PYP Orientation Week
The first week of my Professional Year Program is officially complete! I’ve met my cohort of student teachers, had a tour of Yale Secondary (where I will be doing my practicum), and spent some time looking forward at the year ahead.
The artifact.
My greatest learning moment this week was realizing the importance of establishing a healthy group culture before approaching a year full of uncertainty. Frankly, I entered our first week of PYP with a lot of anticipation and nervousness. We are all entering a Big Unknown with a lot of questions: What will planning for learning look like this year? How will we navigate COVID-19 accommodations? Inevitably, the 2020-2021 school year will look different than anticipated, in a lot of ways. My past perceptions of what my PYP year would look like are being altered every day, as new changes are being announced and I need to step into a “new normal” alongside the school districts and my mentors.
This week our cohort spent two whole days working on team building and getting to know each other. We shared humorously and vulnerably. We talked about how we are all approaching this year with uncertainty. We also encouraged each other with the reality that we don’t have it all figured out, but we are all in this together. I take comfort in knowing that there are hundreds of educators in BC who are navigating the same challenges we are, every single day. Over the course of these first two days, I found comfort, peace, and a sense of empowerment in knowing I was part of a positive group culture, in my cohort and beyond – a group that was safe, vulnerable, open to criticism, and going through the same tough realities. I realized I’m not alone.
Why it matters + Next steps.
I’d like to carry this personal experience forward into my reality as an educator. This summer, our class read The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle, in which he speaks about the importance of establishing a positive group culture to strengthen the team through adversity. This reality is true now, during COVID-19 times, more than ever.
As a teacher, I hope to focus the first weeks of teaching (this year and beyond) on establishing a classroom culture that is safe, vulnerable, and open to trying and failing. Those are essential aspects of culture in a group to ensure success in learning and growth. This means taking the time to get to know each other, remember names, and find out what each individual is passionate about. This means having a conversation about the kind of classroom culture I would like to establish – and if any behaviour comes up that goes against that culture, we will have something to refer back to. It might be easier to spend the first week of teaching diving right into Big Ideas and syllabus policies, but the truth is that establishing a safe and positive culture of belonging in my class right away should take priority. The rest will follow suit.
Professional Standard #5: Educators implement effective planning, instruction, assessment and reporting practices to create respectful, inclusive environments for student learning and development.