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.
Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school – Albert Einstein