My summative practicum has concluded, and to say the least, I have learned a ton about myself these last 10 weeks through the moments, both great and challenging ones. It was an immense experience, there was so much to discover about myself regarding the kind of teacher I am shaping up to be, and lots of stamina for me to develop as I get a real taste of the life of a teacher and the responsibilities they have both during and outside of instructional time. I had the pleasure of being a student teacher in a grade 5 class at Suwilaawks Community School, and it was an incredible experience with tons of growth opportunities and tons of cultural learnings that have been beneficial for me to engage with. Suwilaawks is a school that is rich in student diversity. Being a part of it for 10 weeks allowed me to learn a lot about how public school systems when advocated for and supported are capable of fostering diverse, inclusive learning environments that are thoroughly enjoyable to be a part of, both in the shoes of a student and staff. The student demographic of Suwilaawks with its Indigenous student population being high, the way the school is accepting of everyone, encourages healthy lifestyles while providing opportunities for it, encourages respect and safe play, and emphasizes cultural competency by incorporating Indigenous perspectives into its school culture and teachings represents what public schools should be all about. It was joyous, and the experience was indispensable.
During my summative practicum, I learned a lot about the preparation, patience, and time it takes to be an effective teacher. Since this practicum was longer and had us teaching full-time for most of it, there came the moments of difficulty I had to experience when developing and implementing my lessons and unit plans that all teachers encounter; student behaviour, adapting to student needs, lack of support, and classroom management which was the thing that I reflected upon and worked on the most as the weeks went by during the practicum, as I needed to learn how to be authoritative in my teaching when it is necessary to. These “problems” were important for me to face in the summative practicum, because my problem-solving skills both with myself in creating/performing lessons and dealing with individual students in times of distress have improved significantly during this time. One thing I learned throughout my practicums is that when you overtake a classroom that already has a set of expectations and routines from the teacher, it takes time to fully adapt to them, and it can be quite challenging to gain immediate responses from students, especially since my teaching style has different approaches in contrast to my coaching teachers, and my routines alter. I have to remind myself sometimes that I am a new teacher, and things are not going to be the way I want them to naturally be, expecting perfection all the time is an unrealistic expectation, but that is also the standard I hold myself to. It will be nice when I can exercise my own classroom principles and routines.
Even through these moments of difficulty, I had a great time with the grade 5 students and just like my formative practicum, I went into the summative one to develop strong student-teacher relationships with my practicum class and create a variety of hands-on experiences correlating with the educational philosophy of progressivism that allowed the students to appreciate different learning styles and allowed them to maintain a positive well-being, appreciating who they are and recognizing that their contribution matters. I gained a deeper appreciation for the intermediate grades during my summative practicum; while these students are growing fast and are getting closer to middle school, that sense of respect, the desire to learn despite that bit of independence, the desire to please teachers, and the ability to hold deep, meaningful conversations with the students was evident. I felt the students appreciated me not only as a teacher but as a person too even through all the humorous moments, which made the experience gratifying. Now, here are some of the fun things the grade 5s and I got up to in my summative practicum!
Class Culture Quilt:
Throughout the practicum, Suwilaawks put on a “Culture Day”, in which every class got to work on their projects for students to express themselves culturally for the entire school to view. For the grade 5 class, we did a Social Studies unit dedicated to cultures with the rationale that learning about different cultures encourages respect and empathy for others, helps us understand different perspectives, helps us understand our peers and helps us understand how multiculturalism continues to shape Canadian society and identity. Students did a research project on their own cultures, learning many aspects of their heritage, such as traditional clothing, food, technology, lifestyle, and so on. At the end of the research phase, students then used all of their findings for an art piece that got attached to a paper quilt that consisted of the class’s art pieces. I forgot to take a picture of the final result, but here are some great pieces from the quilt that represents just how diverse this class is:
