Class Observations - St. Martin De Porres

Sadly, my final observation wasn't as inspiring or as educational as the previous one. Observing at St. Martin De Porres was still an interesting experience. For one, it was vilifying to see teachers in a religious school use Pokémon cards as part of a reward system. In my religious school, we weren't even allowed to have regular playing cards, let alone ones named after Pocket Monsters. Who'd have thought we'd see progressiveness in this incredibly conservative neck of the world?

But I digress. The grade 3 students were incredibly well-behaved, which after my previous observation was a tad disappointing. After mentioning it to the teacher, she didn't hesitate to praise her class as one that makes her life easy. So it was only fitting that the Law of Murphy would cause the class to come unhinged in an activity that was given to the school to test involving role-playing the lives of refugees. Having the class choose six items from a list to take with them on a sudden unexpected journey, to choose which member from their group lost their six items in a tragic road bump, deciding which items to share with that unfortunate group member... it brought absolute chaos into the class. Some students were crying at their loss, others were revolting at being nominated as the unlucky refugee who lost their belongings, and others still were full of conviction, arguing that their pet dog counted as an item that would help them cut a path through thick foliage.

Watching the teacher handle it, or rather, repeatedly attempting to contain it and failing, was another wonderful educational experience. It stood as another testament to the inevitable trials and tribulations you would face as a teacher. After the class, she told us that the activity was developed by non-teachers and given to them to test and give feedback on, which is an interesting practice that I didn't know about previously. One I would rather disagree with, since I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of using grade 3 classes as a testing ground of something so raw and undeveloped as the activity I witnessed. And I agreed with the teacher's conclusion that it would've been much more suitable to higher grade levels rather than the emotional and excitable bunch that grade 3 classes lean towards.

In conclusion, these observations were absolutely invaluable experiences for me, and would be so for any prospective teacher. The fact that the Education program in Alberta doesn't get prospective teachers into the classroom until their third year is unacceptable at best, and criminal at worst. This is the essence of teaching, and is more eye-opening than any amount of traditional schooling to be a teacher could hope to be. It immediately vilifies those who know they have it in them to teach, and brings revelation to those who don't. And while some observations were more valuable than others, this has been an experience that I will value for the rest of my life. And I would encourage other hopeful teachers behind me to follow these stepping stones to their dreams.