I came back from the last practicum with a sense that I am moving forward in my learning and ability to become a teacher. I worked at MGA in Hazelton with grade 6-7 students. There were many absences because of COVID unfortunately, but luckily I made it with the students that did attend. We had a lot of fun together. We played soccer in gym as well as some theatre games. In science I did a unit on the respiratory system. In ELA I did a unit on the book Wonder. In math I taught about number lines and decimals. In art class I did a lesson on Jean Michel Basquiat as well as a puppet lesson. I felt like I could have gone on much longer if the practicum had lasted longer.
There were a few high lights of the experience. I brought in a guest speaker named Ross McRae and signed up to get him a mentor’s honorarium. I brought in some animal organs and body parts. I gathered a fetal pig from the high school science department. In English I experimented with theatrical conventions in the classroom like teacher in role and tableau vivant.
I learned a lot about the students, their personalities and strengths. There were several very artistic students who excelled whenever we did visual activities. There were a few IEP students who struggled with reading, but were always excited about reading aloud to the class. I had a student who was a dancer is the K’san dance troupe, and he turned out to excel at theatre and puppetry activities.
In general the students seemed to struggle with journal writing and it was difficult to get most of them to write more than a few sentences. I did find, however, that when I offered an open-ended entry and told them they would get a ticket to gym if they wrote a full page, that almost all of the, succeeded. I still wonder whether tickets to gym are a good way to motivate students, or whether the reward system skews the learning intention for them.
