We're All In This Together

I couldn’t be more excited to become a teacher. I worked very hard to be accepted into the bachelor of education program and have left my pretty successful career behind to pursue this new chapter. These first few weeks in the program have been a whirlwind and I’ve started to get my sea legs. Enough class audits and readings under my belt to gain some balance and have time to reflect. Wow. I even know which class I have next and I didn’t even have to peek at my schedule! (Finding the correct classroom is another matter entirely.)

There is one thing I’ve come to realize these last few weeks: the program couldn’t be more different from what I expected. Having only my undergraduate studies and my recent career in pharmaceutical market research to compare to, this experience is worlds away from the environment I’ve come to accept as the norm: competitive. Here at Brock, and I’m sure at other “teacher’s colleges” across Ontario and Canada, the feeling of community is overwhelming.

First of all, the faculty advisers smile in the hallways and say hello. In class, they are hopeful, encouraging, inspiring and upbeat. They are confident in us and are fostering a community of learners from day one. One of the main tenets of many of the courses so far has been sharing and collaboration. This is a tad foreign to me. Not something I’ve practiced since my mom used to lecture me to share my toys with my younger sister. In the business world, your good ideas are your ticket to success. If you share them with the wrong person, someone could steal your idea, take credit for it and prosper. If you collaborate – you waste time when you could get it done faster on your own. Time is money. Ideas are money and money is paramount.

Methods and Classroom dynamics classes have already emphasized the importance of creating a community feeling in your class. As a teacher its up to you to model the kinds of behaviours and habits you hope your students will adopt and practice throughout their lifetimes when it comes to learning new things. What a paradigm shift this is for me. Teacher and boss had always been synonymous for me (they held the power), though that power is not something I sought out when applying to this program. I’d always hoped to be the kind of teacher that saw herself not as leader, spouting out orders and hovering over ready to assess, highlighting failure, but as an eager participant in the learning process treating her students with respect and making learning fun and learning from and with them!

Last week someone uttered something that really hit home for me: if you share your work you’re not going to lose it. We’re learning about real time collaboration using web 2.0 technologies like Google Docs. Already our cohort is working together to help make meaning out of complex texts. It only took a matter of days before small groups were forming to split up readings, create study groups and exchange coping strategies and organization tricks. A classmate volunteered on Friday afternoon to stay AFTER CLASS and help me. Where am I? I don’t recognize this landscape! But I could get used to this!