Autobiography
(My journey that led to becoming a teacher)
I once heard that change is good for one’s soul. I believe through life’s journey people must occasionally wonder out of their comfort zone to fully develop and achieve personal goals.
I am a certified red sealed chef and have worked in many high end restaurants and hotels before transitioning into a career in education; for eight years I was the teaching chef of a culinary program at Tamanawis Secondary School in Surrey. While at Tamanawis I started the district culinary ACE IT (Accelerated Credit Enrollment Industry Training) program which I implemented in coordination with Vancouver Community College. During my experience at Tamanawis I gained many teaching skills such as classroom management, understanding student needs and behaviours, interacting with parents and working with staff and administration. As a teaching chef in a high school environment, there are many challenges. Not only did I oversee the day to day preparation and execution of ever changing daily lunch menus, I taught, instructed, and evaluated high school students. The learners in a cafeteria program are quite varied in intelligence, personalities, behaviour issues, and English maybe their second language. Students take the cafeteria program for a variety of reasons. Most do not want to pursue a career in the culinary arts, nevertheless, the skills students learn in the program are transferable skills they can use in many areas of their lives. Every year there are a few students that desire to take their culinary education to the next level. It is these students that I especially enjoyed working with and mentoring, as I found their enthusiastic and passionate energy invigorating and it stimulated my own creative juices. I loved being a teaching chef, sadly, at the end of every school year my position was posted due to the fact that I do not have a teaching degree and I had to reapply to return.
I had enough of this process and decided to earn a teaching degree and have a second teachable area in technology education. Consequently, five years ago I started my educational journey first by taking courses at the University of the Fraser Valley, then attend I completed the TTED program at BCIT and now am in the Bachelor of Education program at UBC. Recently, I have just completed my long practicum at Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary, Surrey where I taught Wood 9/10, Metal 9/10, and D Tech; I had a very successful experience and feel my teaching has improved with the knowledge of curriculum, lesson planning, pedagogy and philosophy. I believe the skills learned during my time at school have complemented my work experience at Tamanawis which makes me a very confident teacher. I have current experience with many post secondary institutions and would like to share my educational endeavors with my students in hopes of inspiration; if he can do so can we. A person is never too old to learn, today’s society, people of all ages have become lifelong learners to stay competitive in an ever changing marketplace and to be current with technology. An education does not guarantee a person employment, it can build self-confidence, knowledge about the world, and open doors once closed.
Not all students are academic learners, some have been told to sit still and stop moving around all though their school experience and finally in a hands on program they are free to move around and create. When I was in high school I did not do exceptionally well academically, after high school I started my apprentice ship in cooking and was able to thrive; I worked lots of hours, went to college, and competed in various culinary competitions. The purpose of any school is to prepare students for their future however, this does not mean exclusively academic pursuits, it can also mean trades related knowledge. Skills learned in a hands on-work environment can help prepare students for the work world by teaching a healthy work ethic, how to work in a group/team, responsibility, time management, and leadership. The confidence of a student can flourish with the satisfaction knowing they have done a good job or completed a project by themselves. I really enjoy the diversity of the learners and the challenging personalities that elective programs attract. Some of the students that are placed into trades programs are there simply because administration has nowhere else to put them due to behaviour problems, failing other courses etc. I was one of these students, therefore, I relate to them extremely well. Furthermore, some of the more challenging learners become the best students in these programs Being a mentor and guiding the development of young people, seeing them grow, mature and develop new skills is very rewarding and self-satisfying.
The principal of the school where I was teaching once told me that teaching was my calling and I agree with her. In order to teach permanently I had to face my academic concerns, returning to school is a formidable challenge. Adult students like myself have certain long term goals they would like to achieve but the fear is that they will not understand or fail to meet academic expectations. I had to summon the courage to deal with the fear of failure and embarrassment of returning to school and take the educational leap. I am a married man who must try to accommodate the needs of my wife and children while balancing the demands of academia; at times I find myself being stretched in many directions. Fortunately, these obstacles can be overcome with a support network of family and friends. With hard work and determination, I will earn my teaching degree.