Week 1

In the past week I have started my experience at Queen's University for Teacher's College. Even though I haven't taught any classes and have only attended to a few lectures, I feel like I have already learned so much. The stuff that I have learned hasn't been about how to teach the curriculum per say, but more about how the teachers of each course teach and if I can see myself teach in a similar fashion during my practicums. For example, one of my teachers "works the room", where he will walk around the room while giving his lesson, a great way to control the classroom. Similarly, another teacher pauses while lecturing, I find this very effective and almost gripping as I am always wonder what they will say next, so my attention stays longer. A trait that I see in most of my teachers is humour. Even remembering high school my favourite teachers would always be the ones that had a sense of humour and was able to laugh with the class, but when it was time to get to work the class knew and responded accordingly. Knowing these traits and see how others, myself included, respond I feel as if I have already grown as an educator and feel less anxious as I approach my first practicum.

The next thing that I want to discuss is a phrase that I heard in one of my classes. It was along the lines of: 

We are constantly achieving greatness and if we cannot achieve our own greatness how can we help our students to achieve their greatness?

The reason this phrase has made such an impact on me is because I feel the most important thing a teacher can do is to help their students reach their goals and recognize their greatness. So if you as a teacher have never reached your greatness, or has stop trying to reach it, how can you help a student do the same. How can you show your students that through all the negative things that might come their way greatness is still possible to achieve? To help students achieve their greatness, I feel as I teacher the best things I can do is to encourages my students, supports their hopes and ideas, be approachable when a student needs someone to help them, and prepare my students for the "real-world" as best as I can. By applying these four traits in a classrooms, I feel like I can help my students achieve their greatness to the best of my abilities.