Artifact: Blue Whale Skeleton – Beaty Museum – Opening date, October 16, 2010.
Reflection: As an Museum Educator volunteer with the Beaty Museum I have met numerous instructors and subject matter specialists interested in teaching both students and public about the Earth’s vast biodiversity and humanity’s place within it. The museum hosts over 2 million specimens and serves a vital role in building community based in biodiversity understanding and global conservation principles. During the time being at the Beaty I have connected my host school’s, Killarney Secondary, Environmental Group with the Beaty; and upon my return to my practicum I brought information to Killarney’s library and science instructors, popularizing the opening and mission of the Beaty to students whom I taught. Beaty is an exciting and valuable resource for all people, and one I shall be continuing to use in my teaching philosophy and future practice.
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Artifact: Website of previous business partnership with Associated Cab Ltd. – Red Deer & Calgary, Alberta.
Reflection: As a younger person, I was a manager for this firm for 5 years and oversaw the interests of the Red Deer interests and employment of about 130 people. As the firm’s manager I learned discipline and courtesy in how to work with a wide variety of people — the public, media, clients, employees, and owner operators. The skills I learned in carrying out my responsibilities have educated in interacting with students and parents in my teaching practice, but more specifically, made me keenly aware of the relationship of work, income, and quality of family life — the core of why we work. In carrying this ethic of work discipline daily in the classroom, I experienced a grade 8 student who was very keen on becoming an auto-mechanic, following his father’s chosen profession, yet was slipping academically in his course expectations. In two calls with his mother I was able to get to the core of the student’s course difficulties; his mother and I were able to devise a strategy to ‘coach’ the young student in deepening both his interest in mechanics (visiting his father’s shop on a daily basis) while also improving his grades. After these calls I worked closely with this student to ensure he had the time and understanding to complete all of his assignments: in three short weeks his grade moved from a 35% range to 67%, simply by completing unfinished work and applying himself in a disciplined way. The result was a happier student and mother.
