New Zealand: The first week

Posted on February 22, 2013 by John

Finally – a blog post on my travels.

It’s been an eventful week; I’ve been derailed by illness and jetlag and panic about my seminar presentation. These – well some of them – being the excuse of any blogger… And on this blog in particular, almost 2 and a half years have gone by since I last posted. But hey ho – it’s mine and only the people who want to know will take a look. Otherwise it will just float around with all the other blogstuff out there, little untended unobserved satellites and bits and pieces of throwaway things.

View through window onto Lake Taupo

So here I begin summarising – or trying to – the first eventful week in New Zealand. Here on the shores of Lake Taupo – a weekend retreat with Garry and Helen and Caroline. As I write, the late afternoon sun is lighting up the spray from a water skier out on the deep blue waters of the lake. Waters which reflect the deep blue sky and stretch out to the mountains and volcanoes on the far shore, over which tiny wisps of clouds are settling. It’s really very nice here. And my first time on the North Island and my first time in a spa hotel in such a place…

Yesterday was also a first. The first time I’ve given an hour (well more than an hour) long seminar with pneumonia. I didn’t know I had pneumonia at the time. Just had to keep apologising for the cough and playing video clips when I was particularly breathless. People were kind enough to say it was good afterwards though! The diagnosis was only confirmed this morning when I went to the doctor at the suggestion of one of the technical team (thanks Paul)…but enough of the moaning about my physical condition. That’s only for inflicting on close family… so I’ll draw a veil over it except to say that the doctor was fantastic and had an amazing array of gadgets like Bones McCoy had. It was like going to a doctor in the future.

By the lake at Waikato Hamilton campus

So – ok – what – why who etc. I am on an academic exchange to the University of Waikato on the North Island of New Zealand. I am travelling with a colleague from the IOE, Caroline Daly, and being looked after by Associate Prof Gary Falloon and his wife Helen. We are funded fully by Waikato apart from some living expenses. Their generosity is a little overwhelming. This extends beyond the financial aspect into the even more precious commodity of time. Everyone wants to meet with us and everyone wants to hear about us and we want to learn about and from him or her. We are interested in the learning lives of people around technology and digital media with (generally speaking) a focus on children (me) and teachers (Caroline) and an age phase interest of primary (me) and secondary (Caroline). We are doing a seminar each to faculty members and a joint seminar they day before we leave at the end of week 2.

First morning at school of Education, Waikato

How and when did we get here? In an enormous Airbus with an upstairs and everything (though not for us) last weekend… Straight through from London to Sydney with about half and hour off in Singapore airport for good behaviour and to enjoy yet more airport security… About two hours off in Sydney then waiting for the plane over the Tasman Sea to Auckland where Garry met us and drove us to Hamilton – about an hour south – to the Novotel for week 1 (after Taupo this weekend, we move to Garry’s house. Generosity again. See what I mean?). So the journey began on Saturday night and ended on Monday afternoon, 18^th Feb, in Hamilton.

On day 2 – Feb 19 we had some orientation time in the morning though extremely disorientated by everything else. Jetlag. Plus (in my case) a feeling of deep, deep lack of wellness… But the sunshine and the welcome and the fact that Caroline was presenting first, certainly helped…She did a great job and set the bar very high, talking about the complex and fascinating Welsh project and evaluation of e-learning which was actually useful… Plenty of questions and a healthy audience and lots of discussion of teacher professionalism… They have a healthy respect for teachers and learners in New Zealand and – so far – a refreshing lack of catastrophic and unwelcome interference by ignorant politicians. Like I say, everything is a little odd for English people. Unfortunately there are signs that they might be moving to some of our greatest hits which have done so much to destroy morale and wreck our own system: National published testing, punitive inspection and so on and so forth. We should be looking at what they do so well and learning from them, how they produce such amazing teachers in beautiful classrooms, confident learners. Hey guess what? It could be they do the opposite to us. Seems to be working…

Leamington School Sign

And a school visit bears this out on the next day…bright and early on Wednesday the 20^th to beautiful Leamington Primary in Cambridge, a small town south –east of Hamilton. Schools in England are little fortresses these days, but we strolled through a sun-filled playground past a series of well maintained low rise wooden constructed classrooms, an outdoor swimming pool, a climbing frame, a growing area, trees, fields, into a classroom where the teacher Tonya welcomed us in. It would break the hearts of some teachers back in the UK to see the space and furniture, the equipment, the light and the rest. There are so many great teachers back home doing so much with very little in the way of resource or respect. And here I think they have both in abundance…

Leamington School boardwalk

Leamington School going out to play

Into the headteacher’s office to talk through some of the issues and his philosophy… They teach children. Not the curriculum. It takes me back. And it appears that in spite of this crazy child-centred approach they manage to take in phonics and real reading alongside one another (because I know you need both) plus some interesting things: Creativity, Independence, Excellence and more…They manage to achieve things with these children. Without OFSTED. Imagine that.

iPads in Year 6

After that we go on walkabout to Leesa’s class where we look at the children using iPads 1:1, alongside all the traditional paraphernalia of primary classrooms because you can do both these things. You don’t have to be an evangelist for one or the other. Here the children are adept with writing in all forms of media, making movies and music, playing games of all kinds and working together or alone. The furniture has had to be redesigned hereabouts and so there are a few traditional tables but lots of beanbags and inflatables to sit on. The atmosphere is productive and managed by a teacher who is clearly trusted and valued by the head. Trusted to experiment and innovate…Incidentally they have a great relationship with Waikato, benefitting hugely from support with equipment and offering in return their use as a site for research…

Later in the day we learn from Gary about his work, tracing the learning trajectories and activities in the use of iPads by means of some very clever research techniques. He’s working on papers and frameworks to account for these and it will be well worth reading when it comes out in the fullness of time (academic publishing being what it is).

Coming almost up to date we have Thursday 21^st to account for with me presenting in late afternoon and working most of the day on trying to feel well and on taking my presentation apart and putting it back together again. This was all back at Waikato University Hamilton campus and I do believe I have not yet mentioned what a beautiful place this is. In addition to being populated with generous and inspiring people, the setting is unmatched really. Student shops and cafes around a lake, ornamental gardens, woodland areas, a brand new library…really really good.

I was pleased I got through the presentation in which I mainly covered my research into learner lives and digital cultures. I had some god searching questions, including a bunch from Terry Locke who edits a great online journal and is a professor there who knows several people back at my workplace. A gentleman and a scholar and also a poet. We spend the early part of the evening at dinner with him and it’s a fascinating conversation ranging far and wide. I only wish I felt a little better and more able to enjoy it all (but enough of that because there is not much interesting about other people’s illness).

And so we are at Lake Taupo for the weekend, taking a break from work at the uni and so that will be the subject of the next episode…

Sao Luis – historic centre Friday afternoon

Posted on November 5, 2010 by John

At 12.30 the schools superintendent came to take me down to Sao Luis to the old town for my bit of historic sightseeing before leaving for home tomorrow. She has asked a teacher who speaks some English to show me round…this is yet more generosity. Giving up an afternoon to show round someone you haven't met. Another hair-raising drive into the old centre, crossing the estuary of the Rio Anil on a long bridge and as you do you see the old town rising up on the hill in front of you.

Sao Luis has connections to two cities I've been in recently. To Dakar, because slaves were brought here from West Africa to work on the plantations and in the sugar fields. And to Liverpool with which it traded those goods as the western branch of the slave triangle in particular between 1780 and 1840. The Portuguese developed and built the city though the French had an influence too. It was picked for its location and proximity -comparatively – to Europe. The paving stones and beautiful Azulejos tiles which decorate so many of the buildings arrived sometimes as ballast and show the massive Portuguese legacy. It is now a UNESCO world heritage site.

We met with the teacher – Ariella – in the Turismo. And she was my guide for the next three hours. But first, before Luizenete had to go back to work, we had a snack of coconut and coconut milk, freshly cut by the stall holder. Sweet and delicious and refreshing and not at all like coconut I've had before. It's not easy to work with (See below). A man comes over and starts quoting philosophical proverbs and shaking our hands. He is stick thin and really intense. The gist is that we all make mistakes and we try to swap some proverbs back. HIs is a sad story according to the stall holder – he was a lecturer once. Then he drank too much and now he is in th Mercado most days.

L. has to go back to work and Ariella and I start walking whilst she tells me some of the city's history; for two of the buildings we visit we also have short guided tours. The rest is at the level of just wandering and getting the atmosphere of the place. It is, of course, very different to the beach side zone of the hotel some 10km away in by Praia Calhau. Tiny cobbled streets, crumbling buildings, colourful Azulejos tiles, market stalls with strange fruits and dried shrimp, crabs in bottles, jars of medicines, sweets, sights and sounds different to anything or anywhere else I've been. The Se – the cathedral – echoes some in Portugal and is big and imposing, full of children on a tour. The theatre and museum is the second oldest in Brazil and very atmospheric. The city museum is housed in a former cotton magnate's house. Laid out around a rectangualr courtyard with an upper deck for the family and a lower deck for the servants. An ingenious wooden ventilation system ensures the house takes advantage of the Sao Luis easterly prevaliing wind to provide a genuine air conditioning effect.

We walk some more and then stop in a roadside cafe. I have strong sweet coffee – they just put the sugar in here which is great – with a local pastry dish with a minced chicken filling. Ariella talks about her job in developing literacy programmes – really interesting work with her students on popular culture and remixing youtube as a way of engaging learners – links with everything yesterday. She is getting married next year – avoiding the mad time in Sao Luis in June/July around the local carnival Bumba-meu-Boi, a riotous festival recreating a legendary resurrection of a dead bull (See picture of me with Bull costume below).

The time eventually comes to return to the car; this has been a privilege really and hopefully if Ariella and her partner come to London I can repay the tour and show them round. Likewise for any of the wonderful people I've met.

Back to hotel in late pm. Long journey home tomorrow…

Above: Me with Bumba-meu-Boi costume Above: Rua Portugal / Rua de Trapiche

Above: Coconut Above: Novice coconut operative

Above: People who know what they are doing Above: someone who doesn't

Above: Local fizzy dinrk "Jesus" only available in Maranhao state Above: crabs in bottles

Above: Street scene Above: The Se

Above: Statue to Benedito Leite, writer Above: Street from museum

Sao Luis Wednesday: After the seminar

Posted on November 5, 2010 by John

Basically I just suddenly feel drained in the afternoon. Long drive through Sao Luis to drop Eduardo at the airport and then back to the hotel. Catch up with blog in room and doze. Skype with home Just as Gerrard scores for Liverpool. Fairly surreal conversation. This is the way Skype appears to contract the world. But then when you switch off it's just you in a hotel room again and they've all vanished.

Out in the evening with Guillherme, Eduardo, Maria, Renata, Claudia, Aduato to a restaurant by the sea – even better than the first night. Recive more education on Brazilian food and eat yet more local specialities, learn about Manioc. But most importantly, I have my first Caparinha. A lethal but delicious drink – Perus has Pisco Sour, Cuba has Mojitos, Mexico the Margaritas, but Brazil has Caparinha. A delicious icy lime drink with a very very straong spirit base – Cachaca? MIght be the right spelling. G. has to leave early and we all head back to the hotel. R., C and later J. and I find a beach-side bar and have more Caparinha and talk about everything. It's at this point, with the warm breeze and the sea and the live music from the bar that I realise I will have to find a way back one day. With everyone from the other side of the Skype screen would be good! There's so much to share…

A Caparinha.

Sao Luis Wednesday: Seminar

Posted on November 5, 2010 by John

Up at 6 to get ready for early start to venue.

Breakfast with sound technician who is organizing all the headphones etc for the English to Portuguese (the audience) and the Portuguese to English (me). Outside from the breakfast room window I see people walking up and down already exercising. Inside I have all the usual and then something I’ve never had before – made fresh by one of the hotel staff – it’s a tapioca. Kind of a folded omelette with tapioca casing and a filling of ham, cheese, tomato. Is delicious anyway.

From there and starting to meet lots of people already – out to the venue in S.’s car again through crazy morning traffic to the venue. About 30 mins away – a private university.

The auditorium seems vast. I know it won't be full but even with 200 there I haven’t spoken to this many people in a while. Not since I threw the radio mic across the floor in the Ian Gulland lecture theatre in Goldsmiths. Start to feel anxious.

Technical issues abound and for one reason or another I use the Windows XP machine provided. Claudia helpgin to get everything right! It’s very formal and procedural at first. We sit at a table on stage in a line of three. Me, Guillherme from UNESCO and Eduardo from a university and based in Fortaleza – he will give his presentation after mine and draw parallels between what I say and his material. Guillherme will be discussant and we will all take questions later.

Feel suitably nervous and prwol around the stage a bit pointing at slides nwith my radio mic like a rapper. If Jack could see me he would think it was frankly hilarious. For the first five minutes I don't think straight but I get into it with some audience reaction to things which I realise is delayed because of the translation – but not delayed much – these translators are amazing.

So it seems to go well and the audience, 200 or so of teachers, teacher educators and policymakers seems to respond well. I talk for about an hour. Eduardo goes next and describes project work he’s done called Riverwalk in Brazilian schools looking at pedagogic styles. We all take questions after a break. These are translated for me and back again by the heroic translators up in the booth at the back. They are simply amazing. The questions are all about the usual issues and they show how much people care and want to get this right, the delicate dance between pedagogy, technology and culture. It is genuinely interesting and I am so glad I came. Well that and the fact that they asked me. I am well looked after over lunch and treated like a celebrity: lots of photos with people.

Tomorrow it seems that someone will help me get to know the old city – the world heritage site of Sao Luis.

I feel very lucky and I hope that I’ve been able to contribute something back. Some of these people work with very poor students in very difficult situations and it’s humbling as usual to meet such teachers and their teacher-educators.

Also humbling to be so well looked after.

Travelling to Brazil

Posted on November 3, 2010 by John

To Sao Luis for a UNESCO event where I am the main speaker…

Tuesday night 2 Nov

I am sitting at the“First Class Café” near gate 44A in Lisbon airport.

Waiting for the flight to Brasilia. The destinations here in the international bit are mostly former Portuguese colonies. There’s a massive queue to get onto the plane to Luanda. Was that in one of their colonies? There’s also Dakar weirdly but then I remember that the Portuguese got there before the French and they all tussled with the Dutch! And they were all enslavers!

I really wanted a meal but I joined the wrong queue and ended up buying some expensive fried snackery -croquettes and samosa-like cheesy pastry things.

At least the beer is as I rememer it. A nice cold Sagres.

Coming on to land over Lisbon was lovely – we flew over the Rio style Christ statue on one side of the Tagus, banked a little as we flew over the river mouth and right over the Rossio and various wide avenues which I recognized even at this height. Felt very nostalgic for good times there and tired enough to want to stay. But also excited about going to South America for the first time…

Tuesday – Wednesday night flight Lisbon – arrival in Brasilia 2/ 3 Nov

Long bus journey out to the plane at 11 pm. Did not get the joke being shared around me but I think they might have been saying maybe we were driving to Brasilia. Passengers are mainly – it seems to me – business or Brazilian returnees.

Flight good overall and managed a bit of sleep. Guy next to me shares his cough with me the whole way so we’ll see how that goes in the next few days. But views were sometimes great. Just before trying to nod off with Brian McBride’s music droning away I look out on a sky full of stars. Orion directly at the end of the wing tip. There are so many stars it puts me in mind of the skies in the Night of the Hunter! Later, after fitful sleep and being nudged in the back by “cough man”and the pillow sticking to the window with the cold outside (-71 degrees) I wake to a spectacular sunrise over the clouds. With an hour to go before landing.

Brasilia just appears out of the green below – a city placed here in the 50s and 60s as the nation’s capital. You can see the sprawl for miles on either side where the workers live and shape of the roads and the towers and so on. From the air it is supposed to look like a bird or a plane – futurstic anyway.

The airport is like the new Bilbao one in design (they must have seen this one!) with large open plan decks for embarking and arriving stacked on top of one another. The difference is the amount of greenery and tropicalia and fountains everywhere. My welcome has been one of the warmest ever from a border control person…horrified that I only had three days here! He indicated the 90 day visa newly stamped in my passport and recommended forgetting about going back for the full 90 days. Yes, but only if the others could join me!

Find a breakfast bar and accidentally push in because I don’t get the system but everyone is very relaxed and so it’s ok…nice peaceful few miniutes in prospect and then…

… bizarrely, whilst getting out laptop and sorting through bag I cut my middle finger on my right hand on something (I really don’t know what!) and start bleeding everywhere. Thank heavens for the Lifesystems first aid bag and some plasters. I have no idea where or how I’ve managed to release so much blood into the environment. It’s not too busy thankfully so people don’t seem to notice the extra clumsy and embarrassed English person fumbling with laptop, plasters and tissues.

Left: Finger incident ruins calm breakfast.

Thanks heavens for…

the Lifesystems first aid bag. Never leave home without it…

Dakar Thursday – Saturday

Posted on September 25, 2010 by John

Thursday

Longest day of work by far with the most
concentration and debate. My head
is cabbaged by the end. Out to the
pool and swim but it’s hard work. The week is catching up with me, the food and
the Powerpoint eight hours a day. Feel very sluggish. But better in the end for
exercise.

Meet everyone in the lobby and back in the
minibus for another meal at Just 4 U – same place as Carey and I visited on
Monday night. Good company and good conversation, very friendly finished in the
bar with Finnish and Mexican colleagues. Very tired and sporting my first bite
as it turns out. Very, very
disappointed not to have seen any live music in one of the great music cities
of the world. Combination of bad
timing and punishing Powerpoint schedule.

Friday

Another long day of Powerpoint and debate
but constructive with much agreement in the end on contentious issues. Skype with home and feel generally
homesick. Out in the evening for meal in local restaurant with Bernardo, Lucia,
Savitha and Linda. Great
atmosphere, plastic tablecloths and locals plus backpackers. Unfortunately is the start of a long
nightmare of a night for me –being really unwell all night. Cannot figure out
what in particular it was going through me but is vicious.

Saturday

Manage to persuade myself I am well enough
to join the trip to Goree Island , museum and monument to slavery. Out in cabs
to the port a short distance away.
Really very hot, my first time out in the morning African heat. Onto the boat and over the short calm
crossing to Goree. Could not be more
different from Dakar – no cars, older buildings, feel of rural Africa, kids
swimming off the shore as we arrive.

Familiar Dakar hassle starts as soon as we
step ashore but we have a guide who launches into a history of the island and
sweeps us up in his passionate description of the place. An island of 1500 souls, 1000 Muslim,
500 Christian in harmony.

Commemorates the various slave activities from 1536
to 1848, the shameful acts of English, Dutch, Portuguese and French over those
generations. And of the tribes who
collaborated. 15 – 20 men shackled in a room no bigger than the smallest room
in a suburban house. Holding pens to fatten them up for dispatch to the
Caribbean and to Brazil.

Their
identities gone – families split and renamed, father to Martinique maybe,
mother to Brazil, children somewhere else. The rest is genuinely moving, contemplative like a chapel, a
monument to reconciliation. The
last sight of Africa for many of the enslaved.

I have now been to museums on each point of the slave triangle
which tell this story in a way everyone should see at some point in their
lives if they can -visit the one nearest to you… Goree opposite Dakar, a
museum in Charleston SC and the one in Liverpool.

Wander in the heat, soaked in sweat, buy
one or two things from the many who approach, feeling very, very unwell again
by now. Another calm crossing and
a cab ride back to the Pullman to rest and try to get well enough to fly home…

Dakar days Sunday – Wednesday

Posted on September 23, 2010 by John

I’m in Dakar for a workshop/project launch
for a week. My first time in Africa.
There’s not been much time to get to know the outside world so far with
every day from 8.30 a.m. until 5.00 pm and crammed full of Powerpoint in the
Pullman Hotel.

But here are some notes anyhow which take
events from Sunday night until yesterday. More later…

View from my room, Island of Goree in the background

Pullman
Hotel – first impressions 19 Sept

Lobby, quiet hushed floorwalkers, dark oak
desk, ATM dispensing thousands of CFA for your Pound/Euro/Dollar…business
centre, Budget car hire desk with man in full national costume, asleep next to
a model of a 4 X 4 …over into the bar area and restaurant . bar leads off to
the left past the lifts, very low lighting, smoking permitted which completes
the feeling of being in a timewarp, orange / brown dark 1970s décor with low
chairs , businessmen and women,
sudden tv crews and local celebs, lone travelers splashing on a nice hotel for
the city – in the evening, bar has music with keyboard and vocal 70s / 80s soft
reggae/pop/soul…restaurant on the other side, brightly lit, spacious, airy
leading straight out onto the veranda and a wooden bridge over the road which
leads out onto a path and steps down to the coast and the pool, with the
Atlantic splashing out over the promenade and onto the loungers…the ocean there
is not swimmable, water quality poor and currents strong, beaches better
further up the peninsula or on the western side back up towards the airport…

Monday
night 20 Sept

Out for dinner down to Just 4 U…a long cab
ride diverted past floodedOutdoor bar area reached via a plank over some
wrecked piece of road – I don’t have repellent with me so feel a sense of panic
that we are outside –but negotiate a mosquito repellent coil. Is outdoor, no
music , Monday night very quiet, we take a table in the middle, family with
small child, bigger group, v beautiful serene barmaid/waitress. This time we
have Gazelle beer and although still full from lunch I order penne for us to
share for later. Thin feral cats and kittens wander begging between the tables.

We are a long way from the hotel but the
cab driver has waited for us. Back past the very dark roads and abandoned
buildings and up and away to the hotel.

Tuesday
night 21 Sept

Tuesday down to the pool after
the session

Warm water, birdsong, rich
little white
French kids and their Senegalese nannies, colonial feel down by the
pool, the
bar etc, loungers and the ocean beyond, swimming lengths with water at
eye
level looking across and out to sea, you feel you are out there…

In minibus through the streets to the
highway, looking out at Dakar on the way to Terrou-Bi, very plush
anywhere kind
of restaurant in a very posh hotel – with soft lighting and open doors
at the
back and breeze – on the western side of the peninsula- modern euro
cuisine
with some fusion and some African on the menu – global basically – out
the door
the moon is high and bright and looks beautiful through the fronds but
is very
hard to photograph, though Linda the research project director manages a
good job –
across the water, bizarrely is a funfair, with a little ferris wheel and
fairy
lights and helter skelters- glittering lights and lapping water and the
Dakar
moon. The funfair is called
Magicland.

Dakar Moon

Wednesday
evening 22 Sept – after sessions walk

Almost immediately leaving the hotel,
surrounded by people offering you cards, beads, art, phone cards etc etc and
blasted by heat, fumes, dust, light

they want to know your name, your time in
Senegal, what you think, will you go to their shop and on and on

The streets are full of cars, taxis,
weaving their way through, the pavements have crumbled and you walk in the
narrow roads but you get beeped the whole time…things calm a little further away from the
hotel so that the area around the hotel resembles an airlock, a decompression
zone through which you must pass from the opulence of the Pullman Hotel into
Dakar itself

Buildings on either side shops in doorways
a bizarre Carrefour store like encountering a Sainsburys or something, hardware
store everything shop selling hair colouring and hair care…

Coming out into a more open area we come
across a massive catholic church and go inside, cool and blue, with a dome and
a vision painted of salvation above and out the other side opposite the
ministry of communication, the road leads on down to the main market area and
the street hassle begins again in earnest as we meet someone who refers to
himself as Obama the president of the market place, we see the different
regions of the market and half guided and half trying to get away we find
ourselves in the art stall – I talk to a man called Pako who shows us his
friend’s stall – they are from the
south the Cassamanche region and selling paintings on glass, gouache/acrylic,
brightly coloured cartoons and one painting of Goree which I like. Carey starts
bartering for three small portraits and we use her nokia’s calculator to work
out the exchange rate and the amounts, the negotiations come thick and fast but
this is not hassle- just bartering – in between Pako asks me about his English
and reassures me throughout our conversation about teranga the hospitality of
Senegal, the language we are all using, how he doesn’t speak English very well,
how many days are we there etc etc I agree a price which he says is well below
what he would ask an American tourist. His judgement is that this pleases me…

We part and break away from them, and think
about a cab but carey recognizes a street she has been down and we get
ourselves back onto the Faure avenue that we know leads down towards the hotel

By now I am very hot and craving a drink of
anything though a beer begins to really appeal especially the Senegalese “Flag”
beer. Hassle begins again closer
to the hotel, the airlock effect with the numbers of streetsellers crowded
around the entrance area.

Into the cool of the lobby again and the
welcoming arms of the Pullman and its bar…

I'm not surprised but I never feel quite prepared

Things that don't fit anywhere else, travel and observating

Category Archives: Travel

New Zealand: The first week

Sao Luis – historic centre Friday afternoon

Sao Luis Wednesday: After the seminar

Sao Luis Wednesday: Seminar

Travelling to Brazil

Dakar Thursday – Saturday

Dakar days Sunday – Wednesday