My name is Stephen Nikiforuk & I am the new teacher in Room 12 here at Glen Taylor School. Originally from Toronto, Canada, I decided to move down to New Zealand when I received the opportunity to teach with the year 7/8's as it has always been a dream of mine to teach & travel to develop experiences while being surrounded by different cultures. New Zealand seemed like the perfect destination for beginning my career as a teacher due to the culture, the geography and most importantly, the people.
Before I became a full-time Primary teacher, I have worked within a number of different professions including Sports Facilitator, Basketball Coach, Wilderness Therapist, Music Teacher & a Camp Director to name a few. Some of my favorite things to do include rock climbing, basketball, composing music and drinking lots of coffee. I expect to have many opportunities to explore and learn more about Aotearoa in the coming years!
So far, I've learned a large amount of New Zealand and the surrounding Auckland area. With my class, I learned how to count to four in Maori and I'm hoping to add some more digits to that soon. I learned what a Karakia is and the importance of whanau.
I'm writing this blog post to lead by example for my students. As it has been quite some time since we have posted a blog as a class, I hope we can arrange a blog post a couple times a week to not only focus on our digital skills but to let everyone know what we've been learning in Room 12 this term! I hope to get our Google Sites up and running within the next week so that everyone can see what we've been focused on and what we'll be learning in the coming term.
I hope everyone has a fantastic day!
Haere rā,
Stephen Nikiforuk
