Mandy Lindsay, Australia
"It's wonderful to know that now I have friends from almost every corner of the earth who I can visit in the coming years."
Mandy teaches at Mrachek Middle School in Aurora, Colorado. Her husband, Mark, is also a VIF teacher. They live in the United States with their three children.
Living a very stable life in Australia, characterized by a comfortable home and three kids who were performing well in school, my husband and I figured we wouldn't have a real opportunity to travel until the kids were much older. Fortunately, VIF came along and made the impossible become possible. It's easy for me to admit that without VIF I wouldn't be here. The Program helped us get through the tough transition period, which involved temporarily severing ties with family and friends and leasing our home. Whenever we had questions, before we arrived and once we got to the United States, there was always someone at VIF who was willing to talk to us. If someone wasn't there, our calls were always returned.
Once we were accepted to the Program, VIF informed us that we were the biggest family they had ever hosted. We were told the Program would be keeping a close eye on us to try and figure out whether inviting large families would be sensible for VIF in the future. As a result, my husband and I agreed that we would do our best to be effective cultural ambassadors at school and in our new American community.
To fulfill this personal pledge, I bombarded my students with Australian culture. My class became a little Australia with stuffed Australian animals like possums, kangaroos and wombats positioned around the classroom and national symbols such as flags, flowers and songs posted on bulletin boards and on the walls. To incorporate Aussie culture academically, I prepared a huge social studies unit that incorporated Australian politics, geography, employment trends and other general life topics. As part of the unit, we compared the Australian government to the American government. We did lots of research to help us identify the similarities and differences between the two countries' concepts of democracy and their constitutions. Using our findings, we created a mock constitution for the City of Aurora. For our social studies food unit, I brought in some popular Australian foods, like vegemite, ginger beer and meat pies for my class to try. After this Australian feast, I asked my students to bring dishes from home that represented their backgrounds, so we could have an American feast. I also set up a pen-pal system between my class and another class back in Australia. The kids mostly sent each other pictures of their families and friends, as well as stories about their school life.
Interestingly, during my first year, one of my kids told me that he felt he was going to know more about Australia by the end of my class than he knows about America. While in the United States, I discovered that American children are very aware of what's going on in their own community, but have little global or even national knowledge. For instance, some of my kids thought Denver was the capital of America and many had never heard of Australia. This was somewhat surprising to me because Australian students are taught from a very young age to have at least a basic sense of what's going on globally and are taught American history. I've also noticed that American kids seem more mature socially than their Australian peers. For example, conversations amongst sixth- and seventh-graders here often involve sex, drugs and alcohol while ninth-graders in Australia are just beginning to engage in this type of talk. In addition, American children behave more boisterously in the classroom, seem less respectful of authority than Australian kids, and depend more heavily on their parents to handle difficult situations.
During my first year at Mrachek Middle School, I taught a remedial class for students who were considered unprepared for regular paced middle-school learning. These students were behaviorally, emotionally, mentally and socially challenged. I had never before taught a class with students from such difficult backgrounds and home lives. At first, I wasn't sure if I would be able to really get through to these kids, but once the lights in their head started going on early during the year, I knew there was no limit to what I could do with the class. I became more and more attached to them as the year progressed. Another unforgettable moment for me occurred when my entire class stood up during class one day and recited the Australian national anthem. For that brief period, I felt a warm feeling of home.
The last day of class was especially wonderful for me. First, all of my students had passed my class and would be promoted onto the seventh grade. Second, every one of my students (52 to be exact) gave me a hug and commented on how much they were going to miss my class. Two of these students actually grabbed on to a chair to express how much they didn't want to leave.
Overall, I would describe my experience with VIF as an entertaining roller coaster. There have been many ups and a few downs; yet through it all VIF was around to help. While on this exciting ride, I've learned to utilize my support system of family, friends and co-workers as often as possible and to plan numerous fun activities and small trips for my family every week so our life here never feels monotonous. I thank VIF for giving me this opportunity and I will forever be 120 percent behind the organization.