June 2017 – Welcome to My Teaching World

Sea To Sky Outdoor School CFE

I did my three week community field experience at Sea to Sky Outdoor School on the beautiful Sunshine Coast in the “Wow Sound” or Howe Sound. I worked with students of various ages and got to experience three different school groups on two camp sites. I worked with a Montessori school from Portland, Oregon, a private school from Tsawwassen, and a humanities cohort from Surrey. They all varied in age and ability outdoors.

30 person voyager canoes eagerly awaiting the arrival of students in the Wow Sound

Myself on a beach explore covered in mud we found on the beach, so nice!

The camp programming was all around the environment, sustainability and being outside. I found it particularly interesting to observe all of these groups disconnect from the burden of time and technology for the time we were together. My inquiry as you may have noticed is around nomophobia and attachment to cell phones. I found the level and depth of conversation we could engage these students in way more deep than I would have on practicum.

The most interesting day we had in two of the three programs was definitely the global lunch. The global lunch suggested to students graphically that 20% of the world consumes 80% of the food produced globally. Often students would riot and be upset because only a few students would get fed and many would be given next to nothing. The conversation around this was often interesting and sometimes shocking. Students would riot and try to steal food from the 20% and of course there would be real world like consequences. Sea to Sky definitely had a message and the delivery was often interesting to experience and be apart of.

I spent so much time outside over my CFE it makes me sad to think about how much time I actually spend inside now. I learned some interesting new skills like how to eat stinging nettle, weave baskets, how to steer a 30 man canoe and make silk screens. I improved my fire building skills and shelter building skills. I learned how to work collaboratively with a team daily and how to improvise constantly with the weather.

One of the students enjoying a seaweed mask on the beach during beach exploration.

Chanting and paddling in the voyageur canoes.

My legacy project I left behind was a floating fire place I made with a bunch of scrap materials found at Camp Fircom. Sea to Sky was pretty excited to hear that I was a shop teacher and put me to work one night reconstructing and redesigning their original floating fireplace. Unfortunately I did not get to see it in action but it was a pretty cool project to leave behind.

The testing floating fireplace on the water in Halkett Bay.

I really enjoyed my CFE with Sea to Sky Outdoor school and I would definitely go back as an on call teacher next year. I learned so much about outdoor education and experiential education. I had so many magical experiences I could write about for days however, this is merely a quick overview. I loved being outside rain or shine and working in a team day in and day out. This is definitely not the kind of teacher education for some people that need strict plans because our plans would change with the weather. But it definitely helped me learn how to improvise, think on my feet and make connections to the bigger picture.

10 Week Extended Practicum Reflection

My practicum went by really fast. I grew so much as a student teacher and as a person. Each week my roles responsibilities ramped up; and the balance of teaching, planning and writing lesson plans increased. The photo below is from my very first day of practicum, you could say I was excited!

I was really fortunate to be placed in a school with a large variety of programming in technology education. This provided me an opportunity to get my feet wet as a student teacher in many different areas. I worked with three different SA’s and got to experience a variety of teaching styles. I taught Woodwork 8, Woodwork 9/10, Metal 8, Metal Fabrication 9/10, Art Metal 9/10 and Skills Exploration 10-12. Working with a range of ages was really interesting as a new teacher.

My area of most comfort has always been the metal shop, especially in a jewelry art environment, so it was nice to be able to teach some wood and skills exploration to push myself outside of my comfort zone.

High, Low, Wow, Now

My practicum high would be seeing the progress and development in my classes. I could tell that there were a few students that really appreciated me being there as a teacher one of my students actually made me cookies to say thank you. That was sweet. Feeling like you made some impact is definitely a high for me. However, ten weeks goes by so fast!

My practicum low would be realizing that I had lost one my classes engagement about four weeks in. They were resisting taking me on as a teacher. They had become a really big challenge and I was starting to enjoy that class less and less; it was my Art Metal class. My greatest frustration there was that I was looking forward to teaching this class the most, and they seemed to receive me the least. However, this was the greatest learning opportunity for me a teacher. The challenge of “resetting” a class and bringing them back in was a huge learning experience. I managed to turn that class around and engage with students more after we had a big open class talk. Resetting the class also provided me an opportunity to ask other teachers questions about what they would do, aside from just my SA’s, and talk to people that had also struggled with classes. After that talk my expectations of them and their expectations of me were all out on the table and the class was motivated and doing more than they’d done for me the first four weeks. It was really inspiring being able to connect with the difficult students and push them to learn, grow and be productive classroom citizens.

My “wow” experiences over practicum often came from the creativity of students. A lot of my classes were very self driven and some students were really keen to challenge themselves. I helped one student cast gold from their granny’s teeth, and tension set a sapphire they spent their wages on. They were so motivated it was truly inspiring. I find that the senior students that really wanted to learn worked really hard to do so. The creativity and work produced was always the most inspiring part. Below are some photos of student progress.

Now I am excited to work as a TTOC and continue to work on my teacher presence,voice and classroom management. I noticed from observing TTOC’s that they really have to have a presence to be successful with classes.

The Final Week

My last week of my practicum I asked my students to fill out anonymous feedback. Some of them chose to leave their names and some did not. It is funny, after having students for a while you can usually tell who is saying what; even if it is anonymous. Some of them were funny, some were sweet, some were constructive and some really felt like a win. There were definitely some students that were difficult to deal with from time to time, but the feedback affirmed that I managed to connect and break through the struggles we initially had. The feedback was definitely encouraging.

After ten weeks I can honestly say it is really hard to actually make a huge change in someone else’s classroom when the students are already set in their ways. But this experience was so valuable for a new teacher. It definitely is a lot of work, late nights and maybe some tears but definitely worth it. I had a great time on practicum and eagerly await the future.