I feel fortunate to have completed my community field experience at Fraser Park Secondary. Fraser Park is the secondary school that exists within the confines of the youth corrections facility in Burnaby. Needless to say, the experience was very interesting and I learned a lot. The experience also left me not knowing.
Once the field experience was completed, I feel like I no longer know how to plan a curriculum for students.
The teachers at FPS are incredibly organized, and they have to be, because the students are each there for an indeterminate amount of time, they are all coming from different schools on the outside, and yet they all have to keep engaging with the subject matter in an environment that on first glance wouldn’t seem like it nurtures educational interest.
As soon as a new student arrives, the teachers, through the assistant of a specialized “in-take” teacher, are immediately aware of where that student is in their educational journey, and what kind of work to give them on their first day of class. These teachers know the B.C. curriculum so incredibly well, and with their teaching and guidance, students are incredibly successful. I had the wonderful opportunity to witness a graduation ceremony on my CFE.
I feel like I not knowing is a good place to be at this stage of pre-service teaching, because it informs me as a learner as to where I need to place my focus. Acknowledging the “Not knowing” is the first step to “knowing”. Throughout our entire career, we are going to go through several processes of not knowing, and that is a beautiful thing. Taking on a career as a teacher is really making a commitment to life long learning. Not knowing turns into knowing.