I believe that education is a human right. I believe that education is holistic, it should not just be focused on subjects, but also on the physical, mental, and emotional health of students. I want to teach my students how to take care of their bodies and their minds so that they will recognize on their own when they need help in certain areas of their lives. I believe that education is a tool for molding the next generation, not to shape children into what we want them to be, but to help them realize and nurture their own identity. I believe that my students are unique individuals who all have different backgrounds, beliefs, and identities that need to be accepted and nurtured. I believe that schools should be a safe place for both students and teachers, a community where everyone should feel welcomed regardless of their gender or sexual identity, skin colour, religious beliefs, first languages, etc. I believe that my classroom should be comforting for students, so whether or not they have a safe home life or thriving social life, they will feel safe and welcome in my classroom.
My classroom management will be established through discussions with my students on what they need to focus and feel safe in class. If there are some students who have trouble focusing with too much noise in the background, but there are also students who thrive when discussing with the teacher or other classmates, then I want to give them the option to decide what works best for them, which means allowing students to listen to music with headphones on or discuss with the person next to them. On the other hand, I will make sure my students realize that they are given a privilege to listen to music in class or discuss questions with their classmates and that if they take advantage of that privilege they can lose it. I also want to focus on calling out good behaviour and not only bad behaviour, because too often students are told what they are doing wrong more often than they are told what they are doing right.
I want to teach using instructional strategies such as hands-on and place-based learning. I want students to learn History, Law, and Native Studies through case studies, debates, simulations, research projects, and field trips. I want students to learn English by finding literature they are interested in and do novel studies either independently or in a group so they can participate in discussions. I want students to learn about social injustice through both non-fiction and fiction, so they can form their own opinions. I want to base my teaching on Bloom’s Taxonomy and the Theory of Multiple Intelligences. The highest level of Bloom’s Taxonomy is when students have the knowledge to create something using what they have learned. I also want to give my students the freedom to decide what types of assignments they will do based on their own skills and interests so that they are more invested in their own learning.
I want to assess my students by asking them to create their own exams and mark them based on their questions’ quality, not their answers. I want students to teach their classmates what they have learned during research through presentations of art, poems, dance, music, experiments, PowerPoints, etc. I believe that I have been a good teacher when a student takes away at least one fact they have learned that day, whether or not it had anything to do with my lessons.
My positive experiences as a student were when I connected with my teachers who had similar interests as me and we would discuss/debate historical events and books. My negative experiences as a student stemmed from problems with my classmates. I was lucky to go to a small-town school, so the teachers knew what was going on in my personal life and kept an eye out for any insensitive comments made toward me by my peers. My high school teachers are what made me want to be a teacher because they helped me when my mental health was at its worst by creating a safe space for me every single day.