Our Identity - Teachers

Ms Johnson's Story

- United States Of America -

Moving to New Zealand from the United States was a terrifying but also exhilarating (and in many ways, unexpected) experience. I was 23. I had studied at university for four years and then gotten a good job in my chosen field. I had a business card. I had an office. I was going places. There was only one problem: my job was utterly soul destroying. One night, telling my best friend Mary this, a pinky promise was made. And pinky promises are unbreakable contracts. Six months later, we left our comfortable “grown up” jobs and embarked on an OE that would last a year... or so I thought.

I didn’t have a lot of money because I had just used almost all of my savings for an unexpected emergency, so I knew I had to find a job right away. Mary and I shared a small bedroom in my dad’s house at first. I had only met him once in my life that I could remember, and we were not close at all, so I wasn’t sure how living there was going to go. Mary and I did everything together, including applying for jobs. We didn’t have a car, so we took the bus into the city. To my great surprise and delight, the same bar, Baretta, actually hired both of us. Our bartending shifts started at 4 p.m. and ended at 4 a.m. It was so much fun, and we made so many friends.

We could soon afford to rent our own tiny flat in the city. Unfortunately, the flat was freezing cold and damp. There were mushrooms growing out of our bathroom floor behind the toilet; they lurked beneath the rubbish bin and somehow managed to double in size in just a few days. One day, my friend leaned her palm against the bathroom wall to steady herself, and her hand passed effortlessly through the damp jib...revealing an insidious black mould that was growing in the walls, all around us. The fridge leaked into the carpet, so the carpet in the lounge was always damp and it smelled of mildew. The rent was very high despite all of these issues, and I could afford to buy little else on top of what I paid the landlord. Fortunately, when you work at a restaurant, you tend to get a lot of free food. Someone from work gave me a blanket, I remember, because it was so cold in that place at night...and I couldn’t even afford a decent blanket.

These experiences were very difficult, but I wouldn’t change them for anything. Hardship makes you a stronger and better person. After living in this amazing country for a year, despite all of the challenges, I didn’t want to leave. Neither did Mary. (Yes, we managed to escape the horrible flat!) Fortunately, I have dual citizenship, so I was allowed to stay. Mary wasn’t so lucky. She tried to extend her visa, but Immigration denied her, and they gave her ten days’ notice to leave the country. After we had gone through so much together, this was devastating news. She purchased the cheapest international flight she could find; it was to Sydney, Australia. That was more than six years ago, and she still lives in Sydney to this day. I, on the other hand, went back to university to study teaching, leaving the hospo industry and lifestyle behind. And voila! Here I am.

Mrs Truter's Story

- South Africa -

I had just returned to settle in my hometown after having lived and worked in three different countries in Africa. With no intention of leaving Cape Town again, especially as my life had had more than its fair share of ups and downs, I was desperately hoping that things would finally settle into a calm, steady rhythm. Instead, I found myself boarding a flight to Auckland merely months later, amid tearful goodbyes from the surviving members of my rapidly dwindling extended family. It felt like ripping off a large and very sticky band aid!

Determined to tackle this huge move as an adventurous new beginning which would leave all my worries behind, I resolved to deal positively with whatever came along even though I was literally flying blind. The circumstances preceding my departure from South Africa had been traumatic, but I took a mammoth leap of faith, convincing myself that life in New Zealand would be better. I had no idea of what awaited me in Aotearoa because, unlike most immigrants from my country, I had not done any reconnaissance; but, after all, they say life begins at forty and I was rapidly approaching that milestone.

Flying over the North Island, I caught my first glimpse of my new home country: wisps of white clouds shrouding the unfamiliar green landscape in mystery. My family and I clutched each others’ hands firmly, silently pledging to embrace our new life. We had already decided that, no matter what, this was our new home.

Many people say how much they miss their homeland when arriving here with very few friends or any family. Because I had made a conscious choice to leave mine after both my parents had passed away, I had no real regrets. I didn’t miss my siblings, as I had already lived in other countries and I was used to not seeing them for long periods at a time. I didn’t seek out other South Africans, as I wanted to meet locals and immerse myself in the kiwi way of life. I didn’t hanker after familiar foods, as I was too excited to try all the new products beckoning me from supermarket shelves. I didn’t miss the familiar streets and landmarks of home, as I was in awe of the beauty of the Kiwi countryside, and amused at the novelty of the quaint small towns and the intriguing rural areas. I was a big city girl who was enjoying the adventure of living in a country whose total population -at that time- was equal to the population of the city from which I had come!

One thing that struck me initially was people’s accent and pronunciation - and the fact that people often didn't appear to understand what I was saying unless I enunciated my words quite slowly. I guess I sounded as strange to them as they did to me. Maybe I was the one with the accent? One amusing anecdote from my early days in Dargaville (which I like to refer to as my ‘hometown’ because it was where we first lived when we arrived in New Zealand over twenty years ago): I went on a school camp with my daughter’s school, and on one of the outdoor tramps, one of the other mothers commented that she was quite surprised at how remarkably quickly I had learnt English, and she was impressed that I was so fluent. I hated having to break the news to her that not only was English my mother tongue, but that I also had a university degree in English. I sometimes wonder what her perception of Africans was.

There are so many memories from those early days that make me smile:

When we hired our first home, a fairly large house on State Highway 1 on the outskirts of Dargaville, the estate agent was aghast that there were just three of us in our household. The look on her face was priceless. What she didn’t realise was that none of the houses in town that we’d seen seemed large enough to accommodate the dimensions of my furniture that was due to arrive from South Africa. I think she thought that we were very strange indeed.

I loved the idea of living ‘out in the country’ until I got two speeding fines in one morning: driving into town to drop my daughter at school, and then again at the same spot on my way home less than half an hour later. I was used to much higher speed limits back home, but my husband was not amused.

I did relief teaching at Dargaville Intermediate School where both my brother-in-law and his wife were teaching. (Their surname is Truter.) One of the students, on learning my surname, asked if all teachers from South Africa were called “Truter.”

My daughter embraced her new school enthusiastically and came home rolling her “r’s” and flattening her vowels. When I asked why she was speaking that way, she replied that she was “learning to speak ‘Kiwi’.” What she enjoyed most about her new school was that she could go to school in everyday clothes and bare feet. She also thought that ‘mufti’ was a very funny word indeed. Because the education system in our home country was quite different to that in New Zealand, my daughter was ahead of the other students her age and the school wanted her to be placed in a more senior class. Being concerned that she would then always be much younger than her classmates, I had her remain in a class of her age-group, which meant that most of what she was learning at that time presented no problem to her and she could focus on acclimating socially. She cried all the way to Auckland when we moved a few months later, as she had really found her niche in that small town school.

Settling in Auckland was what made me somewhat nostalgic for what I had left behind: ‘the Big Smoke’ did not have a patch on the cities I had been used to. It seemed so much smaller in every way. I missed the hubbub of the massive malls with several floors of sparkling departmental stores and colourful boutiques crammed with the latest fashions. I yearned for those crowded elevators, noisy cafes and the excitement of jostling for a parking space in the huge parking lots. I missed the sprawling six-lane motorways with speed limits of 140 kph. But I squared my shoulders and strengthened my resolve to applaud the new and different aspects of the here-and-now, instead of harking back to what I had left behind ‘back there, when we...’. I took up tai chi, joined Toastmasters, knitted beanies for babies, and stood on the sidelines at my daughter’s netball games and swimming meets.

I made my first trip back to South Africa eight years after having arrived here. By then I was a New Zealand citizen, had established myself in Auckland and had acclimatised enough to no longer feel the cold so intensely, which had been one of my big complaints on first arriving here. I have travelled back there several times now, but on my last visit to Africa, I realised just how much things had changed for me over the years. My path has taken many unexpected twists since I first landed in Auckland, and I didn't expect to wind up in Christchurch; but when people ask me why I did not return ‘home’ to South Africa as a consequence of those experiences, I simply say that this is my home.

Mrs Buenaventura's Story

- The Phillippines-

Kumusta

New Zealand isn't the first country that we attempted to move to. I was born and I grew up in the busiest city in the Philippines, Manila. At first, after finishing my post-graduate studies, I thought we were moving to the USA since my qualifications had been assessed in the USA to teach either in California or in Texas. I had been interviewed and was ready to face a new school setup in the USA. Unfortunately, the USA decided to freeze hiring teachers from overseas because of increasing cases of depression and other mental health issues.

I was devastated because our family had dreamt of moving to the USA, not only in order to get a better job, but we were thinking that it would be safer to live in a first-world country. However, I didn't stop there. My husband and I had this firm conviction of escaping from our homeland. We still thought that it would be better for our children to grow up in a peaceful place where we did not need to worry about the safety of our children when they went out. So I enquired about how to migrate to Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

New Zealand was the first one to contact us, so I decided to continue by applying for a WTR "Work to Residence'' Visa. It wasn't easy and it was so expensive that we almost used all our savings. When our visa was granted, my husband travelled to NZ while I remained behind to finish my teaching at the university where I worked. My visa had only three months remaining before it expired when I eventually moved to New Zealand. My husband and I moved to New Zealand leaving our children behind in the Philippines because we did not know what life would hold for us here. We landed in Auckland. On my third day in Auckland, Long Bay College phoned me for an interview. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the position.

Moving to New Zealand was not the same as what we had heard from other Filipinos' testimonies. We struggled so much, especially with finances, because of the high cost of living in Auckland. We arrived in NZ with only US$2000 in our pockets. This was our only remaining savings after all the expenses incurred in our applications to move here. April 2008, after a month of applying for a position as a teacher, I started to apply for any job in order to survive. My husband was working as a kitchen hand and a cleaner while I was working as a cook and service assistant at New World. I also worked on my day off in an Asian store. It was a year of crises, so we were quite devastated and regretted moving to New Zealand because what we were earning here was less than what we earned back in Manila.

Our visa expired; but we still weren’t employed in the jobs that the immigration required for us to be able to apply for residency, even though my husband was then a chef and I was also working as a relief teacher. We had to stop working for four months due to the visa expiry. My husband had already received a letter of deportation from the immigration because it had been such a long time and we were still waiting to get jobs that were relevant to our qualifications and our work experience. A blessing came when there was an opportunity for me to apply as a Mathematics teacher in Greymouth. The principal was impressed by my honesty and was interested in what I could offer teaching in a Catholic school. After the interview, the principal offered me a full-time permanent position. It was an early Christmas gift for us as we had no savings at all and our friends in Auckland were paying our rent and our church group was only supplying basic needs. The job offer in Greymouth turned our world around. Greymouth is a completely different environment with a different way of living, as we had grown up in a huge, busy city. My first teaching position in New Zealand was challenging, but I survived by building a good and strong relationship with students and colleagues. I spent eight years teaching in Greymouth until we decided to move back to the city which we had chosen to live in - Christchurch. I once said to our friends who live along Waterloo Road that I will be teaching at Hornby High School one day, and so I am now.

Mr Heath's Story

- England -

My story actually starts back in 1985, long before I was born. After many years of working and saving up, my Dad came to New Zealand as part of his big OE, and he fell in love. The lifestyle, the scenery, the people, the opportunities, and the stark contrast to his life in England, convinced him that moving to the other side of the world, away from where his family has been for generations, was a promise worth making. Not long after travelling to NZ he met my mum and told her about this promise he made himself, which she had no problem agreeing to. However, once they were married, and my sister and I came along, life became very busy and suddenly 20 years had passed since he made that promise.

I was only 11 years old when my parents decided we would go on holiday to New Zealand for two weeks. I still remember my mum showing me where New Zealand was on the map compared to where we were in England. My little 11-year-old brain couldn’t comprehend the idea of us travelling to the other side of the world. What my parents didn’t inform me and my younger sister was that this trip was actually a scouting mission to see whether we could build our life in this little city called Christchurch.

We had an amazing time on this “holiday”. We did all the tourist attractions like seeing the gondola, going to the beach, walking in Arthur’s Pass, as well as going to the malls, which was a very foreign concept as we came from a small village in England. All the while, my parents were scouting potential homes, schools and jobs. Unsurprisingly, my dad also got me a trial for the local football club to see if it would be a good fit for me. I thought it was a random bunch of boys kicking a football around at the park, and I am always game. Little did I know that Dad had got me involved in a club's proper training session. My sister and I had no idea what was really going on and I commend my parents for being able to keep up the charade for the whole holiday.

This scouting trip obviously proved successful seeing as I’m here! Within a month of getting back to England, my parents put the house up for sale and told my sister and me that we would be moving to that great place we had just gone on holiday to. I remember being so excited. I had just started comprehensive school (high school) in England and wasn’t enjoying it at all so I had assumed that anything would be better than my current situation. What I did not appreciate until years later, was how risky this move was.

We arrived in Christchurch with 4 suitcases. We did not know a single person in the country. My Dad had a job unofficially confirmed over email working as a restaurant manager, so he had a work visa but had never met his employer. My sister and I had student visas and my mum came across as the guardian of us kids. We only had enough money to book a motel room for 10 days and that was it. In those 10 days, I still cannot comprehend the tasks my parents had to complete. They enrolled my sister and me in school and got us uniforms and everything we needed. They got Dad set up in his job; they set up bank accounts and insurance; researched and sorted a rental house for us to move into which was close to the school; and rented a car. Mum then had 3 months to find a job before her visa ran out, which thankfully she managed easily with her 18 years of experience working in a bank. Meanwhile, my sister and I were blissfully unaware of all of this as we adapted to school and life in Christchurch, loving every second of it. Years later, my parents finally confessed to my sister and me how much stress they were under in those first 10 days and how little sleep they got. They found themselves second-guessing if they had made the right choice and over-analysing all the potential consequences of this decision. Thankfully, my parents are incredibly resilient and made a move across the world seem relatively straightforward.

When people ask me if I miss England, the response I will give 100% of the time is “I miss the rest of my family, a lot. But every other factor of my life has been improved by this move. I would never want to move back.” I am so grateful for my parents taking that huge leap of faith to fulfil that promise Dad made to himself, back in 1985.

Mr Cairns' Story

- New Zealand Sign Language-

My whānau communicate using New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL). We use our hands and facial expressions to understand each other. Deaf culture comes with some difficult experiences, but also some hilarious stories. Deaf people want others to know that deafness isn’t a weakness. We can make the world a better place for deaf people by learning their experiences.

My parents have been deaf their whole life. When they went through school, the education system was built against them. Sign Language was banned in schools because hearing people expected deaf people to learn to read lips. This was a problem because lip reading is exhausting and doesn’t provide the full connection that Sign Language does.

I remember growing up and having my friends say “Oh, that’s so sad” when they hear my parents are deaf. This made me feel like our family was missing out on the happiness I see in other families. Since then, I’ve realized that the way we connect with each other is real and I love what we have. Deaf people are often treated like they are helpless, but they are canny, capable and caring. They simply experience the world in a different way.

Most problems that deaf people face aren’t because of their deafness, but because of the attitudes people have.

Now, Sign Language is being celebrated in New Zealand and all around the world. A movie was made recently, called CODA (Children of Deaf Adults), which shows how deaf and hearing people can share the world together. It’s a beautiful story and my family is so excited that it won the 2022 Academy Award for Best Picture at the Oscars.

My mum loves to decorate and my dad loves to renovate. Their house is filled with all sorts of decorations and creations. There are dolphins made of shimmering blue crystal and home-made go-karts that speed down roads faster than students packing up at the end of a lesson.

Hand ornaments are common in deaf households as they celebrate Sign Language. I remember my friends being startled when they saw hands coming out of the dirt in the garden like the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. We always laugh at this memory.

Sharing our stories helps us understand each other's perspective and see that we’re all human beings. What’s your story?

Miss Birtch's Story

- Canada -

My story begins in a small town called White Rock, British Columbia, in Canada just outside of the major city of Vancouver. I was very fortunate to grow up only a 10 minute drive to the beach. The ‘white rock’ of White Rock is actually re-painted annually to keep it white and the promenade pier is the largest in Canada, according to the sign! I loved my time in elementary school and when high school came, that was only a short walk down the road, similar to how our cluster works here in Hornby. I got to grow up alongside the same friends, who I keep in contact with today even though I haven’t lived in my hometown in over 10 years. I was a competitive dancer and enjoyed the many after school hours I spent with my teammates training, practising and competing in all styles. My parents separated the same year I was going to start high school which meant I had to adapt to some new changes; new homes, new routines and new schedules. This was hard, especially during my first year at the big school, but unbeknownst to me, this change would prepare me for many more moves in the future.

Upon graduation from high school, I knew I wanted to go to university. Unfortunately the schools within British Columbia where I lived didn’t interest me and I felt like I had to choose one for the sake of making a choice. On very short notice, my mom was promoted within her job and announced that she was going to be moving a 5 hour plane ride across the country to Toronto, Ontario. I had the choice; to stay in Vancouver, committing to a four year pathway I was not passionate about; or leave behind everything I was comfortable with and move to a brand new province.

I chose to take a risk, and applied to the only two schools that were offering late university acceptance (this happened in April and school started in August!) Within a week we took a trip to Toronto, toured the schools and looked for houses in the new neighborhood my mom wanted to live in. I decided to attend Wilfrid Laurier University after my 1 hour campus tour. It was on the smaller side, had a huge emphasis on the undergraduate experience and offered the chance to join a sorority, which was a lifelong dream of mine and a requirement for any university I was to attend.

Fast forward through four years of university: I had my very expensive piece of paper - my Bachelor of Arts degree. I had moved out of my university town of Waterloo, which I didn’t realize was actually 3 hours from Toronto where my Mom was! What now? I felt I had missed the opportunity to pursue my true passion of education. I decided to look at overseas opportunities and found a programme called CanTeach. With the help of CanTeach I was able to come to Christchurch to attend the University of Canterbury and complete my Graduate Diploma of Teaching and Learning (Primary) and also get certified to teach in Canada. In 2017 I came to New Zealand, not knowing anything about it other than apparently people like rugby here. I was amazed. Everything was new and exciting to me: the accent, the language, the culture, different foods in the supermarket, instant coffee... I lived in the uni apartments with four other Canadian girls, one of whom attended Wilfrid Laurier with me; we just never knew each other! To this day she is my best friend and teaches in Auckland.

Upon completing my teaching programme I knew I wanted to stay in Aotearoa. New Zealand had captured my heart and made me feel at home in 12 short months. I got hired to teach a Year 8 class in 2018 at Hornby High School and have enjoyed all the changes and experiences I’ve had since then. Next year those Year 8s will be our Year 13 cohort and I am so proud to see all they have accomplished since we were together in J-block. I know my New Zealand story is far from over. I can even give credit to Hornby High School for helping me to meet my partner Connor, who used to run the KiwiCan programme here a few years ago!

If you had asked me in 2011, at the crossroads of staying in my comfort zone or taking the leap to move across Canada; I would never have imagined 10 years later telling you that I have just applied for New Zealand residency. The path of your life can change quickly; don’t be afraid to run after the opportunities that present themselves, even if they are a 22 hour plane ride away!

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