My community field experience was at the aquarium. Over the three weeks we taught classes of students from grades K-12. We taught in the wetlab in which students learned about a number of different animals and phylum, in the dissection classroom in which students dissected squid and herring, in the shoreline superhero classroom in which younger students (grade K-4) learned about marine mammals, and on beach walks in which we took students along the shoreline for animal identification and cleanup. Beyond teaching we also fed animals, cleaned tanks, and did odd jobs like bagging dead squid and herring for dissections.
I feel that having worked with such a diverse group of students from all different grades, I no longer know how to tailor my presentation of information to different age groups. My initial sense of “knowing” this came from having been in diverse classes from grades 8-12 at Britannia. At the aquarium, however, I was thrown into an even broader diversity of classes, as well as put into teaching content that I was, at first, entirely unfamiliar with.
This not knowing is important to approaching teaching in a humble attitude of trying to learn. It is important that teachers always strive to learn and better their approaches and methods. Teachers must not become complacent in their approaches to education, as this does not allow one to continue to progress.