Friday, November 5, 2010

All Hallows' School {Brisbane, Austraila}

FLASHBACK FRIDAY:
As a student teacher, in 1990, I taught at All Hallow's Catholic Girls' School.

In the second half of my senior year at UPS (and the first half of my 5th year), I lived in Brisbane, Australia, where I attended the University of Queensland on a Rotary Foundation Scholarship.
It was a full ride scholarship, so all expenses were paid by Rotary International for a year of post-graduate study.  I chose the Diploma in Education program, thanks to my grandpa K, who found it in the UQ course guide and suggested I enroll.

My practicum (student teaching) brought me to All Hallow's Catholic Girls' School on the banks of the Brisbane River.  I taught sophomore English and also was a guest teacher in other classrooms.  
My mom had shared stories about having attended an all girls Catholic high school in Seattle, and I always wondered if she wasn't exaggerating some of the details about the strict uniform rules, etc.

On my first day at All Hallow's the principal called an emergency all school assembly.
None of the students or teachers knew what the emergency was, but everyone hurried to the assembly.
Turns out, the emergency was that some of the girls at All Hallows had been wearing Lycra bike tights under their uniforms, which could be seen during athletics or at recess when the girls were active.
NOT ACCEPTABLE!  Uniform meant UNI-form.  Everyone wearing exactly the same thing, with no exceptions~ matching socks, matching hats, matching everything, even book bags.

I knew, then, that my mom's stories about the all girls high school were not fancied.

Someday maybe I'll post about the time I sneaked INTO the staff room at All Hallows to grab my belongings and sneak off the campus during a bomb scare...  


No comments: