Assessments and Evaluations

I don't know about you, but I fear getting my marks back. Maybe it's a self-confidence issue, or maybe it's just the fact that I have way too high of standards. 

Assessments and evaluations are a key part of a teacher’s job. Assessments and evaluations exist to provide feedback that is essential – for both parents and students – to track the progress and test to see if the pupil has learned what they were taught. This is also a time where the teacher can provide feedback for the pupil so that they have a better sense of how they have done and what they can do to improve.   

A quote by Albert Einstein comes to mind when I think about giving assessments. "Everybody is a

genius. But if you judge a fish on it's ability to climb a tree it will live it's whole life believing that it is stupid."  It can not be stressed enough, the importance, of switching up how evaluations occur. It is important to understand how your students learn, and coordinate lessons and assessments accordingly. 

Being a person who fears exams, I always like to set myself up so I can do well on term work, so when an exam comes I can try not to freak out so much. I recently had a university class that had no exams, rather, we needed to complete an assignment almost every week, which I was very relieved about. Needless to say, this class was my favourite, and I did well in it.  

Although not having any exams at all would be bad for those who do well under pressure, I do believe that less accumulative exams would help ease the stress that is an increasing issue with adolescents and teens. Even though stress is a needed force that helps us deal with situations and thrive in life, too much stress can cause many health and mental issues. 

Photos from here and here.

Anti Bullying Week

This week was Anti Bullying Week, and to go along with the theme, I thought it was important to make a post about bullying.

Being a person who was once a victim of bullying, I greatly know the affects that being picked on can cause. I remember my first encounter with bullying - it was my one of first day of school. I always wondered why I became such an easy target for bullies to pick on; a question that I have never been able to answer.

Bullying is an unacceptable reality in our world that is one of the most difficult things to deal with. I personally know the lies that cover a bully from getting in trouble. "It was just a joke, I didn't mean any harm" is the most common. For a teacher, they must put their judge hat on and hope to make the right decision. To most parents, their child is always innocent, so no matter the ruling made, there will be a protest about it, and as a teacher, you must be ready to hear the pleas of angry and upset parents.

Coming from a past were I was bullied so much, you'd think that I would have grown to resent school itself, but this was not the case. I was fortunate enough to have a lot of fantastic teachers who we're always there for me. I could always count on them to have my back, and to be the friend that I needed. This is the main reason why I decided to be a teacher myself. Maybe it's the wrong reason, I don't know, but it is a reason.

Nobody, no matter what they have done or what they look like deserves to be put down and belittled, rather, they deserve to be treated equally and fairly and they should have access to the same educ

ation and opportunists as anyone else, and when I take on my role of being a teacher, I will enforce that no matter what. That is my educational philosophy.

From my journey to yours,
Amber.

Photos from here and here.

School is back...

Hello everyone!



Okay, so it's actually been a while since school has started back... and it certainly has been a while since my last post.

So, as everyone who either knows me or has read my blog before knows, I've started university! Without a doubt, this is one of the most different adjustments that I've had to make. From the atmosphere to the people, to the structure, to the teachers/professors, university is an experience that is very new, and at the beginning strange. So, in this blog post today, I would like to share with you a few things that I have learned so far.

Being in the concurrent education, I've started learning the fine art of pedagogy (a fancy word for teaching). In our classes that are focused around the school environment and making lesson plans, I've noticed the importance around the use of technology. It is actually listed in my one text book (Becoming a Teacher, Fourth Canadian Edition from Pearson Canada) as being an essential knowledge for teachers.

Years ago nobody would even think of the terms that are being integrated into the classroom today. Examples would be Blended Learning and Flipped Classrooms. These advancements have enabled students to be able to take control of their own learning, as well as further their abilities in what has become our future.

In light of Remembrance day (or Veterans Day in the US) that took place this past Tuesday, I would like to take some time in my writing to honor the soldiers who have given their lives for our country. I feel so grateful to live in a country that has a maple leaf on our flag that not only has the words "glorious and free" in the National Anthem, but makes sure that it lives by those words. Lest we forget.

I hope to be trying to get back into my Friday routine, the burdens of university assignments has kept me off for the last while, but  on the bright side, I'm finally going to be graduating high school today! (Woot woot!)




From my journey to yours,
Amber.

Photos from here, here and here.

Learning Outside of the Classroom

My apologies to everyone for this very late post. 

So, for the past few weeks my family and I have been out camping at our trailer, and that is my reason for having this so late. Anyhow, I was at a wedding this past weekend, and I got to be a wedding photographer. I believe I have mentioned before that I do love photography and taking pictures, and I did do quite well in my grade 12 photography course, so I was happy to put my skills to work, but I realized so many things while taking pictures. 

Of course in photography class we were taught a composition technique, and then we had to go take photo's to submit (to see my class works feel free to visit my classroom blog) but, like how I think about math, when am I going to use this? crossed my mind a few times. But then when I got to actually using my skills, I found so many things became useful, and it actually caused me to learn it even more with a higher degree of understanding and I was able to use it more effectively.

This is why I like to say that learning things outside of school is the best way to learn. If you really think about it there is a simple example that we can all look to to prove this. I always admire babies. They have to do the most learning, and in the shortest amount of time. In the first 5 years of life alone, they learn more than what we learn in the rest of our lives. They have to learn how to talk, walk, read, think, write, and distinguish between things like fantasy and reality; and this is all learned before they go into school. And these skills stick with them for their entire life.

I don't know about other people, but when I want to learn something, and actually feel the persistence to stick with something even when I am not in school or doing something for no other reward but for myself, I feel so good about it and I learn it with so much more enthusiasm; and it sticks.

From my journey to yours,
Amber.

Photos from here and here. 

Graduation.

Welcome to Summer! 

I don't know about you, but I am really happy it's finally summer. Here in Canada we had a pretty harsh winter, and to finally feel some warm air touch our skin is a real treat.

Along with summer, I have found myself at the end of grade 12, which means I have graduated and I am ready to take my next step; going to university. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, I do have all summer to enjoy.

Graduation is a concept that can be very intriguing. I mean, think about it. The definition for the word "graduating" is the receiving or conferring of an academic degree or diploma; the ceremony at which degrees are conferred. Yea, that's great, but, let's look to the root of the word which comes from the Latin word, gradus, which translates to "degree" or "step". So when we graduate, we are taking a step. Graduating is usually only thought of in school purposed, which leads to big steps, but in a way, don't we graduate everyday? 

Yes, everyday we graduate, or everyday we take a step on this path called life. When we learn something, we take a step and we graduate, when we accomplish something as small as trying a new food is graduating. If you were to look at a small child, every time they accomplished something small, their eyes light up in excitement and happiness. But it seams as we grow older the pleasure in the small things diminish, and we only see triumphant accomplishes in the larger things.

Last night I thought to myself, what if we just went and made a big deal of of the small things? I don't think I even need to go and recherche this when I say that when we feel good about our accomplishments we strive to achieve more and do more, and it just increases our overall possessiveness. Likewise, when we have a failure we are more likely to feel bad and not attempt to do more and better things.

This is why I like to celebrate the small stuff. Graduate and make it seam big, that way when we do have an unsuccessful attempt, it doesn't seam so bad, because look! I already made a big accomplishment today! Who knows what people would accomplish? If we celebrated classroom achievements for small things, made more students would participate, or maybe they'll attempt more on test. Whatever the outcome, I believe that small things are big things in the whole scheme of things.

As I always like to say, we call all learn a lot from babies.

From my journey to yours,
Amber

Photo's from here and here. 

How I Learn

Bonjour à Tous!

This week was my last week of high school, and I am soon going to be diving into my exams that I start writing at the start of next week. Of course, I have had to be studying away, and upon my study's (more specifically for French) I discovered something about myself.

When I was looking over my tenses I found that I was memorizing everything, just as pretty much ever student taking French has done. I was memorizing just how to form the tense, that I didn't even know what it meant. Now, just think about how we have learned our maternal language... when you needed a word to express something, that is when you learned it, and until you needed it again, you would use it again, and perhaps learn it's other meanings. When we learned the word "go" we didn't have to think about changing it into another tense to "went" or "gone" or anything like that, so why do we learn another language like that?

Now, I know the easy answer to that, basically that we have a standardized curriculum that needs to be obeyed and it's only by measuring up to that curriculum that we can get the "all powerful and mighty marks" that determine a pass or fail. This leaves me and many other students memorizing everything like the digits in pi (which I actually know to 50).

This idea of memorizing things and not actually learning it by functionality and necessity. Let's face it. I have yet to encounter a day where I have needed to know how to calculate the area of a circle, or use the quadratic formula. Some things are just pointless in math. Don't get me wrong, I love math (it doesn't really love me) but just to be memorizing a ton a formulas that don't have any connections to us.

I don't know about other people, but I have a great short term memory, and when I memorize something, it sticks for as long as I need it to get me through (like a test or exam) then it's gone and I might as well have never learned it in the first place. But when I had to learn French (like the past summer), I had to actually learn things, and not just memorize. And that is stuck with me.

From my journey to yours,
Amber.

Photos from here and here. 

A Tribute

This is to the two most important people in my life. 

I never would have thought I would be in this position.

I consider myself to be the most lucky person on this planet to have known not one, but two absolutely amazing people. Allow me to introduce my Great-Grandmother, and the best cousin anyone could ever ask for.

Both of these people I had an extremely close connection to. Every Monday night I was at my Great-Grandmother's house, and for a long time, my cousin Ken lived with her. I remember waiting up for him to come home and lift me up to the ceiling (I was too short to reach, where he was just super tall.) Then after we would go and play Crash Bandicoot on his X-Box.

The three of us made an unstoppable team. They were both the most smartest people I knew. Even though my Great Grandmother had to drop out of school early in order to take care of her younger siblings (caused by the unexpected death of her own mother at 16), but despite this, I could always count on her to have a great deal of knowledge in everyday life problems. Every evening at Grandma's consisted of the same; Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy!, Monster House, Monster Garage, and Orville Redenbacher Pour Over Popcorn. Oh it was good.

Ken made everyone in our family so proud. He graduated at the University of Windsor, and he became an editor. Some of his works included look-a-like, bathroom divas, and the George Stroumboulopoulos show on CBC, which was sadly his last job. Ken loved his work, and ask anyone he worked for (or any viewers of the show for that matter) and they would say that his attitude definitely showed through in his work.

I am who I am today because of these amazing people. They are the ones that encouraged me the most to succeed at everything and to reach for my dreams. My Great Grandma lived a long and fulfilling life, but my cousin Ken had his life cut way to short, but nevertheless he lived each day to the fullest. He was more like a brother to me; my best friend. I don't know how I'll due it without you.

From my journey to yours,
Amber.

Photo from here (other photo is my own).

My Steps So Far

What I've Done

This obviously wasn't a decision I made overnight. As I might have said in a previous post, I've wanted to be a teacher for a long time, but I want to take you through some of the steps I've taken to start my journey; this time one in particular, my Explore program experience.

So, as you should know if you've been following along, I am going to have my major first teachable in French. I love the language; it is romantic, expressive, and just fun in general. It's actually amazing in a way that I decided to go into French. I was never in any point of my life in French Immersion School, nor did I have parents who spoke it at home. I didn't have any close family member who spoke it as a matter of fact.


I started French a year early in elementary school due to the fact that I was in a grade 3/4 split class. Although it would not count for anything, we were still expected to participate. Throughout elementary school we didn't have much of a learning experience. French class was a joke; like a second recess really. The most we ever learned was passé composé with avoir only.

It is lucky to say that gratefully when I went into grade 9, the French teachers basically assumed you knew nothing. Despite this fact, I had an irrational fear of going to French class. My French teacher from elementary school installed a fear. She'd say that when we get to grade 9, the teachers will only speak French and expect you to only speak French to them. It essentially said to me that I was going there to fail.

Now, I'm a bit of an over achiever. If I have a grade below an 80, I'm crying my eyes out feeling like I might as well have gotten a 0. Yes, I do realize the pros and cons of being this way, but It's me and I can't help it. But with this in my mind, it made me utterly afraid of going to French class. But thankfully that wasn't the case.

I am very thankful to have gone to a school where there are many nice teachers that are very caring and passionate about what they do. My grade 9 French teacher was a very enthusiastic person who made French class one of my favourite classes of all time. I also had this same person as my grade 11 and 12 French teacher. I think it is safe to say that she was the one who sparked my love for the language and encourages me on a daily basis to keep going with it.

So, because of my new found love for this language, I started doing some research, and then I plainly decided that I wanted to be a French teacher myself. But I had one issue... I wasn't really good at it. I couldn't speak, and I couldn't make it flow like how it should. So I had to look for a way to improve it, without leaving to do a student exchange (my parent's didn't like the idea of me going to another county where I have never been to one before.) So that is when I found the Explore program.

Both of my French teacher in high school did the Explore program, and they saw my passion and encouraged me to do this government funded bursary program for 5 weeks of intensive immersion in the French language. So, this past summer (summer of 2013) I went to Gaspé Quebec. My oh my, if you get me talking about this amazing place, sometimes it can be hard to shut me up. I went there with 21 percent fluency... I was worse than I thought. But with the great group of people, the fantastic
councilors and teachers, engaging activities, and picturesque town, it made the experience so much fun. And not to mention I doubled my fluency level, to 42.

The result of this amazing journey has given me so much more confidence and has made me so much more successful in pursuing my French career.

From my journey to yours,
Amber :)

This time the photos are from my own :) 

What I'm Going Into

Week 3 and Going Strong

 So, when people do ask me what I am going to be, they almost always give me a strange look. I am going to university for concurrent ed studies; major in French, second teachable in chemistry. Yes, that is what I said. French and chemistry.

The reactions I get vary. Some will be condemning, others surprised, and few that think of it as a great idea. Those who are condemning say there are no jobs in teaching as soon as I get the words "concurrent ed studies" out of my mouth. Wrong guys, there are plenty of jobs in French. Those who are surprised don't like my combo, saying that they are opposite ends of the spectrum... which I think is completely wrong as well. Those who like the idea of it all; my sincerest thank you because I need that support. But there are reasons why I've chosen these two subjects, more than what meets the eye.

French is a language I have come to love a lot. I spent 5 weeks in Gaspé Quebec this past summer on the Explore program improving my French (I will be going into more detail with that experience in a future post). It's such an accomplishment when you are able to speak another language; although I am the farthest thing away from being fluent in the language.

Grade 10 I started to discover the chemistry world. I literally got 100% in the entire unit. I simply loved it, and it came naturally to me. My grade 11 and 12 chemistry teacher said that he could barely get the words out of his mouth before I was essentially a pro at it. It was one of the few things I was actually really good at, and that is my reason for choosing it as my second teachable... I could never do history or English or something like that.

Personally, I don't think they are really all that different, despite their classification as being two totally opposite ends of the spectrum. Yes French is an art and chemistry is a science, but think about it. They are't that different. Chemistry is a science, but it uses things like formulas and special rules for describing how elements or compounds interact with each other given certain circumstances. French, the art, uses formula-like structures and has special rules for describing something that you want to say. French is kind of a big formula. Subject + verb + and action = what you wanted to say. 

So as you can see, their isn't really much difference, and I like to blow things up, so chemistry satisfies that for the most part. So I think this is the perfect combo. We all need a break now and then anyways, and when I feel like switching it up to perhaps use the other part of my brain some, I have it set up that I may do so. 

From my journey to yours, 

Amber 

Picture from here and here

Why I Decided To Become A Teacher

Wow, a week already?

So, this is post number 2. If you haven't read my first post yet, I strongly urge you to, otherwise today I will be talking about where my ambition came from. 

Go to a kindergartner and ask them what they want to be when they grow up, and they'll typically tell you they want to be just like the person who influences them the most... or a police or fireman because they apparently have really cool jobs that attract them, that being said they are our community hero's. Anyways, when I was asked in kindergarten I immediately said "I want to be a teacher!" This was because of a few reasons. 

School was my most looked forwards to event in my life. There are a couple different kinds of kids that you may encounter on the first day of kindergarten, the crier, the shy kid, the I-don't-want-to-let-go-of-your-leg kid, or there was me, "Mom get away from me because I'm going to learn!" Yes, that was exactly what I was like. Unfortunately, school didn't like me as much as I liked school. I was a victim of bullying. But that didn't stop my love for being at school, because I had a teacher that I could lean on and count on to protect me from harms way. 

As we all grow older, our ambitions from kindergarten usually change. Mine stayed fairly constant. In grade six I had about a nine month change in what I wanted to be, which was an astronomer, but that quickly changed back to being a teacher, because again, I was greatly influenced by a lot of great teachers. 

From my past and the teacher that I had, I have seen flaws, and I have seen excellence, all of which has given me a vivid idea of the kind of teacher I want to be. I want to be so much more than a teacher, I want to be an encourager, a friend, a shield, an adviser, someone to look up to. 

I want to make a difference in as many lives as I can, and by becoming a teacher, I can accomplish that, while doing something I already know I love. 

From my journey to yours, 

Amber

Photos from here, here and here

  

Welcome to My Journey

Welcome to all those who are looking at my blog.

 I am an 18 year old student currently attending Paris District High School, I am in grade 12, and next year I will be going to Wilfrid Laurier University in Brantford Ontario for Concurrent Education studies, my major in French, and my hopeful second will be chemistry. If you don't know what that means, it means that I will be going through to be a teacher. 

I recently accepted my offer to university a few weeks ago, I was accepted into all my universities that I applied to, but I decided that by staying close to home, I would be saving a lot of money that could be better put to use later. But, when I accepted my offer, something stuck me, I was finally going to take the first real step to my future and my dream. It finally seamed real, and that is where the idea came to me to document this journey for anyone who may be interested. 

This blog may be for current teachers, those who one day aspire to teach, or people who like photography, because I'll be doing some of that too from time to time. My goal on this blog is to show how I see the way things are and how my views may change over the course of time. I want to show the different things I've learned and things I pick up that I think everyone can benefit from. 

I will hope to make a post weekly, the next few weeks will be posts about my past and what has driven me to become an educator. For those who will follow from the start, I hope you will enjoy, and I hope that you find this inspirational and informing. 

From my journey to yours, 

Amber. 

Photo's from here and here.