September 2012 – discovery

informing my teaching philosophy

“The academic bias against subjectivity not only forces our students to write poorly, it deforms their thinking about themselves and their work [ ]… we alienate them from their own inner lives.

Faculty often complain that students have no regard for the gifts of insight and understanding that are the true payoff of education– they care only about short- term outcomes in the real world, “will this major get me a job?” “How will this assignment be useful in ‘real’ life?

But those are […] merely the questions they have been taught to ask… by an academic culture that distrusts and devalues inner reality. Of course our students are cynical about the inner outcomes of education: we teach them that the subjective self is irrelevant and even unreal.”

Palmer Parker, The Courage to Teach

First day of School

It is completely different being in school learning about how to shape a classroom and assume the teacher’s role (in approx. 14 months!!). This had been a program that I’d dreamt of attending, as a first step, for years and years and years of my undergraduate. It wasn’t because I knew what to expect.. but I knew in my heart that I wanted to be an educator and that the first step into that career would be by completing this bachelor’s in education.

I loved my first day of school. It was my favourite first-day-of-school, and I usually love all of mine. The first day I walked into Jamieson Elementary school was confusing, and I don’t remember much of it (because I didn’t know enough English to encode that memory properly?); the first day of the UBC Transition Program was overwhelming because we were told that we would speed through the Gr.10 curricula in three month’s time; the first day of UBC was less overwhelming because I was used to the campus; the first day of our Busolwe (Ugandan) kindergarten was coloured with uncertainty and improvisation..

Today, we took a dive into our course content. The framework of the program is centered around both practice and theory, and it is a unique experience identifying some of my past experiences working with children and youth using some new terms and concepts we discussed today. During our discussion about diverse learners, I contrasted the students I worked with in Vancouver versus those from Busolwe; and during our discussion about literacy and language learning, I reflected on the learning needs of all my ESL students at the Academy. We were, and will continue to be, challenged to identify and/or reconsider our biases, assumptions, convictions, and strategies in our teaching philosophy. I am truly excited to grow as a teacher! There is so much to learn!

The best part about today was that I learned with other students and teacher candidates who love kids, and teaching, and self- discovery, and all have similar sparks of passion for learning and discovery that I have always had.