Debriefing

Today I held my first 'normal' class since the cyclone hit. It was a small class as I had received apologies from some and not heard at all from others, who are probably still without power and/or phones. The ones who came needed to debrief and tell their stories about what had happened to them and to their friends. They are incredible people - nearly everyone told how they had quickly chipped in and helped other people they considered to be in greater need than themselves by volunteering or just being there for people. There is a lot of gratitude in this community about the miracle of there being no deaths and few serious injuries (though one of my students had received a head injury and had been hospitalised for a time because of that). The stress of the event was discussed - effects being noticed in themselves and in others were brought out. One student told how a neighbour had been stressed to the point of having a mental health episode and noticing with dismay the unkind reaction of those around him.

They are also learning on 'fast forward' how the community works which fits in exactly with their studies.

We eventually could talk about their studies and even got through the lesson, amid cups of tea, biscuits and more stories. They are learning and they are living their learnings. It is an amazing thing to watch, for me.

TROPIC-el training and Innisfail reflections

Well, we have new dates to go to Brisbane and do the profiler training, and seven people who want to be trained. That's really encouraging. We'll go in May, Lord willing. Teacher profiling is just such a wonderful way to have something useful and positive and professional happening in your teaching life.

I got in touch with a couple more of my Innisfail students today and was that a blessing. One wants to be in touch with two others to form a study group as a distraction to the devastation caused by the cyclone. It's great to be able to give them something more positive to think about, and for the request to do this to come from them. Some who have lost so much want to have a way of volunteering to help others who are worse off than they are. There are some community agencies who will welcome their offer to do that, and it was great to be able to refer them. One student knew what had happened to another student who I had been able to contact as her phone is disconnected (by the cyclone, I imagine). She is safe.

Innisfail

Today I felt ill. I had to travel down to Innisfail to teach (110kms/68.5 miles) and the devastation from the Cyclone there is terrible. There are so many houses without roofs, so much vegetation that has been forced into everywhere it should not be, so much damage to property. The people are in good spirits though. The army is there, the emergency crews too, and there is a huge contingent of cheerful volunteer tradesmen.

Even one of my students turned up! I am not sure if the other students are safe yet and I could not get hold of a phone and computer to find out their phone numbers and call them. The student who did come in wanted a distraction from the 9 people living in her house who don't normally live there. Talk about an incentive for learning....I obliged by giving her reading materials and showing her how to use the Janison website to supplement her leanring.

I did visit my 94yo friend and her 67yo daughter. Their house had most of the windows on one side blown out and they had been flooded inside the house. A ceilng fan from a detached roof two doors down had flown through their water powered (hydraulic?) elevator/lift (my 94yo friend cannot walk and the lift is needed so she can leave the house which is one story up) and mangled it so it is unusable. My friend is trapped in the house till someone comes to carry her downstairs. I am thankful that people know of her plight and are helping as much as they can. While I was there, a crew was chopping up fallen trees, removing trees from the roof and giving opinions on how to fix the lift. No one is really familiar with the things though so no one would actually touch it! They were afraid they would make it worse, I guess.

The sheer size of the devastation is still hard to grasp. It is pretty bad up here where I live but it seems to have trashed the countryside for hundreds of kilometres.

I hope we don't get another Cyclone like that again.

A picture of the tree that went through the fence in our back yard, compliments of Cyclone Larry. 

Cyclone Larry-ed

Well, the plan did not go off without a hitch - a category 4 hitch. We were all set to go to Brisbane for the profiling training when boom - Cyclone Larry decided to interfere with that plan. Innisfail got hit when Larry was still a huge category 5 and their terrible devastation is in all the news casts now. I felt unable to travel all last week due to the disruption casued by Larry on the Tablelands. Roads were cut, power and phones were out, some towns lost their water supply, and everywhere there is trashed vegetation and disorder. Our own house was affected by the loss of a large tree in our back yard, a medium sized one in the front yard, a broken wooden fence, lots of broken and uprooted plants, a flooded garage and therefore flooded boxes of stored goods, the loss of the microwave oven, the loss of all our refrigerated and frozen food, and just a general sense that life had been turned upside down. Power was out for 4 1/2 days. Phones worked for a day or so then started to be unreliable. News of neighbours miraculous escape or loss poured in. The size of this natural disaster is hard to grasp. A short drive between Tableland towns soon reveals that life will not be set to rights again for months, maybe years. Priorities have shifted and been reassessed in personal and public domains. I am so impressed by the persistence and energy being expended by those who have come to help us. They are the heroes of this hour.

A sense of humour is still thankfully vident in many places - for instance, a friend saw a sign on the back of a car that said "Just Larry-ed".

I am very glad that the Brisbane people who asked us to come and train them understood, and we are reschedueling the training for the end of May, all being well.

Teacher Profiling in Brisbane!

Well, Martha and I are about to take the plunge and teach some other Teachers how to be classroom profilers. The North is going South - we are travelling from Cairns to Brisbane to deliver this teaching! It's exciting to think that there will be more of us. I have definitely enjoyed the contact with Teachers from Ed Qld, but there have been only a handful of TAFE Teachers that have been interested in classroom profiling up until now. Somehow, teaching in the TAFE system is very different from high schools and primary schools, especially when we are delivering classes flexibly and with blended delivery strategies. Martha and I are interested in making the discussion about TROPIC-el (Teachers Reflecting on Practice in Classrooms and in E-learning) wider than behaviour management. Behaviour management strategies are improtant, and we like teaching the microskills to help Teachers with this, but..we also want to have more professional discussions about what good teaching actually is. How do our learners learn? How do they learn in the e-learning environment? What is best practice?

Will be travelling for all of next week. I may not get back to this Blog for a week or so.