Trading places for a year – and becoming better teachers

There's a first time for everything, and that's precisely what Matthew Williams and Damien Mah had in mind for the 2012 school year.

The two wood shop teachers - one Canadian, one Australian - are settling into their new roles as, quite frankly, each other.

Williams, 37, from Vankleek Hill Collegiate Institute, and Mah, 40, from Lithgow High School - located in Australia's Blue Mountains National Park - have exchanged careers, homes and personal lives for the next 365 days.

However, the pair, who only had a couple of days to spend together in Vankleek Hill before Williams and his family departed for Australia, realized they had quite a bit in common. It's true that neither necessarily expected to get the country they asked for but, as it turned out, winding up in each other's backyards - quite literally - was the first of many things the two teachers had in common.

"Not only do you have to trade jobs, you have to trade houses. We have three kids, they have three kids..." Williams trails off.

"It's almost like family doppelgangers, you know that?" laughs Mah.

The coincidences don't end there. On Mah's first night in Vankleek Hill, he quickly learned that Williams and his wife, Allison, are part of a group of four couples that regularly spend time together - just like Mah and his wife.

"There are a lot of parallels I see in our lives, even though we've been strangers," said Mah.

On that note, Williams says the pair was fortunate to have actually met and spent a couple of orientation days together. The only "contact" most exchange teachers have with each other, he explained, are when the two airplanes pass each other in the air.

The VCI teacher says there are two reasons he and Allison signed up for the exchange: "We both like traveling, and the other part of it is just a desire for professional change, to see how things are done in another country. It's a daunting thing but I think it's going to be valuable.

"As teachers, we're examples for students," said Williams. "For students to see a teacher do something like this, and then experience an Australian teacher in Canada, is probably great as well."

While it's as much a cultural exchange for the teachers as it is for their students, it equally applies to the staff - it's been about 20 years since VCI had its last Australian teacher.

Meanwhile, Williams is enjoying life in Blackheath, a town of 4,000 people (an hour west of the country's major city, Sydney) and Mah and his family are enjoying the snow, something they normally have to drive seven or eight hours to find back home.

As for ending up in the exact locations they were looking for, Mah says, "We both put our names out there and three countries - Canada being my first - and it was just really fortunate that Canada came up."

As for challenges, Mah recalls returning to school after a holiday break and getting word that his exchange request was accepted. However, it came the day after learning of the tragic death of one of his students, meaning the experience was truly an "unforgettable moment," and in that sense, a bittersweet one.

Williams has also grown close to his students, and admits it will be disappointing to miss the graduation of some of his Grade 12 students later this year.

"That's one of the hard things about leaving," he said. "It'll be tough not seeing them; graduation is a nice send-off for them and I'm not going to be around for that."

In terms of preparations, each had to have several weeks' worth of materials and work ready for the other upon arrival. And while both will continue working in the wood shop, Williams will work with younger students in Grade 7 and 8, while Mah readies himself to teach the Grade 9 through 12 students at VCI.

Most important, both see the next year of their lives as a journey.

"I've heard it'll be a benchmark in your life, that you'll always relate back to 'that was a couple of years before the exchange,' that sort of thing," said Williams. "It can be that for other people as well, especially in a school environment."

Both agreed that at this point, the exchange has been nothing but exciting - and they expect that feeling to last.

"This would've been my 10th year in my school and, a long time ago, someone told me a teacher should change schools every seven or eight years, so you don't go stale," said Mah. "The fortunate thing is, I'm living in a place I want to live and it's close to where I work, so if I changed schools, well, you know...

"Putting my name down (for the exchange) was on a whim, after a phone call to my wife, and it's going to be really exciting. It's an expedition, it's an adventure. Like Matt said, making yourself refreshed, sort of shaking everything up and really going outside of your comfort zone - really, really going outside of your comfort zone - I know I'm going to go back a better teacher."