This picture is of 6 items that I found in my personal junk drawer. All of them were on my pocket at some point, and were then discarded with the change and old receipts that are the usual denizens of junk drawers.

Firstly, I have 1000 Uzbek S’oms. This is worth 15 Canadian cents, but is enough to buy a pop or some candy in Tashkent. I was given this bill by the son of my old nanny, who is now 13 years old. This item is a reminder that value has many dimensions. This bill may only be worth 15 cents, but it was given to me by a boy I love who lives about nine thousand eight hundred kilometers away. Sometimes little kids have objects that they hold in great esteem that an adult may think are worthless, or even belong in the trash. It isn’t so!! Sometimes the rolled up bit of coloured paper in a 6 year old’s pocket is worth a million bucks, to them!

Next I have my sunglasses. These represent the necessity for teachers to sometimes pretend they don’t see what is right in front of them. Sometimes kids need to have secrets, or simply need privacy. Teachers don’t need to know absolutely everything going on with their students!!!

Third, a lollipop. One of my profs (you know who you are) gave me this lollipop. I am going to enjoy eating it! Sometimes with craft supplies, I have a tendency to hoard until the absolute right moment and project comes along. This is silly! The joy of arts and crafts is in the making! There is no perfect moment! Just like this lollipop, which is meant to be eaten, even the most precious craft supplies need to be used!

Fourth is this pink stone bracelet. Honestly, I can’t think of a way this relates to teaching, but I almost feel as if to discard it now would betray the spirit of this assignment. If these six things had really been in my pockets, I couldn’t just get rid of one!

Fifth is my red egg of Silly Putty. You know what you can do with silly putty? Stick it to newspaper and copy the print! How cool is that? Is that its first use? Nope. Its first use is really just a tactile toy that you can use to make farting noises. Silly Putty is a reminder that with experimentation, you can discover new uses for things that are far more interesting than you can ever imagine!

My final item is this little golf pencil. I have no idea where it came from. I suppose it may have been from IKEA, or maybe I picked it up at church and forgot to put it back. This is a reminder that, in primary grades, teachers ALWAYS need about 50 more pencils than they think they will. Kids lose them constantly! I once found 18 pencils in a grade two’s desk. He asked for a pencil every time we had to use pencils. It was very amusing.

My second micro-teaching experience could not have been more different from my first. Last fall in kindergarten I taught a bunch of 5-year-olds about Christ the King Sunday and the liturgical year, using a format and (adapted) lesson I have been using in Sunday school for 8 years. This spring, I taught a bunch of 12-year-olds about parallel and series circuits. I chose to come up with a practical demonstration from scratch, with the help of a friend who is an apprentice electrician, and I think it went very well.

my friend and I took a length of 2 x 10 lumber and routered out 3 grooves for batteries to rest in. We then drilled a series of small holes for led diodes, resistors, and wires to stick in. The project showed that when a power source in this case the batteries, is in parallel, it actually take twice the sources to turn the lights on as when the batteries are connected in series. The class had been studying electricity for a few weeks before I did this project, but they had not gotten to do any hands on things in the classroom.

If I had taught grade 7 before kindergarten, I don’t know if I would have been ready for the experience. I think I may have actually done better in kindergarten, simply because kids listen to you when they know you, and it is much easier to get to know kindergartners than it is to get to know grade sevens. I did feel more confident this time compared to last time, but the two experiences were so very different I don’t know if i can really compare them.

One thing I know for sure I need to improve on is my ability to project my voice. With smaller children, a quieter voice can work. When the students can be as loud as the teachers it gets harder. I had to rely on my teacher to grab the attention of the class, but I knew going in this would be the case so I actually had that written in to my lesson plan.  I don’t think it is a failing to know your own weaknesses, but I know that in a classroom I won’t always have a “real” teacher there to help me out with discipline. On the other hand, if these were MY grade sevens, and I was with them everyday and knew them much better, I don’t think I would need a louder voice to get their attention.

In this video of some cockatoos enjoying Elvis ,  a man plays the guitar while one bird bops along and another decidedly does not.

Some birds love Elvis. Some birds don’t. Some birds will bop, other birds will shrink away from their dancing friend with the mortification of a 13 year old seeing her dad try and do the Fortnite dances in public. Our students are the same. Kids are fountains of all kinds of emotions, and it isn’t bad that some are too self-conscious to join in when the rest of the class is enthusiastically participating, nor is it bad when a student becomes overjoyed at something the rest of the class is ambivalent about. As someone who was both self-conscious and a huge nerd growing up, I found myself identifying with both birds in this video, and many or all of our students will too. 

As teachers we always need to recognize the individuality of every student, encouraging them to express themselves whether we like how they are doing it or not (within reason, of course). When a student refuses to dance, are they being difficult or are they embarrassed of their self-perceived lack of rhythm? When a student gets excited and busts out, are they seeking attention and disrupting the class, or are they simply filled with the joy of music?

These cockatoos have taught me to know my students, and wait before I judge their behaviour.

There are six core competencies in the BC curriculum, and each comes with a set of examples that we need to help our students achieve. They are “I can” statements, and of those six, here are some examples of things “I can” do:

Critical thinking

I can determine the difference between fact and interpretation, opinion, and judgement.

We live in a world where everything is online, and the 24 hour news cycle is now a second by second endeavor. Thousands of ‘news’ outlets must fill their pages with new information constantly, and fact checking has become optional. The golden age of journalism, which really only existed from the middle of the 20th century, seems to be over.  The Onion is a very funny lampooner of the 24 hour news cycle, constantly putting up banal headlines. Sometimes, their satire is too close to reality, and unsuspecting people see a headline and believe it to be true. I think that I have gotten to a point in my life where I can look for the source of such articles, and at least have an above average literacy in identifying online garbage production.

Creative thinking

I can usually make my ideas work within the constraints of a given form, problem, and materials if I persevere.

I am an expert at MacGyver-ing solutions to problems based on materials I have at hand.  This Christmas, I was given a carving axe. This got me excited to start working with wood again, and so I decided to try making a joint that I had seen in an Instagram video. I couldn’t remember where or when I had seen it, and had no idea what it was called, so I had to create it from memory using 2×4 cut offs that I had laying around the garage. This is a photo of the finished product. It is ugly, but it is also a model that I can reproduce, hopefully with beautiful wood.

Personal awareness and responsibility

I can participate in activities that support my well-being and indicate their positive benefits.

I hate running. I also recognize that running regularly makes other parts of my life easier and more fun. Therefore, one of my classmates and I run twice a week. Last term in kindergarten I know that I would not have had nearly as much fun in gym class if I were in worse shape, and skiing is also much more fun when my muscles are not screaming after three or four runs. Running is not enjoyable for me in itself, but it supports my general well-being in measurable ways that themselves keep me running.

Positive personal & cultural identity

I can identify how some important aspects of my life have influenced my values.

The obvious evidence for this “I can” is how my faith dictates the majority of my moral and ethical values. The more personal evidence is that my brother’s addiction has shaped my views of drug use to a degree that I am among only one or two people in my close acquaintance who have never and will never smoke marijuana, regardless of its legality. Were the Church to begin endorsing pot as a recreational relaxation tool, I would still eschew it with as much vehemence as I do now. My brother’s struggles have made me view casual drug use from a perspective different than that of my peers. This perspective is perhaps at times extreme, but I think it has done nothing but help me.

Social responsibility

I can solve some problems myself and know when to ask for help.

I never shy away from asking for help when I need it, but as my Creative Thinking example shows, I also enjoy developing solutions to problems using only whatever I have around me. When dealing with difficult kids or youth, it is very important to ask for help from people who know what they are talking about. I find this to be helpful at youth group with a few especially challenging teenagers. Asking for help from older youth who have experienced similar issues, the parents of said difficult young person, or adults with some professional training are all helpful to me.

Communication

I can present information and ideas to an audience of strangers.

Last week I taught a class of twelve-year-olds, whose names I do not yet know, about electricity. They listened and learned! It was rewarding and fun. I presented the information they needed out of the textbook, and added some questions that extended their understanding beyond the text. I hope that I gave them ideas that will continue past science class and into their own, independent exploration of the world.

This past fall, after spending one day a week in kindergarten, I have come to these realizations about teaching:

Some of the greatest joys of teaching come from outside the classroom. This shouldn’t have phased me, as some of the greatest joys of working with youth come from witnessing their love for one another outside of bible study. Seeing kindergartners be happy, help each other, be kind, outside of the classroom, when adults aren’t always 10 feet away, is fantastic. I was able to supervise recesses, skate with the kids, and go to Burnaby Village in the fall term. I got to see kids pick each other up when they were down, literally, make sure everyone got to see whatever incredibly interesting thing was being observed, and forgive each other in November for things that would brand someone as mean, and very likely elicit spontaneous revenge in September.

I could be happy as a teacher. It is not my dream job, but it could become my ideal career if law enforcement doesn’t work out. I was worried when I began in my school in September that I would be terrible in a school setting, and my efforts in the SMCBA would be all for naught. Instead, I discovered that I can get along with teachers as well as any other group of rational adults, and spending all day with kids does not lessen my enjoyment of them, as long as there is a schedule of things for them to do.

It isn’t hard to express God’s love to children. Stressing WHY they need to love one another is a very simple way to do so. Adding a faith perspective to reading, or art, is not difficult, and not only by having faith themed books or projects. In every subject we can talk about the gifts God has given us, and about the inherent dignity in our individual strengths, whatever they may be. In art, we can teach the great Christian artists of history, and explain why they dedicated their labour to God. With books, we can read fictional and non-fictional stories of people who love God, as well as stories that exemplify virtue, whether explicitly Christian, like the Narnia books, or simply inspired by the great Christian traditions of our culture, like Harry Potter.

 

 

 

At my practicum school, I am helping out in kindergarten, where a huge portion of every day is dedicated to teaching empathy directly or indirectly, to some children more than others.  This is not to say that any of the children desperately need to be taught empathy, only that some have a harder time remembering or noticing when their actions or others’ actions cause pain or sadness. If I had to choose three of Michele Borba’s Nine Competencies for Teaching Empathy that my kindergarten teacher does well, I would choose thusly:

1. Moral Identity:  “A child’s inner value system, or moral identity, can inspire empathy…and motivate compassion.” In my class, we try and remind the kids daily that they need to notice how their actions make their classmates feel, good and bad, and we also know that as teachers, we need to do the same. I had a moment when we were practicing rhyming when I thought a child was making a joke, and so laughed. He was not, and was hurt. He reminded me that we were never suppossed to laugh when one of our friends made a mistake. I took his admonition to heart, because he was very right.
2. Practicing Kindness: “become more “we” oriented and less “me” oriented.” Kindergartners accidentally hurt each other one hundred times more than they do on purpose, and this is partly due to their developing ability to be empathetic. they are naturally, still learning. When one child accidentally pushes another, or takes a crayon another was using, we simply remind them to be aware of their surroundings and of their friends. When a child does something empathetic and kind, we acknowledge it with a heart. We write the kind action on the heart and put it up on a board. Last week, one boy accidentally spilled his friend’s yogurt while trying to help her open it. The girl hugged him and told him it was ok, because she knew he was trying to help. I can imagine only a few months ago that same girl being yet unable to recognize the intent behind another persons actions, and now she knows that it is ok when intent and result don’t always line up. We help the kids by acknowledging them when they practice kindness.
3. Moral Courage: “Mobilizing moral courage may be our best hope to stop cruelty and violence in schools.” Moral Courage is easy to instill in very small children, to a point where it can become tiresome, and we as adults have to remember to take it seriously. There is one child in particular in our class who speaks up every single time she sees an injustice being done. All the children are encouraged to do this, and they very often do. This girl, though, needs to let us know any time even the slightest action is displeasing to another child. How do you teach the difference between tattle-tailing and advocating? How do you tell a 5 year old that you really think two boys who are disagreeing over a Lego definitely do not need adult intervention, while also not discouraging her from speaking up if the disagreement leads to violence? This is a real thing I struggle with. As we encourage kids to end bullying, we also discourage them from learning how to defend themselves. I don’t know how to instill in kids that not every unkindness needs to be reported. Maybe we need to encourage them to stand up for each other to each other, without involving an adult. Tell them that adults are their back-up? That could lead to problems of its own though. Gee whiz. It’s almost as if these are issues spanning all of human history!

 

All quotations from Michele Borba, “Nine Competencies for Teaching Empathy.” The Promise of Social-Emotional Learning, issue of Educational Leadership, vol. 76, no. 2, 2018, pp. 22-28.

 

Although I am strongly pulled towards teaching elementary aged kids, I was never in need of a Champion in a teacher in elementary school, and so to find my Rita Pierson, I need to look to high school. Even then I was a more-or-less even-keeled teenager and did not feel the need to be championed.

Despite this, I know who the Champion of my high school was, and still is. My grade 11 and 12 English teacher, who now has the great pleasure of teaching my cousin (and vice versa), was always present and willing to give up her lunch and after school time for all of my friends and me. I saw her spend time with kids in grades above and below me who were clearly struggling. One of my classmates sadly took her own life at the beginning of grade 12, and I could see how hard it was on this teacher, knowing how much time she had spent trying to help this girl.

My slightly awkward teenage self never felt awkward around her, and she never made me feel like a failure when I absolutely failed to meet her high academic expectations.

This teacher was unabashedly enthusiastic about the things she loved, which were Romantic literature and art, and algebra. She saw the same beauty in all of those things, and convinced me that math couldn’t be a total waste of time, if she could love it.

The image I have chosen to represent this teacher is Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer above the sea of fog. It makes me think of the way she brought Byron and Wordsworth alive to her class by showing us contemporaneous paintings that I did not see again until I took college level art history courses. I think this painting also represents the many students I saw her help who were perhaps wandering in a fog through high school.

Over the 14 years I have been out of high school, I have seen this teacher many times, as she has visited me at work and I have gone back to her classroom to see her. She is always happy to see me, and my younger cousin has as much enthusiasm for her class as I did.

Although I was never personally in need of a champion, I know that if I ever were, even now, she would step up for me as she did for so many of my peers.

 

I am currently working one day a week in a Kindergarten classroom. It is great fun, and I have a terrific mentor. She is always making sure every student is included, she uses a variety of strategies to teach including videos and outside play, and she has endless patience. If I had to change one thing about her classroom, I would vary the work spaces the kindergartners use for writing and drawing. I have noticed that some kids cannot sit still, and some concentrate better while standing over their work. This could be something that can be accommodated easily by having one table that is a bit taller, as well as wobbly chairs for the kids who are always about to fall over from pushing their chair up onto two legs. The classroom already has carpets, a cozy nook for when a child is not feeling their best, and lots of toys both educational and just for fun. If there was space in the “academic” part of the day for those who just cannot sit still, it could be the perfect kindergarten classroom.

 

“We considered the merits of using academic growth as a critical indicator of success.” 

 

All quotations can be found in:

One to Grow On / Owning the Classroom Together by Carol Ann Tomlinson September 2018 | Volume 76 | Number 1 Classroom Management Reimagined Pages 88-89

 

My parents in my mother’s paints and brushes, their books, and one of my father’s charts

I do not know yet if I will be a teacher or a police officer, but as Pope Francis said in his Letter to Young People in January of 2017, I need to “set out towards a future which is unknown,” but in which I will be accompanied by God. As I go towards this unknown future, my why stems from the example my parents have set.

My father is a GP, and has worked tirelessly, and often thanklessly, for his patients and for Pro-Life causes in Canada. My mother, an artist by trade, has spent much of her life working in unpaid positions in the Church. They have both walked accompanied by God through often thankless but ultimately fulfilling work.

My father’s work as a physician has taught me to value the strengths and weaknesses of an infinite range of people. I have heard his worries and complaints, as well as his joys, as he looked after families from cradle to grave. I won’t have this experience in either of my possible professions, but as an elementary school teacher I will hopefully have the pleasure of seeing some children through their childhoods, from preschool to the cusp of adolescence. The patience my dad has had, sometimes for families so needy that I know intimate details about their lives, simply because they have inserted themselves into our home life, is a great inspiration to me as a youth leader, as a student teacher, and one day as a police officer or teacher.

My dad’s involvement with the pro-life movement has shown me how to remain rational and calm, walking with great dignity and integrity on a path that is counter-cultural. Teaching in a Catholic school in our age of excessive sexual liberalism, or working for the police, a necessary but often understandably disliked institution, I will need this model of integrity.

My mother’s involvement with the Anglican Church has shown me how truly important voluntary effort is to the success of any organization. As an artist, she has very strong aesthetic ideas, and can be very stubborn, but she has the ability to love those she finds ineffectual, those who she knows are put off by her strong opinions, and those who she gets along with well. These traits are important in any job, but teaching and the police force are both heavily social vocations that may involve much interpersonal struggle along with the joy of working alongside friends.

Whether I teach or keep the peace, I will be dedicating my life to the service of others, and that is what God calls me to do. I know from my parents example that the most important jobs are often taken for granted, but also that “God encourages you to go where He sends you.” God is sending me out to serve others, that I am called to do one of those jobs. I hope that in following God’s call, “a better world can be built” with my help, however small it may be.