Involvement in the community and the profession allows me to model to my students what it means to be well-rounded, social, and supportive within our local community. As a teacher, I encourage my students to engage with their local context through volunteering, donations, community-building initiatives, and extracurricular opportunities. Learning occurs in other contexts in addition to the classroom, and by involving myself and my students in the school community, I contribute to a culture of collegiality and engagement that makes each student feel a greater sense of purpose and belonging. As a teacher, I reflect on how I can use my specific skills and interests to engage in the profession outside of the classroom. For example, I am interested in creative writing, plant care, cooking, outdoor pursuits, and various sports, so I could see myself starting and/or supporting clubs that encourage students to learn and grow in similar passions.
Artifact #1: Creative Writing Club Poster Made By Students
This poster was made by two students who volunteered to partner with me in starting a creative writing club at our school. In my first email to my two student volunteers, I said that my deep hope with starting this club was to “create a low-risk space for gifted writers (like you!) to write about the things that matter to you — and maybe explore some genres and styles that are new to you. In the process, we’ll have some fun, and probably laugh and cry. I know first-hand how much writing can take us on a wild ride of self-discovery.” The students responded very positively to my vision. We had a few meetings over Google Meets to discuss numbers, potential members, and ways of advertising the opportunity to the school community, and the students were very keen to be personally involved, even in a sort of student-leadership capacity. They took initiative with ideas for club size, audience, and provided the student voice for hosting the club on a Discord platform instead of Google Classroom. I ended up hosting a writing club for the entire duration of my practicum. The club had over nine students sign up, with about six regularly attending. This poster is an example of the student ownership of this extracurricular opportunity. Truly, the club was more meaningful and fun with the help of student leadership: helping with advertising and recruiting members, coming up with ways to connect everyone on a personal level, knowing what online platform would make students feel most comfortable for a club setting, and simply being able to get a student “voice” for main club decisions. Overall, starting this club was a really rewarding choice, one which really showed me the benefit of contributing to the community at school by providing opportunities for students to meet students outside their classes and friend groups and engage with their skills and interests.
Artifact #2: Teacher Candidates at Staff Learning Opportunities
The people pictured in this photo come from various teacher-training programs in the Lower Mainland, including UBC, UFV, and TWU. We are meeting up on a Wednesday afternoon during the Yale Secondary weekly Staff Learning Opportunity (SLO) sessions to discuss the student teaching experience: debriefing, exchanging ideas and stories, and building networks as student teachers with different educational and life backgrounds. We all come from a variety of disciplines including humanities, languages, sciences, and math. This was just one example of how I made the effort to plug in to the school “staff” community during my practicum. Despite COVID-19 realities of less community engagement, I knew that building relationships with other staff and teacher candidates would make us all feel a greater sense of belonging. In addition, our debrief sessions encouraged me emotionally but also gave me some valuable ideas about classroom management, community building, and blended learning techniques that are working well for other student teachers. I believe that some of these connections are ones that will remain even after practicum is finished: I hope that these professional connections will continue into our careers as we navigate our first few years as new teachers.
Conclusion
My big “take-away” from my learning in this standard is that no teacher is truly an island. If a teacher is not involved in their community, asking for help, and making themselves available to contribute to the profession, they are missing out on some tremendous opportunities for rich learning and deep personal connections. I chose the teaching career because I am someone who values connections over everything else, and this professional standard highlights the importance of teachers being a part of something greater than themselves. As I step into other school contexts, I would love to look for ways to connect with new teachers, school clubs, and community opportunities.