One thing that I value very much in my own life is personal development. I love discovering more about myself and the why behind who I am. I almost always have a personal development book on the go and I have written a 10-year vision of what I want my life to look like, along with 1, 5, and 10 year goals I am working towards. This drive to become the best human being I am capable of stems from wanting to learn. I believe this is partly what has drawn me to teaching. It’s not just our students who are learning every day in the classroom, it is also the teacher. Every day we learn more about certain topics, how we view the world, what did and did not work in a lesson, and we also learn a little more about ourselves every day. What I appreciate about the Surrey School District is that they too feel it’s important to be developing the teachers in a professional domain. You could attend a professional development workshop almost daily at the District Education Centre. Essentially this entire year has been one big professional development workshop. On Wednesday, a fellow Teacher Candidate and I attended a workshop on early literacy and story workshops for students and on Thursday we attended a workshop that was presented by our Faculty Advisor on Indigenous Education and Pedagogy. I took a few minutes at both workshops to look around the room at the other individuals who attended. Yes, many were younger and early in their careers, however there were many faces who have put in decades in the classroom. What I love about those individuals is that they have not become complacent in their teaching. They are striving to be current for their students, facilitating the best learning environment they can. As I reflect on this week, I am reminded about one of my five year goals: by September 2021 I am enrolled in a one-year professional development opportunity per year.
Week Four
This week came with a lot more responsibility. Unfortunately, my S.A. picked up a few of the many germs floating around an elementary school classrooms and was out for two of our three days together last week. A TOC was called in for both days and luckily, there was one available to cover our Grade 2 classroom. I was more than happy (and ready!) to step up and take on the responsibility of the classroom since I know the kids and our routines. There is a lot to think about when you are the central teacher in the classroom… Did the fish get fed four times today? When will that important notice go home? What are the plans for next week? Do the fish need a water change? Did the potatoes get watered? And those are just the questions I asked myself (and my S.A. via text), let alone the many questions I get throughout the day from my students! An experience that came out of this was that I had to communicate to parents on my own. I had to have a conversation with a parent regarding an incident that was problematic with a parent. This experience connects well with inquiry topic because I have been interested in and researching about school-home relationships. Luckily, it was with a parent that I had been building a relationship with over the past months of being at my practicum school. The conversation may have gone differently had it not been with a parent that I see every day, twice a day. The incident was dealt with and a solution was reached with the help of the parent, the student and our E.A. It was oddly comforting having this test of responsibility so close to transitioning into the four weeks of full load teaching. Although I still need the support of my School Advisor, I feel like I am ready for this next milestone and challenge in the practicum.
Week Three
Week three came and went before I even knew it. Not only was it a short week with having Good Friday off, but there was so much going on throughout the week that it just flew by. As I drove home on Thursday evening I was thinking of what this week’s theme was. It came to me that with so many interruptions throughout the week it was flexibility. I believe that being flexible as a teacher is one of the most important skills, especially in elementary education. Power outages, rain storms, class photos, and longer-than-expected assemblies are just a few things that went on at our school this week. Some things got shifted to different days, some were adjusted throughout the day and there were some things that just out-right didn’t happen. What’s important in this is that we, as teachers, are organized and calm for our students. Some children do not adapt well to change, our job is to make that transition as easy as possible for them. Teacher’s must always have something up their sleeves to be flexible with schedule changes. I noted this throughout the week, an Easter Egg hunt didn’t go at the time we expected due to rain and my S.A. transitioned seamlessly into working on a “No Excuses” word and a story. My goal in the next couple weeks as I transition into the full-time portion of my practicum is to begin to build a pool of activities that can be used in these situations.
Week Two
It felt like this week’s theme of the week was relationships. Being in the classroom every day and teaching up to 50% of the day has allowed me to build relationships with my students on a deeper level. Yes, I have been working with them since October however, being there and seeing their everyday ebb and flows has allowed me to read them better and know where they are at. As I was helping one student one-on-one while a lesson was going on, I noticed that another student sitting at the table group wasn’t looking quite like themselves. I asked them if they were feeling okay (as the stomach flu has been going around!) and they replied with “O.K.”. I knew, from spending so much time with them now that this was not the case. I probed further with another question and the student broke down in tears. We were able to remedy the problem and this student ended up having a great day by creating strategies through that conversation. I believe that the student-teacher relationship should be one of the most important things in the classroom, knowing your learners is just as important (if not more) than facilitating the actual learning. I am so privileged to have an S.A. that also places a high importance on relationships because I get to see how she interacts with students, remedies problems, and builds trust within the classroom. At the end of week two, I am feeling excited to be back in the classroom and Monday to see my students and hear how their weekend went.
Week One
After the first week of being in the classroom for my extended 10-week practicum, it seemed like this week’s theme was schedule and structure. Like the students, we as adults also rely on a schedule and structure in our everyday lives. At the beginning of this week I was feeling very hesitant about being in the classroom. I was feeling unsettled in this new role of being in the classroom every day, all-day teaching. It is quite a shift from sitting in a classroom every day, all-day. Halfway through the week I made the analogy for myself that I am a little pre-schooler getting ready to go to kindergarten. I may know my ABC’s and I know how to count to ten, but I am certainly not going to know how to do multiplication. In the grand scheme of my career as a teacher I am that pre-schooler. Being in the classroom since October has helped me know the classroom routines and how my School Advisor (S.A.) deals with certain difficult situations however and I am still learning every day. Using this analogy has helped me throughout the rest of the week because I notice things that I could have done/said/handled better and I am applying those learnings into my next lesson. Something I am working on for myself if seeing the positive in my lessons and the delight that some of the lessons bring to my students. At the end of the week I am feeling more settled into my role in the classroom and the shift in schedule and structure of my life.