Lauren Fenyes, the University of North Texas Special Learners in Oceania student blogger writes in her final blog post: My spectacular study abroad program has come to an end, and although I am sad to finish this brief chapter of my life, I am incredibly thankful for the experiences I’ve had and the people I’ve met. The final days of our trip were spent in Sydney, Australia, exploring the city and learning its history. We visited two schools, the Wairoa Public School for children with special needs, and the second was Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children, or RIDBC for short.
At Wairoa, each of us was placed in a classroom with five to seven students, a teacher, and a teacher’s aid. Here, we interacted with students with a variety of learning differences. We visited Wairoa for their full school day, two days in a row and we stayed in our same assigned classrooms for both days. I noticed this led to more meaningful connections between my classmates and the Wairoa students because we were all able to return to the same class of children and build on the foundation of the relationship developed on the first day.
After our time at Wairoa, the group took a short walk down from the school to Bondi Beach! This area is a well-known tourist attraction and a favorite spot for locals to surf. Although it was a bit cold, we took advantage of the sunshine for plenty of pictures and food from The Bucket List restaurant near the ocean.
Our last school visit was to RIDBC where we were assigned two different classrooms for our final two days. Classes were grouped by disability for students with mobility, visual, hearing, and some with both visual and hearing impairments. The school offered programs for pre-kindergarten children all the way up to Year 12 for students up to the age of twenty-one. Our group learned the braille alphabet and a bit of Auslan (Australian sign language) to be able to communicate with students with visual or hearing impairments. We also observed how cochlear implants and FM systems are utilized in the classroom and the benefits those devices bring to children at a young age.
In addition to visiting schools, we had plenty of time to explore the city! Our students engaged in a wide variety of activities such as touring the beautiful Blue Mountains, viewing the city skyline from the 984 foot Sydney Eye, walking through the Royal Botanic Gardens, and touring the illustrious Sydney Opera House, some even attended the opera! A favorite among many was the trip to Taronga Zoo where we were able to see Australian wildlife up close. We photographed and interacted with kangaroos, emus, wallabies, and we were especially keen on doing the koala encounter where we cuddled close with the sleepy creatures.
Whether we were marveling at the natural beauty of Australia’s landscapes and mountain ranges, or taking advantage of the end-of-financial-year sales in local shopping centers, we all had a taste of Sydney’s rich culture. This has been the trip of a lifetime and I definitely plan on putting a photo album together and telling anyone who will listen about the learning experiences and opportunities studying abroad has to offer. Hopefully this will not be my only journey to New Zealand and Australia, as there are so many more areas to see and explore! For now, I bid Sydney farewell and I will be returning to Texas with new perspectives and many fond memories of Oceania!
