Melbourne, Australia

April 4, 2007

Step 4: Learn the Melbourne Shuffle!

This week was an important week for our project and an amazing week within the city! ?

The Project:

My team partners and I did a lot more interviews and program observations this week. We have been learning so much from everyone that we interview. Whether it be a school’s Assistant Principal, Integration Coordinator, or Science Teacher, they have all given us important and interesting perspectives.

We visited a school called the Aurora School and it is a specialist school for the deaf. Nick and I were given a tour of the school and had the chance to see all of the classrooms and what modifications were made to their studies depending on the level of their disability. We met all of the teachers and they helped us to further our knowledge of deaf education. They use pictures for everything with their students and so they have pictures everywhere!

Today was probably one of my favorite days working on the project. We took a field trip to the Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind where they were having a ‘camp’ for some students who are usually mainstreamed in their local schools (they do not attend the blind school regularly). We came to the school and had lunch with some of the students and they asked us a lot of questions about America and we had a great lunch together. After lunch, one of the students asked us if we wanted to play “Squish.” Squish is the blind version of table tennis that is played in Australia. There is a bell in the ball and you use thinner, longer paddles to hit the ball towards the other side. To keep the playing field even, there is a board in the middle so that you can’t see the other side of the court. If you hit the ball past both players on the other side, your team gets a point. It was so much fun to play with the students that were there and they had a lot of fun with us! We spent some time talking with the main teacher there, Garry, who is also blind and gave us a lot of ideas to help us modify the programs for people who have visual impairments. I got the chance to sit in on a Braille lesson, which was awesome! Garry typed the Braille alphabet for me and my name, his name, and the students’ name and helped me to use my fingers to read the letters.

We have started to organize all of the barriers present in the programs that we have observed. We will continue to organize everything and find the overlap between them all in order to find which areas would be easiest to apply universal design principles to. This week, we are planning to interview the CSIRO presenters that we have been observing to get their ideas and feedback about the programs. With their help, we will be able to best identify the barriers present to students with disabilities and what possible solutions are feasible. We are excited to see what ideas they have about possible adaptations!

One of the most important things that I’ve learned through this project is how important it is to put yourself in other people’s shoes. I started this project with a basic knowledge of disabilities, but I have learned more by talking to different people in the last few days than I thought possible. When I was speaking with Garry, the blind teacher of the blind, he told me to imagine looking at the world through a straw and trying to decipher what you’re looking at through such a small piece of the big picture. He told me that it is what it is like for blind students who are touching tactile diagrams; they can only see what they finger tips are touching, which is a small portion of a bigger picture. It’s little analogies like this that have really opened my eyes to what it is like to have a disability.

Penguin Parade!

On Saturday, 15 of the WPIers went on a tour to see Phillip Island! Phillip Island is an island in Port Phillip Bay a little ways away from Melbourne. It is most famous for the Penguin Parade, which is when the Little Penguins come from the water onto the beach and go to their homes about 500 m or so from the beach. The Little Penguins (Fairy Penguins) are the world’s smallest penguins, which makes it all that much more adorable to watch them walk up the beach!!

We were picked up at our apartments by the tour bus and we were first taken to a wildlife park where we all spent times feeding kangaroos, wallabies, and emus! We got to see some more koalas, dingoes, and a Tasmanian Devil, too!

Next, we went to the most beautiful beach I have ever been to in my entire life! (The picture doesn’t do it justice, trust me). It is a world famous surf beach, called Wollamai Beach. We all took a ton of pictures and ran into the gorgeous blue water and just had a fantastic time! A bunch of us made a huge human pyramid on the beach, too, which was a lot of fun!!

After that, we went to the main event…the Penguin Parade! We sat in the front row on the beach and waited for the sun to set. Apparently the Penguins won’t come out of the water until the sky is completely dark. All of a sudden, I saw a little white spot moving up on the beach…the first Penguin! These penguins are only 33 cm and they are adorable! They pop up on the water and start to walk up the beach, but easily get scared and run back in the water…it’s the funniest thing to watch! They usually come in groups from 3 or more and walk up on the beach. There are a lot of board walks around the area where the penguins homes are and you can go and watch them walk further up the beach. During this time, you get so close to the penguins and they are so cute! This was definitely an unforgettable experience!

Rugby

I played Rugby my freshmen year at WPI and was really excited to watch a professional Rugby game in Australia! A few friends went to the Melbourne Storm game with me on Sunday and we had a great time! We were down in the front few rows and watched the Storm stomp all over the New Zealand Warriors! Aussies are so crazy for their sports and I can’t get over it…it makes me laugh, because they all wear their teams’ colors whether they are four or seventy-four; they support their team for life with loyalty and enthusiasm!

Trapeze?

Yes, trapeze. Eight WPI students found ourselves in the Docklands of Melbourne in a circus tent for a trapeze lesson and we were all pumped! The trapeze instructors put a harness on all of us and we jumped right in to our lesson. We practiced on a lower, more stationary bar putting our legs up on the bar, holding on with our knees, and then letting our hands go and just hanging by our knees. We all did that and then they had us climb up the ladder…which is a lot higher up than you originally expect…it looks WAY higher when you’re up there, trust me! They helped us to grab the bar and then we jumped off the platform and started swinging…I was SO scared at first, but I did the move they taught us and it was AWESOME!

After a few rounds of that, they told us we were ready to try a mid-air catch. One of the instructors was swinging upside down from the other bar, ready to catch us. We did our knee hanging move and he grabbed for our hands and when he told us to let go of our legs, we let go and swung with him! I did a mid-air catch on a trapeze and it was probably one of the coolest things that I’ve ever done! Cirque De Soleil has nothing on us!!

Afterwards, we explored the Docklands, which are absolutely gorgeous at night and then we all went out to dinner together!

What a great weekend, huh?! Beautiful Beaches, Penguin Parades, Rugby Games, and Trapeze Lessons…that’s Melbourne for ya!

IQP Group and Living in the City

It’s funny how fast you adjust to living in a new place. I truly feel like I’ve lived in Melbourne forever! I’ve gotten so used to all of the public transportation and I know my way around the city pretty well now. I’m getting into a routine with work and eating dinner with my sweet roommates and exploring the city further when I can through the week and have a blast every weekend! I truly LOVE living in Melbourne!

I didn’t really know very many of the other WPIers who were going to Australia with me very well before we landed down under, but they have become some of my close friends already. With such a great mix of people, there is always someone who will go somewhere or try something new with you, whether it be rugby games, beach trips, or trapeze lessons. We are already planning on hanging out all the time when we get back to WPI and we always joke that we will have reunions in Australia whenever we can! ?

Things I’ve Learned So Far

1. “You don’t want to get spread thin like Vegemite!”
2. Michael Phelps is an AWESOME swimmer! (My friend Allison Elder and I watched him break a world record!)
3. Melbourne Storm Rugby is Rugby League and they have a scrum every 6 tackles.
4. Wedges are best with sour cream and sweet chili sauce.
5. Z is not a letter in Australia. It is either replaced with a “s” or called “zed.”
6. They do not have yellow school buses here. (Aussie school kids seem to think American school buses are pretty cool, though!)
7. Wear trackies if you are going to a trapeze lesson (Trackies = Work out pants).
8. A facsimilie is a fax in Australia, but I thought it was an English term. Go figure!
9. You have to turn on an electrical outlet before you use it.
10. Little Penguins get scared really easily and sometimes take a few times to make it up the beach on Phillip Island.
11. A wise woman told me to take every opportunity possible while I’m abroad for IQP and to make every second count and I plan to do that for the rest of my time here in Melbourne!