Ward Family Vacations

New Zealand 2005

Waikato University - Hamilton, New Zealand

While in Hamilton we visited the Waikato University where David graduated from in 2004 and where Jessica attended for one semester before moving to Auckland. The campus is huge and quite beautiful. Of course in New Zealand, the Maori theme is apparent in everything.  Their School of Māori and Pacific Development is acknowledged as the world centre for study in this subject area. Of note, Dave's grandfather was a retired professor from this school and also spoke the language. The school has approximately 14,000 students and the campus is spread out over 170 acres.  The schools motto is "Nau mai, haere mai!
Welcome to Waikato"!

Me, Jill and Jessica in front of the Management Building where Jessica took classes.

	Dave and Jessica

Dave graduated from Waikato University in 2004 with a graduate diploma in teaching.  He is a third generation teacher with both of his grandparents being retired professors at Waikato.  

Dave told me many funny stories about his first year of teaching. The funniest so far is the "Lord's Prayer" incident. Dave set up the IT curriculum at a Christian school which is very strict. He can monitor the students from his desk and was watching one student who apparently was up to no good. (I asked Dave if he could tell this from personal experience *S*). This young man was saving rap lyrics and associated pictures in a file and named it the "Lord's Prayer" to "fool" anyone looking through his files. He didn't know Dave was monitoring him and already knew. Dave waited for school to end that day and took the "Lord's Prayer" file the student had saved and copied the real Lord's Prayer into this file and saved it.

Of course, the next day he monitored this particular student as he arrived in class. He went right for his "Lord's Prayer" file and opened it up. Imagine his surprise when the Lord's Prayer was in his file! Dave said his eyes got so big and he looked around like "what happened!". I told Dave that he handled that like a pro, he didn't have to say a word and made his point!