After I had recovered from my night bus ride, it was back to work for me, scheduling schools, booking ferry rides, buses, hostels and flights for school visits and responding to emails. I finished my work, then headed out to attend a neat event that my awesome landlord shared with me, The City as a School Learning Event at the Hīnātore Learning Lab at the Te Papa Museum. The event was sponsored by the Learning Environment Australasia NZ Chapter. Hīnātore staff shared the space with us, and talked about their lesson development and what they were doing to encourage learning for all in this space. I was fascinated, and excitedly had conversations with staff, and have since scheduled a visit to spend the day with them, so you will hear more then. I have decided that in my next life I would love to work in a science center or museum and curate exhibits and design cool learning experiences for a non-traditional learning environment. How fun would that be?
I made some great connections, exchanged business cards and then went back to the house for dinner and to catch-up with the Ludbrooks.
Not fully recovered from my night bus experience, it was definitely an early to bed night.
Friday morning I woke up early, because I had a Skype date with some of my awesome Carmel Colts – and the time difference is not friendly for that.
I enjoyed chatting with some of my 4th graders, and hope to get a chance to catch up with more students soon.
After that, I sent some emails, wrote up some school observation notes, and had lunch, before it was time to Skype with Sixes Elementary at their STEAM Parent and Student night. It was fun chatting with the parents and students, as well as the staff, my former students who were volunteering at the event, and even Dr. Hightower (our Superintendent of Schools in Cherokee). Skype truly is amazing and I am so thankful for it making these 8,000 – plus miles seem a little less distant when I can talk to people and feel like that are sitting at the same table as I am – almost.
All of that done, I set out to explore PARKing Day. Parking Day as you will see in the link, is typically an annual event that takes place on the 3rd Friday in September – which is great for the northern hemisphere people, but in Wellington, no one really wants to spend the day outside at that time. Parking Day is a day where artists, designers and citizens transform metered parking spots into temporary public parks.
Julian, one of my hosts, has played a vital role in the organization of the Wellington PARKing Day as a member of the Wellington Sculpture Trust, so I was excited to see his work come to fruition, and I was not disappointed. I spent several hours walking up and down Cuba Street, checking out the spaces and talking to the artists. To read more about the day: http://www.sculpture.org.nz/news-and-events/park(ing)-day-wellington-10317.
Merry Adventures 