An Introduction To My Community Field Experience
I had opted for an international CFE, or Community Field Experience, and had gotten placed at a school in Zurich, Switzerland. This felt like a dream come true because I had always wanted to visit Europe, especially Switzerland, Paris and Greece. I was very excited and was looking forward to this opportunity coming right after the intense long practicum. However, it was not to be. By a combination of circumstances that included missing half a day of teaching at my practicum school, my passport was stuck at the visa office in Ottawa; I could not leave the country. I could only wait for my passport to arrive by mail, and hope that it would be in time for me to make it to Zurich and still have a valuable experience. The wait was nerve wracking, and it was admittedly a little sad to watch my peers prepare for and fly to their CFE destinations on the Friday night or the weekend after the long practicum while I wondered what my next few days would look like. As far as “Plan B” goes, we had arranged for me to continue working at my practicum school, in a different capacity while I waited for my passport to arrive. I would work with and shadow a resource teacher at the Learning Support Services (LSS) at my practicum school. Luckily for me, the schools in Switzerland were on spring break, so I was not missing any of my teaching time, but the activities planned for me at the Teaching University of Zurich were put on hold…
Continued in Week 1…