Culture shock – starting school in a new country

As a child of newly arrived immigrants, I was nearly beside myself with excitement when we arrived in Australia. The land of plenty.

My first experiences were of incredibly bright skies, postcard scenery and shops overflowing with groceries. I could not believe how much meat there was in the stores. In Poland, food was rationed. Shelves were empty. Queues were long.

For several weeks I was allowed to be a tourist in my new country. When the school year began I attended an English Language Centre to ready me for mainstream schooling.

Within two months, my English was deemed good enough for Year 7 and further testing at the high school resulted in me attending mainstream English classes rather than English as a Second Language (ESL) ones.

Things began falling apart then. The written language I learnt, together with the British English pronunciation and word meanings were of little help in an Aussie outer suburban Melbourne high school.

I understood only half of what was said to me, in and away from the classroom. The teacher’s instructions often perplexed me. I struggled with the Australian accent and the particular usage of specific words. Took me weeks to figure out what “PE gear” was.  (In case you’re wondering, it’s the clothes, or uniform, you wear for physical education classes.)

The Australian school culture shocked me. I did not understand why everyone was allowed to speak at once without waiting to be called. The lack of respect for teachers, for school property, for learning was quite confronting.

So was the idea of having to wear a uniform. Back in Poland all we were required to wear was a kind of smock over our normal clothes. It took me a while to get used to the sameness of the Australian school uniform.

Polish school uniforms, 1979. That's me, with the arrow.

The curriculum was two years behind my level of learning. I was only allowed to skip one grade due to my age and I found the six months of repeating maths and science content I already knew, excruciating. And I was made to learn French, because, obviously learning one foreign language wasn’t enough.

Much of the day-to-day routine of Australian school life was foreign to me. I will never forget the day I turned up to school, all alone, on a “curriculum day”. Nobody thought to explain it to me. And my parents didn’t know any different. The lollipop lady, there for the primary school kids, explained it all gently to me and sent me home. I’m pretty sure I cried all the way home and for a very long time once I got there.

I’m pretty sure that my parents complained to the school after that incident, because I remember the ESL coordinator explaining all home notices to me from then on. Except the one about “casual day”. I had no idea… Luckily, my parents couldn’t afford to buy me a proper uniform anyway…

Then, there was the “walkathon”. What the…? Going door to door begging strangers for money? Walking around and around the school oval? My parents and I refused to participate, as it made absolutely no sense….

That was thirty years ago. Today, teachers and, hopefully, society are a lot more aware of the challenges facing children of new immigrants. As we welcome children of refugees into our schools, some of whom have spent most of their lives in refugee camps and may have a limited concept of “school”, others who may never have worn shoes, I hope we can be more generous and supportive as they cope withe their own culture shock.

Dorothy arrived in Australia with her parents in 1981, at the tender age of 13.  She was born in Poland, where she still has a large extended family full of uncles, aunts and cousins.

Starting high school in Australia proved very challenging and Dorothy didn’t fully adapt into her new culture until her years at university, where she studied Chemical Engineering.

After a fifteen year career in the Victorian Public Service, completely unrelated to to her Engineering Degree, Dorothy retired before the birth of her second son.  A sole parent to two boys, since 2009, Dorothy pursued her love of writing by starting a personal blog where she chronicled her life as she came to terms with her new circumstances.

Dorothy is a keen traveller and loves experiencing other cultures.  She has returned to her native Poland twice and spent six weeks travelling alone through Europe in 1998.  These days she settles for travel within Australia, but hopes to explore the world with her boys when they get older.

To learn more about her story visit Singular Insanity.

Tagged as: Australian culture, Culture in schools, Education, inclusion, multicultural education, Multiculturalism, Multiculturism in schools