Submitted by Nicole Latino on the 2012 summer session program in Australia sponsored by the School of Education…
This week marks our final week in Melbourne. Although I have enjoyed my time in Melbourne, I am ready to see more of Australia! The only thing I am dreading about leaving to go to Tasmania is the packing part. Hopefully I don’t go over the weight limit with all my souvenirs.
On Thursday we had our last Melbourne school visit to Princes Hill. It was our first public school, but once again it was very different from American public schools. The teachers didn’t teach standard subjects instead the students learned through “Inquiries.” Similar to what we saw in the Aussie private schools the school was divided its students into different neighborhoods. For instance grades 5 and 6 where one neighborhood, so there was 3 teachers to 75 students. It’s so foreign to our system in the states, but it is really interesting to see how well it seems to be working here. After the school visit, we headed to the Queens Victoria market again for one last time to make sure we got all the souvenirs we wanted. Afterwards a group of us headed to find Little Italy for some good ole’ fashioned pizza and gelato.
Our last day in Melbourne started with class and afterwards we grabbed Pie Face for lunch and treated ourselves to a cupcake. Since it was our last night in Melbourne ( a pretty special day!) we had our first group dinner at a very delicious Italian restaurant. Everybody got all dressed up, looking like the classiest people in Melbourne on a Monday night for sure! Gail, our instructor, even brought out her heels! The staff was more than generous, constantly bringing out delicious dishes and always making sure we were enjoying ourselves. Besides great food, I really feel like the group bonded together by engaging in constant, fun conversation. After dinner, most rooms spent the remainder of the night packing up bags and praying that all luggage remained underweight. We went to bed fairly early that night since we had to catch an early flight.