Weekly Reflection: holidays are for learning

Last year I boldly claimed that holidays are for learning. At that stage of my course I was beginning to look for a job. This year I entered holidays feeling totally and utterly exhausted and really couldn’t see myself mustering much energy to do anything but watch re-runs of the Gilmore Girls in my PJs.

I still did manage a few days of slothdom but life is what happens when you are making other plans so what have I bee up to?

Croissant making

Meet-up is a social networking site where people with common interests get together and do something fun. So far I’ve learned how to make Curry, a decent flat white and been on a few Stand Up Paddle boarding excursions with groups I’ve found. However when the opportunity to learn how to make croissants with a genuine French pastry chef came up, the answer was or course ‘oui.’ Which is about the extent of my French as the only reason I took French at school was to eat.

In theory I should now be able to offer up pastries for staff morning teas but in reality I don’t think I have the patience for all the waiting around nor the attention to make sure that I roll the dough just right. Fun fact: croissants are made with fresh yeast.

First Aid

Term 4 is camp at my school which means me alone in the woods with my class. Well may be not alone but responsible which terrifies me as I don’t have a good history with school camps. In Year 8 my teacher broke his leg and had to be shipped off the island. In Year 10 there was a horrible storm that flooded our tent. Year 12 the mountain erupted and just for good measure my brother smashed his patella and had to be shipped off the island. At this juncture, I’m thinking terrible weather might actually be the best possible outcome for my sojourn into the wilderness with my class. Which is just as well I went along to a First Aid course in the first week of the holidays. It was a really full-on few days but I am now back up to speed on bandages, CPR etc

Nethui

Deserves a post in and of itself. But an awesome few days (re)connecting with NZ’s internet community.

Education and science select committee hearing
While nethui was on I popped over the road to see a select committee in action. It was rather surreal to hear someone I had never met before online or offline talk about the submission my class made. It was also awesome to see @claireamosnz give an amazing submission. I will take the lessons back to the classroom to help my students prepare for their verbal submission.

So a busy break. I managed a few days at school as well rearranging my classroom and am now gearing for an 11(gulp) week term.