I am a Middle Years teacher candidate at UBC in the Self-Regulated Learning cohort. I am interested in promoting critical thinking, respect, and autonomy in the classroom.

My background is in geography and philosophy. I’ve spent the past 5 years working in silviculture in Western Canada, making music, travelling, and being in schools both as a student and a teacher. I have been blessed to be surrounded by a wonderful, eclectic group of folks from and with whom I have learned. From welding to altering clothes, from gender studies to making soufflé, and from playing guitar to plant identification, I’ve been lucky with the wealth of knowledge I’ve been able to sponge from.

It is my goal to bring practical skills and learning to my classroom as much as possible.

E-Portfolio Highlights

Autobiography: I have included this page to meet the requirements of the autobiography. Please also look at my reflection on my journey through this page, which is a short reflection on the essay I wrote when applying to UBC. Please also check out my instagram, for a snapshot (or many snapshots) of my life outside of the classroom; I provide this as evidence of an engaged, examined, and interested life, which I believe to be crucial to a good teacher as well as for balance in one’s life.

Philosophy: My philosophy is clearly stated here. My five main considerations are all interconnected and can be seen in my pedagogy.

Pedagogy:

Autonomy — My mycology curriculum, as well as the parts of speech work are designed as stand-alone materials that allow for a classroom setup that promotes autonomy, as not all students need to be working on the same thing at the same time. They allow space for choice, while still providing guidance.

Respect — This is connected to autonomy, as students ought to be treated as individual human beings whose independence should be encouraged. You can see how I wrestle with this issue in my inquiry project. “In short, I believe that choice is a requisite for creating a respectful and meaningful environment.”

Practical Life Skills — Evidence of my commitment to this can be seen through my Hands-On-Learning Project. I outline why I believe this to be important, and give specific examples both in and out of my classroom experience of where this is working. I’m currently taking the Montessori Foundations course, where practical life skills are seen as crucial to sensory and confidence development in children as young as 2 or 3.

Critical Thinking —  At the end of the social studies game we played for our economy unit, I had students think back critically on the game and provide suggestions of how to improve it, and how to change the objective of the game. It was incredible what they came up with. I work a lot with Socratic questioning. As you can see through my own questioning process, I love questions. When students ask things of me, rather than giving them the answer, I ask questions of them until they come up with the answer themselves. I have found this method to be much more rewarding for the students, and much more promotive of critical thinking. Sometimes what they come up with surprises me!

Community Involvement — I could have done more of this in my practicum. While we did lots of community building as a class through talking circles, discussions, and games, we did not venture out into the community to connect on that level. As a new teacher in a small community, this will be incredibly important for me this Fall, not only to do with my class, but for myself to become integrated and trusted. Connecting my class with the community through volunteering and bringing in members of the community into my class is an area of growth for me, and something I look forward to doing this Fall.

Growth and Planning

I put together the questions poster as a way of looking back over my problems over the year. Each one of these questions represents something I wrested or still wrestle with as a teacher, and as such is an area for growth for me.

Evidence of looking forward can be found in my inquiry project conclusion here.

Evidence of  developing as a professional can be found in my ‘What I’m Reading‘ section. There is lots more to come here, I can hardly keep up with all of the Montessori reading I’m doing! As well, this oped piece acts as evidence of my attention to changes in curriculum.

I wrestle with issues around alternate education, and education in a different setting than my practicum in my Bella Coola category. I have lots of questions and plans from this. I talk a little about ReadWell in this section, and am now delighted to say that I will be attending a ReadWell Pro-D in Williams Lake this Summer with my new colleagues.

As mentioned, community involvement is an area for much growth for me.

My long-term professional development goals include becoming fully Montessori trained up to the middle school level, becoming an Orton Gillingham tutor, and getting my AIM french training.

Some areas that I will be focusing on this Fall are community involvement, assessment, and developing a strong classroom culture and climate. I loved the talk in my practicum classroom of the “ideal classroom” that the students got to plan and which was implemented in part through the comfy chairs in the room. I will work with students to help them create their own ideal classroom. I talk a lot about the assessment piece in this section of my inquiry.