Tag: Teacher

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mistakes move us forward

Just a week ago I marveled at how organized I am at the Academy where I teach English. I have been teaching there for almost three years, and I enjoy a routine and relationship that I have worked hard to build in this time. I thought that I was finally hitting a stride in my role as an instructor there. Today, in a conversation I had with a fellow teacher there, I realized that there was a serious miscommunication with one student and her father. It was almost the identical situation that I walked into two years ago. I had vowed never to make the same mistake, and to be extra careful not to accidentally make a similar one. Yet I had to deal with the embarrassment of not realizing what situation I got myself into. It just goes to show that there will always be room for more learning.

I deal mostly with business people whose children attend my classes, and sometimes it is daunting to negotiate how and when our lessons should be. I feel awful that misunderstanding happens as a result of me caring too much, too easily. I cannot be on beck and call for these students even though I am tempted to negotiate. I am an employee of a private academy and I have my set hours. I wish I could help my students as much as they need it, and I always try to squeeze time out of my schedule to fit in more students into my already crammed life as a student myself. I keep falling back on my old role as a tutor.

In order to move on I need to push myself into zones of slight discomfort, to stretch myself and exercise skills I didn’t know I had. Namely, negotiation, firm correspondence, strictly busy. I need to be the secretary of my own time; I must guard my time as it is precious.

This graduate PDP program has frazzled me to the point that I am no longer in control as I always thought I was. It is so challenging to juggle everything and maintain the same level of professionalism, diplomacy, and care. I must understand my specific goals for myself. I am a new teacher, and my priority is to have my own classroom and teach for a few years before I consider graduate school or working in a private institution. I need to communicate that to people, and learn not to be affected or take it upon myself to fit the needs of every student and his/her family. I am too flexible, and care too deeply sometimes.

But I am at a point in my career when I do need to make decisions. I need to draw lines and know what my boundaries are. I cannot be a super-new-teacher-who-juggles-three-jobs any more. I need to focus on the one job I want to have for life, that of an educator. Looking at the big picture, I need to let go of some things to make room for others.

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Purpose and meaning

After four hours of a terribly stressful dream about losing my cool as a classroom teacher, I woke up to three alarms that S and I had set the previous night. We caught the 6a.m. bus that took us to the ferry terminal, and arrived in Gibsons, B.C. for our morning presentation at Cedar Grove Elementary School.

When we were in Uganda planning the kindergarten project, we had no resources to jump- start the vision. Our community in Busolwe wanted to establish a school that was attached to the library, and our role in the project was to design a guiding curriculum and present a budget to the Board of Directors of the library association so that they would endorse the plan. S. Sammartino contacted her mother who is a kindergarten teacher on the sunshine coast, and students raised enough money to purchase wood and hire a local carpenter who made the desks and chairs. After our departure, the Busolwe library community interviewed and hired teachers from the capital city, and with a surge in enrolment the school population was close to 200 students in its first year!

Our first fundraiser presentation last year raised over $500 Cdn and that went towards supplying and creating 5 additional classroom spaces for students in K-7. Today’s presentation was a virtual tour through our classroom, and the students were amazed by the great impact that their small coin contributions had made.

Following our presentation, teachers had booked us to come into their classrooms to debrief with the students. Last year we had spoken to all the intermediate students, so this year we visited all the primary classrooms. Students asked us what kind of food we ate, what languages are spoken in Uganda, how far the community was, and why did we name it Mango Grove school. It was amazing to share with the students their wonders and personal connections to this community of students halfway across the world.

It was extremely touching to speak to teachers and other workers in the school about why we still do this on the side of our busy lives. On our ferry ride home, I remarked that it felt like we were leading two lives. For me, this was one busy student teacher life; for Stephanie one busy counselor life; for Hannali one busy life of an aspiring diplomat. It was powerful to watch the video of our simple presentation. Although Busolwe still has many areas in which they are developing, the students who now attend Busolwe Mango Grove have become part of our lives. In a way, we have become international development workers without having anticipated so. Though we have our individual aspirations driven by our passions for education/counseling/international relations, our paths are woven together in this particular segment of our lives.

I am so blessed to have such loving, caring, big- hearted friends who believe in the potential impact of small actions in kindness and hope. At the end of extremely stressful or discouraging days, I remind myself that as long as my actions are grounded in purpose and meaning, any bad day will pass. On the whole, I have made a difference, however small.

“To the world, you may only be one person; but to one person, you could mean the world.”

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District Regional Conference 2013

I did it. Here is my posterboard for my kiosk on Friday. I will be introducing my integrated unit for Language Arts and Social Studies.
Here is a short reflection on how Aboriginal ways of knowing have influence my approach to this enactivist project.

Holistically Informed (Aboriginal influences)

Specific to this project:

The Aboriginal approach to teaching is very holistic and natural, valuing students to teach them about the interdependency and interrelationships between humans, nature, communities, and ecosystems. My plan to support my students in the publication of a classroom newspaper is informed by the holistic integration of all subjects. My vision for the classroom newspaper is that it will involve every student’s writing, reading, and presenting skills valuable in language arts education. It is also my intention to guide students in “big ideas” thinking, or to understand by design that both the creation or and content within newspapers is a reflection of community.

Students will learn to listen to stories and interviews from different people in our community, such as other teachers, older students, younger students, and their peers. In creating and reading their own newspapers, students may also become more aware of their school community and share what they are learning by oral tradition, to their families and friends. Students might demonstrate their willingness to participate in a variety of sharing activities that include the use of pictures, charts, storytelling, songs, lists, menus, and story books as part of the process of the newspaper production.

Additional learning:

The common thread between the stories by our Aboriginal speakers within this SSAEd course, as well as those that I’ve attended outside of the program, seem to be the place- based identity that weave their identity and ways of knowing together. It is one goal of many First Nations communities to re- integrate holistic understandings of space and time into a contemporary curriculum. I have learned to value all stories, and to appreciate the delicate threads that sometimes link a student’s connection to the lesson being taught. Sometimes that fragile connection bridges to a valuable teachable moment. Aboriginal culture teaches us to be respectful and patient with the patterns and circular nature of thinking. I particularly appreciate the layering effect, or scaffolding, of a student’s learning which is represented by the traditional valuing of seasonal knowledge.

There is room for further inquiry into how local Aboriginal history and culture can be incorporated into the classroom newspaper. It is possible to arrange a gallery walk of tools and objects valued by the local Aboriginal group. In this particular project plan, students will focus more on their school community in their writing and reporting. Regardless, the collection and compilation of stories, advice, personal opinion, and personal artwork will result in a holistic integration across many curricular subjects. Through the enactivism, students will use their mind, spirit, heart, and body to collaborate on this community project by generating understanding through connections with the world around us, then reflecting on feelings to engage in action and information sharing. This is a cyclical process that is in alignment with the Aboriginal medicine wheel representation of balance within self and society.

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