers they want. Also, wonderfully inspiring and concretely useful bicultural professional development courses are available all the time, so teachers have a multitude of resources at their fingertips, and never need to feel ill equipped to teach in this bicultural system.

It is my opinion that this combination of high expectations and strong support structures for teachers is a great start towards building and sustaining an education system in which all New Zealanders can thrive. Also, I just love teaching in a bicultural context, with an inspiring mix of languages and cultures that we all can appreciate.