ACHPER Conference

The ACHPER (which stands for The Australian Council for Health, Physical Activity, and Recreation) South Australia branch had a statewide conference April 15th and 16th in which I took part of as a presenter. The conference took place over two days during school holidays, and was very well attended by teachers of Health and Physical Education, student teachers, and other professionals in the field.

My workshop, entitled "Making Health Food Fun! Creating exciting and educational food experiences for young children in the classroom" focused on ways to bring food, cooking, and growing into the primary classroom, and how we can help students build and grow relationships with  healthy food and eating.

Creating exposure to, and providing the opportunity to enjoy healthy foods for young children is an area I'm extremely passionate about, and that I value in my own work with students. Having the chance to share my knowledge with others, and have great conversations with educators about their practices and challenges is something I am extremely grateful for. I thank you ACHPER for all the work that they do, and look forward to next years conference.

My Teaching Practice Transformed

I am a primary teacher by trade, and working with kindergarten aged students has been my passion for the last 5 years. I had settled in nicely to a permanent position in my school district, and was finally enjoying a little stability in the often cutthroat world of early career teachers. After finding myself on the other side of the world, however, I thought this might be a good time to try something different while waiting for entry into my new Masters Program (MA in Public Health). A posting came up for an Associate Lecturer in Health Education at Flinders University for 2013, here in Adeladie, and I decided to apply. My application included a link to this very blog, and I was granted an interview (no small thanks to my blog). After an incredibly nerve racking interview, I learned shortly after that I was the preferred candidate and began my position here in the Education Faculty. It has been an amazing experience here so far, and I have been consistently challenged and excited by new roles such as lecturer, researcher, writer, liaison and presenter. I have the opportunity to work with so many experts in my field and share ideas with like minded individuals.

It's been a leap going from teaching 5 year old's to adults, but I am finding it equally as rewarding, though much trickier. While it's nice that no one cries on a daily basis, it is much harder to engage learners and create classroom community. There is especially a learning curve working with first year students which are quite different compared to my third years. We're in the 6th week of Semester One and while I'm enjoying not writing report cards, assignment marking is definitely keeping me busy.

Lecturing in Health Education in a different country (even one similar to Canada) has also been shaping and challenging my own views of Health, as it's yet another perspective. Discovering Australian views and policies on Health, health behaviour, and health programs has kept me very busy (and I promise to share some interesting ones in further posts). What I am enjoying most so far, is my own reflective practice on how I am able to challenge the health views of my students, and help them to move from a more individualistic view of health, to one that is more social.

Looking forward to continuing my blog down under as I continue my work and study in Health and Health Education. But just because I can't resist, here's a first of what I'm sure will be many photos from down under:

Yes, I am holding a Koala :)