Preparing for a Future in Education

Today we had a presentation from George Couros, a principal from Stony Plains, Alberta. A lot of what George talked about today really hit home and made me think about my teaching practices. He stated that a teacher is equivalent to a Swiss Army Knife because they need to do so many jobs for one individual. There are many aspects to teaching and to education and a teacher must hit them all in order to be an effective teacher.

Building relationships with your students is one of the most important parts of being a teacher. It allows you to learn about your students and to engage them in what they are interested in. You must teach the student first and make schooling relevant to them in order for them to achieve. Students must enjoy being at school and a way to do this is to ensure that they can see themselves and their interests reflected in the material that is being used in the classroom. This moves into teaching the students to have a love of learning. To love learning one must love what they are learning, thus teaching a student who loves art how to FOIL a math equation will not aid that student in loving learning.

One of the main topics that was focused on in the presentation today was classroom management. George posed a question to us that he uses in his interviews: are all consequences the same for each action in your classroom? Why or why not?----- What are your thoughts on this question?

I think that it is only fair to treat each individual as an individual. This brings up the whole conversation regarding equality and equity. Do we treat each child the same even though they are not the same, or do we treat each child as they need to be treated, on an individual basis based on their experiences? I think that equity should be our main focus in education, not equality because every student is different and I know that I do not want to be treated the same way as the person sitting next to me, I want to be treated the way that I need to be treated.

The talk of consequences also comes back to the idea of relationships. If you build that relationship with a student than the consequences that you give out will reflect what that student needs. You need to build that relationship with the student and their parents so that you can become a team in that student's education and do what is best for them. Allowing students to know that you care and that you are there if they need someone to listen to is one of the best gifts that you can give a student because they may not have that at home.

This presentation made me think a lot about who I am as a teacher and the practices that I put in place while in my internship. I will reflect on this presentation and believe that it will make me a more effective teacher. Thank you to George Couros for coming in to present to us, it was an eye-opening experience!