This lesson is available on my "Teachers Pay Teachers" account. Please follow the link, help yourself to anything (obviously you are going for the free stuff), and please don't forget to rate and review.
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Demo-Lesson-from-TGJ20-Communications-Technology-4413509
This is a mini-lesson supporting ELL/ELD in Ontario. Completed as a part of an AQ. Consider this a small demo of the TGJ20 course I have been developing. Coming soon (hopefully). In British Columbia, this may be called IT10.
This is an assignment assisting students in developing their reading and writing. In particular this activity is built to assist in the development of a student who struggles in writing especially, and comes from another language and culture, but has a background in English.
Students select a reading based on choices given by the teacher and then (using tagxedo), they can create a word cloud of their own.
Modified Overall expectation for this mini-lesson:
A2. demonstrate an understanding of technical terminology, basic scientific concepts, and mathematical concepts used in communications technology and apply them to the creation of media products;
website link:
tagxedo.com
Video link if you have troubles from the lesson plan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl62MBcqP9g&index=198&list=PLLwIG1DObjQsooXBk2cvreMa4owK97KWM&t=0s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzyVdrdhyVg
Thanks
Thursday, February 28, 2019
Friday, February 22, 2019
M3: Language Development
Post 1-
Elizabeth Coelho discusses a framework for teaching English as a second language in Ontario, "Quadrant" refers to the Cummins Model (or the adaptation of it) in which attributes contribute to developing an understanding of an Language Learners' ability in a language. The adaptation references a guideline to successful development of language. This is a way that an analyst is capable of measuring the potential strengths in a language learners' portrayal of meaning using language. Basic Interpersonal Skills refers to the language skills a student has acquired in regards to day to day life as well as social interaction. Cognitive academic language proficiency refers to the ability to use academic language (namely vocabulary).
The idea of the quadrants is that, if the student is beginning in Quadrant "A", they are expected or guided to build from "A" to "B", "C" and finally, "D". Likewise, if a student has proven they are in quadrant "B", they would not need to repeat review to prove themselves again at "A", but simply be guided into "C" and then "D" (one would hope).
It is important to note that a language learner can be excellently rehearsed in the memorization of different words (possibly even capable of predicting what words and spellings of unfamiliar words are), yet unable to use the words in a sentence properly with meaning. In my experience I have seen many students able to score well in speech competitions because of academic vocabulary, but when it came to the questioning, the students were unable to communicate ideas (some were even unable to understand the questions asked).
Post 2
I previously mentioned before that students could have performed well if assessed in regards to CALPS, but proven to have struggles in regards to BICS. Capacity Building Series "World of Words" discusses practices that help teachers prepare themselves for a number of teaching/classroom scenarios that involve language learning students (2009). In regards to teacher support Capacity Build Series "World of Words" offers teachers insight into ways that they can offer assistance to language learners individually, through small group activities and through full class activities (2009). Throughout the article by "Capacity Building Series", the "World of Words" is a metaphor to describe the vast amount of knowledge language learners can find themselves standing before. There is importance to knowing that as a teacher we are able to develop the Language Leaner's experience through STEP as well as significant attention to details about students in the classroom.
STEP allows for students to provide a clear picture of their abilities on the continua. The quadrants are a firstly glance into possible potentials of a student. Without the initial assessment of STEP teachers, and supporting staff may not even know that a student is a language learner. While studying "Development Psychology" in the lecture hall of Dr. Mushqash (Lakehead University 2011) the case study of "Chelsea" was brought up. "Chelsea" because she was a child deprived of her language development from birth. "Chelsea" was born deaf, unfortunately at that time, it was not diagnosed and she was thought to have a development delay. At the age of 31 (after all that time being treated as someone who has special needs, having needs but not being supported in the way needed), she was introduced into a language program. She was unsuccessful in her language development and possibly could have been helped better had she received the needed support earlier on.
I don't understand how STEP is not mandatory in the classroom to be honest, as much as it seems like its something of a smarty pants comment-is that for real? I do not understand how a teacher would successfully make it through a day without being able to provide assistance (actually, come to think of it that is a lie, I do). I have had quite a few students who were ESL students, but also special needs. They did not get the support they needed because the parents saw their child getting programmed help as a weakness. It is difficult, but we have our "School-based team" that is working with classroom teachers to provide parents with up to date information and reports on students (their children), who appear on the radar in teacher's classrooms. The part that I just understood, about "why should this be mandatory", I can attest that it is incredibly difficult to really reach out and get all those students time to be observed and recognized. For a classroom teacher, I think it may be easiest for us at times, but for school administration, that could be a lot of students. I think I understand the question of "why should it be mandatory?" and it has a simple answer. We are looking out and after students who need us to support them, we are Canadian educational institutions, how can making an equitable classroom not be mandatory? In regards to "How?", as I previously mentioned, our school has a team of support staff, teachers and administration that meet up once every couple weeks or so, almost once a month. In their meetings, they have a round table discussion about various students that are recognized as "in need" by teachers, parents or who are brought up by other students in concerning situations. For example, if "student A" is playing with his friend one day and "student B" notices marks of self-harm, they may bring that up to a school counselor, parent or their teacher. After a follow up by administration, the student is recognized as potentially in need of social emotional support (possibly).
From the Lakehead University lecture hall of Mushquash, it was discussed that Chomsky believed language was instinctively built into our being, without the knowledge of what is being said, babies can develop recognition of different speech ques and intonations (2011). If language understanding comes from a time before a person can read and write, it is clear that there needs to be an understanding of context, or even just auditory speech patterns that make the rest of the language more accessible. The great Canadian "Eh" is a prime example of this. In Chinese "Wei" is said at the beginning of a phone call to identify that you are indeed on the other line and listening, without knowing what it means (because a lot of people don't), a foreigner can understand at any given time that someone just got on a phone call. From an understanding of the language's culture and contextual understandings, then teachers can help students build a vocabulary that is at their academic grade level. If teachers are unable to assist students in building their academic grade level, each year that the student moves forward, that student is experiencing a more difficult year because although their understanding may be excellent, they cannot clearly state or share ideas which are the main ways in which teachers identify a student's capabilities and preparedness for the next level.
"Outline the relationship between Quadrants and BICS and
CALP."
Elizabeth Coelho discusses a framework for teaching English as a second language in Ontario, "Quadrant" refers to the Cummins Model (or the adaptation of it) in which attributes contribute to developing an understanding of an Language Learners' ability in a language. The adaptation references a guideline to successful development of language. This is a way that an analyst is capable of measuring the potential strengths in a language learners' portrayal of meaning using language. Basic Interpersonal Skills refers to the language skills a student has acquired in regards to day to day life as well as social interaction. Cognitive academic language proficiency refers to the ability to use academic language (namely vocabulary).
The idea of the quadrants is that, if the student is beginning in Quadrant "A", they are expected or guided to build from "A" to "B", "C" and finally, "D". Likewise, if a student has proven they are in quadrant "B", they would not need to repeat review to prove themselves again at "A", but simply be guided into "C" and then "D" (one would hope).
It is important to note that a language learner can be excellently rehearsed in the memorization of different words (possibly even capable of predicting what words and spellings of unfamiliar words are), yet unable to use the words in a sentence properly with meaning. In my experience I have seen many students able to score well in speech competitions because of academic vocabulary, but when it came to the questioning, the students were unable to communicate ideas (some were even unable to understand the questions asked).
Post 2
"For the last part of the task you will provide a 1-2 page
single spaced reflection on the effectiveness of STEP and why and how it should
be mandatory in the classroom. Also you will state the importance of developing
BICS and CALP in order to support ELLs through the STEP continua. How can this
be achieved?"
I previously mentioned before that students could have performed well if assessed in regards to CALPS, but proven to have struggles in regards to BICS. Capacity Building Series "World of Words" discusses practices that help teachers prepare themselves for a number of teaching/classroom scenarios that involve language learning students (2009). In regards to teacher support Capacity Build Series "World of Words" offers teachers insight into ways that they can offer assistance to language learners individually, through small group activities and through full class activities (2009). Throughout the article by "Capacity Building Series", the "World of Words" is a metaphor to describe the vast amount of knowledge language learners can find themselves standing before. There is importance to knowing that as a teacher we are able to develop the Language Leaner's experience through STEP as well as significant attention to details about students in the classroom.
STEP allows for students to provide a clear picture of their abilities on the continua. The quadrants are a firstly glance into possible potentials of a student. Without the initial assessment of STEP teachers, and supporting staff may not even know that a student is a language learner. While studying "Development Psychology" in the lecture hall of Dr. Mushqash (Lakehead University 2011) the case study of "Chelsea" was brought up. "Chelsea" because she was a child deprived of her language development from birth. "Chelsea" was born deaf, unfortunately at that time, it was not diagnosed and she was thought to have a development delay. At the age of 31 (after all that time being treated as someone who has special needs, having needs but not being supported in the way needed), she was introduced into a language program. She was unsuccessful in her language development and possibly could have been helped better had she received the needed support earlier on.
I don't understand how STEP is not mandatory in the classroom to be honest, as much as it seems like its something of a smarty pants comment-is that for real? I do not understand how a teacher would successfully make it through a day without being able to provide assistance (actually, come to think of it that is a lie, I do). I have had quite a few students who were ESL students, but also special needs. They did not get the support they needed because the parents saw their child getting programmed help as a weakness. It is difficult, but we have our "School-based team" that is working with classroom teachers to provide parents with up to date information and reports on students (their children), who appear on the radar in teacher's classrooms. The part that I just understood, about "why should this be mandatory", I can attest that it is incredibly difficult to really reach out and get all those students time to be observed and recognized. For a classroom teacher, I think it may be easiest for us at times, but for school administration, that could be a lot of students. I think I understand the question of "why should it be mandatory?" and it has a simple answer. We are looking out and after students who need us to support them, we are Canadian educational institutions, how can making an equitable classroom not be mandatory? In regards to "How?", as I previously mentioned, our school has a team of support staff, teachers and administration that meet up once every couple weeks or so, almost once a month. In their meetings, they have a round table discussion about various students that are recognized as "in need" by teachers, parents or who are brought up by other students in concerning situations. For example, if "student A" is playing with his friend one day and "student B" notices marks of self-harm, they may bring that up to a school counselor, parent or their teacher. After a follow up by administration, the student is recognized as potentially in need of social emotional support (possibly).
From the Lakehead University lecture hall of Mushquash, it was discussed that Chomsky believed language was instinctively built into our being, without the knowledge of what is being said, babies can develop recognition of different speech ques and intonations (2011). If language understanding comes from a time before a person can read and write, it is clear that there needs to be an understanding of context, or even just auditory speech patterns that make the rest of the language more accessible. The great Canadian "Eh" is a prime example of this. In Chinese "Wei" is said at the beginning of a phone call to identify that you are indeed on the other line and listening, without knowing what it means (because a lot of people don't), a foreigner can understand at any given time that someone just got on a phone call. From an understanding of the language's culture and contextual understandings, then teachers can help students build a vocabulary that is at their academic grade level. If teachers are unable to assist students in building their academic grade level, each year that the student moves forward, that student is experiencing a more difficult year because although their understanding may be excellent, they cannot clearly state or share ideas which are the main ways in which teachers identify a student's capabilities and preparedness for the next level.
Thursday, February 21, 2019
M3: STEP Guide (2 Posts)
Module 3! Almost there!
This module we looked at the STEP Guide and discussed experiences and thoughts regarding our pedagogy and the guide.
Post 1
Initial assessment must be completed to ensure students are
supported. Create a handout for parents so they can understand what we do to
support their students. Create it so that parents can understand and see the
benefits.
As parents
bring their children to a new country, community and school, it is no shame
that in some way their children will benefit from school through appropriate accommodation
and understanding of educational background. As discussed in “Supporting
English Language Learners Grades 1 to 8”, “The Initial
Assessment is important to getting to know the English Language Learner. It is
an opportunity to get a clear picture of the students’ educational cultural,
and personal backgrounds, including their individual learning styles and
interests.”(2008) Parents are invited to ask questions and make sure that they are
aware of what the steps in the initial assessment are. Students will be
completing the initial assessment to provide schools with the ability to know
where to place students and what sort of program that particular student could
benefit from having. Students are benefited from assessments in “Reading and
Writing”, as well as “Mathematics” for starters. In regards to “Reading and
Writing” students= are initially assessed, if it is not clear that the students
are in need of support in their English Language Learning abilities, they will
be further assessed in more specific areas of reading and writing. From the
specific assessments in this area, recommendations will be shared with the
parents and reported in a formal way. In other cases, assessment will remain
ongoing until a recommendation can be provided for parents in regards to get
support for their children in school.
See handout at the following link. (canva.com)
https://www.canva.com/design/DADSNbsNbUE/share?role=EDITOR&token=jm_VEXTZ74iHS4kwemvNmA&utm_content=DADSNbsNbUE&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=sharebutton
Post 2
How does support your School Board initiatives or how can
it be supportive within a School Board?
The government
document “Supporting English Language Learners Grades 1 to 8” (p.18 2008)
describes the importance of making this a school wide approach to assisting students
in their development of language and integration into a new culture.
It is
important to have students recognized not only by the teachers, but the administration
as well. Our school has developed what is called a “School-Based Team” which is
a group of teachers and administrators who are to determine and/or note the developments
of programming for students who are not only special needs but severe ELL as
well. This team meets every Thursday at the beginning of each month and allows
for students (new and returning) to be assessed based on a number of different
factors.
As outlined
in the “Supporting English Language Learners Grades 1 to 8” (p. 42, 2008), it
is important to ensure that assistance of students is not discontinued until
they have reached the English proficiency needed to be successful at a
particular level. It is a teacher’s understanding that they are responsible for
the support of an ELL student in their classroom. As a teacher it is expected
that the classroom provides all students with equal opportunity. Discontinuing
a student’s ELL support in a classroom is something that needs to be carefully
examined and assessed to provide an idea of whether this student is really
ready or not.
In the school
I am working at currently, the students who are in need of ELL supports receive
it from their classroom teachers on a daily basis. There are students with needs
that surpass the abilities of the classroom teachers. We have had students in
the past who voiced that they did not want the support of staff in regards to their
language learning because of the stigmas attached to it.
This is
where our support for ELL students and students of other needs has become convoluted.
Teaching in an international overseas school generally means a number of
students will be English Language Learners. Factor in the students with special
needs that are sent to the boarding school and a tight teacher budget from the head
office. Our specialized support staff offer more to the needs of students who
need the extra assistance with general learning, but do offer support for
students who are severely struggling in English Language Arts as well. Due to
the nature of students who generally visit the “Success Room”, some students
build a negative stigma around it. There are some phenomenal teachers in there
whoa re doing an excellent job at turning it into a safe space as well, this
will hopefully alleviate the stigma.
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
TELL Reflection #2
Provide a reflective piece based on the module. How can you use the
essential strategies and ideas to allow you to make changes, implement news
ideas, be supportive and be an advocate for ELLs, parents, staff and
administrators? How have you grown from this module as an educator? Where and
what you do plan to do now? What is meaningful to you from this module?
The module has introduced many interesting ideas, in taking
in the theories available for explanation of Language Acquisition, one is able
to deduce that language learning can be impacted by a multitude of forces. As a
parent and a teacher, I think I have especially grown in my understanding of
what it means to be supportive in second language learning. I think that I have
not only began to better understand how I am going to teach myself French and
support the language development of Mandarin and English in my son’s life, but
how as a teacher I will foster the use of a first language to help my students
better learn and understand their own development of a language, whether it be
English or whatever. The myths of ESL/ELL are basically the reasons that as teachers,
we see students who are struggling. Parents, old beliefs of language learning,
these are all factors that if left unchecked could spiral a student’s language
development into a state of shock. Parents, like students need guidance when
meeting with teachers about how their child can better develop language without
damaging their life after school.
In regards to diversity, students are encouraged to
celebrate differences and acknowledge the different attributes between them. I
feel that in this AQ I have acquired the understanding that there is more to an
ESL/ELL classroom than the average language barrier. In understanding how to
better support students of different cultures, you need to better support them
in ways that make them individuals. Accounting for students and celebrating
things about them through classroom activities like birthday calendars in class
or reading choices of the week. There are many ways for teachers to celebrate
student’s lives as not just students, but as people.
Students are supported in classrooms by excellent teachers who
are keeping an eye on the details. An example of ways that students can be
supported through a teacher’s Culturally Responsive Pedagogy can be exemplified
through a short list provided on page 21 in the Many Roots, Many Voices: Supporting English Language Learners in Every
Classroom; a practical guide for Ontario educators “use simple vocabulary to
introduce new concepts, speak clearly and pause often, etc.” (2005). The
list provided shows in depth details a teacher should pay attention to in
regards to instructional dimensions of mindsets. This particular mindset being
one that accommodates for the reaction by students in an academic classroom.
Providing an example of how mindset can be applied in my
classroom as I understand it now, would be in instances like my Social
Studies/English 11 (Cross Curricular) Unit. I have taken the ideas laid out in
page 7 of Supporting Minds: An Educator’s
Guide to Promoting Student’s Mental Health and Well-being, and through
backwards design established the ways in mindset of a teacher can be applied to
support diversity, and social justice in the classroom. Understanding the LGBTQ
history in China through case studies and timeline, provides students to
participate in the advocacy of a topic that is sometimes controversially viewed
based on the location of a population, without singling oneself out. For
example, to discuss why the human rights of people in China should include the
right to marry anyone they like, may stimulate critical thinking of why are
there still places and people in the world who don’t think it is okay. In some
cases, it could be used for school wide advocacy activities. I have approached
it as the beginning to an anti-violence campaign idea with students that
spiralled into a more localized topic related to the topic of LGBTQ.
What I have learned as well, is that social advocacy
matters, through a round-about way I suppose. Nevertheless, I think that for
myself, I will be trying to implement more social advocacy (at least until I
find one thing that really sticks). I think first I will take on blood donation
drive for our school and see what can come of that. Through the social advocacy
of gifting life, I am hoping that it can be discussed why this is important and
how it can make an impact on a population. The incorporation of all students
from all over gifting something this important, is a great way (I think) to
begin building understanding of how we are all the same.
Thursday, February 7, 2019
M2 Part E: Culturally Acceptable Standards of Teaching
Part 1
Part 2
What considerations must
teachers have when teaching? What type of mindset must teachers have? How can
you ensure you are supporting all learners?
A culturally responsive pedagogy looks like instances during
lessons and teaching in which the teacher is not calling on students but
inquiring with students. Prompting students to inquire further for answers,
rather than giving answers could be a way of acknowledging different student
strengths and abilities in different areas of study in the classroom. Inquiry
leads to not only the apprehension of knowledge in a natural and free flow
manner (every student at their own pace), but it also provides students with
the skills to demonstrate their knowledge with sound research and
scientific/fact backing.
Students learning that the personal features of a classroom
(themselves) and the institutional features of a classroom (the classroom
itself) come together in building the learning community. What students, may
not fully grasp in the beginning is the instructional piece that teachers bring
to the formula, to make it all blend together in a harmonious way.
Teachers are building the instructional dimension into the
formula by including high expectations as discussed as a characteristic in Capacity Building Series K-12, (2013).
This is clear to be an empowering tool for students who do struggle because
when they do succeed, they know they are succeeding at the level they are
expected to succeed it. To grant a student copious accommodations and
modifications because of how one aspect of their learning/education is
perceived is wrong. In the case of ELL/ESL students who are simply struggling
with “communication” are not incapable of achieving the same work as a student
who is a first language English speaker. To provide examples, Mesut, shared a
math exemplar how a student completed work in their first language and then
changed it into English after words to create a better understanding. Skills
are skills, the capabilities of demonstrating the skills in another language
are not necessarily in need of grand accommodation/modification, but need to be
nourished and scaffolded.
An interesting thought about how to foster learning using
culture comes from the idea of a teacher knowing when and where the students
come from. I will mention more in my next part how a student’s background is
crucial to knowing the potentiality of a student as well as building their
language. Having high expectations, doesn’t mean having the “highest”
expectations. The students should be expected to perform at a level they are
comfortable or better, but should not be penalized if they are not meeting the
expectations of the highest standard. This is where I feel students and
teachers find it difficult to make the culturally responsive pedagogy function.
Yes, I believe students are in part responsible for creating a culturally
responsive pedagogy. The relativity of this for my classes in particular I feel
is incredibly high, my students need to meet the expectations of the English
curriculum as they are not enrolled or recognized as second language English
Learners. Students completing the class materials in the same format as students
who speak English as a second language are expected to meet the same
requirements. I will provide assistance where needed. Support students who need
it, but I will not accept “I don’t know” for an answer to a question.
I find that an amazing number of students who use this,
actually do know the answer. The idea is that that they don’t know why they
know the answer or that they even do know the answer sometimes. In regards to
the classroom, or instructional dimension, teachers can do a lot to foster CR.
A teacher should not only ask every student a question in class as often as
possible, but also ask the question in a clear way (sometimes even simplifying
the question to its basic purpose). In doing this, the teacher is allowing not
only the student who is answering the question to better understand, but the
students around them who are listening and can better access the class
discussion from the accessible questions.
Ultimately, if a teacher follows the approaches that one may
take to participate in good conversation, they are practice a culturally responsive pedagogy.
Part 2
Create a list of strategies
that can support teaching implementing Culturally Responsive Pedagogy. Think
about: How can this support cross curricular approaches? How does it show your
advocacy for the Foundations of Professional Practice?
Teachers need to keep in mind the different socio-economic status
of students, not every student has access to the same amenities in regards to
at home learning and educational resources. Along with being aware that
students are coming from different family backgrounds economically, it is
important to remember that students coming from homes of different cultural
backgrounds could impact the ways of learning and understanding of different
content.
As a student, there was a time I would fast at lunch because
I overheard my parents talking about bankruptcy and I knew I ate a lot. If I
could eat less, that might help (they always joked about how much I ate), and I
could. I made my own lunches (my parents were both working class citizens), and
I knew that we couldn’t afford the “awesome” school snacks that my friends
could, or the awesome lunch meats that my grandmother always treated us with
when we visited around lunch on some weekends. I would either make some skimpy
peanut butter only sandwich or all in all, not make anything and just eat the
“healthy snacks” (mine and then would help myself to whatever was left after
lunch). The important part of this story is not that in elementary school I was
silly, but that my teacher actually noted to my parents that I couldn’t focus
in class and it was noticed that at lunch some of the monitors at the time
would ask the teacher if I ate my lunch before lunch, because sometimes I would
just be out of my seat visiting my friends. My parents had no idea, my Ma gave
me so much trouble. From that point on my Dad started waking me up when he was
getting ready for work and started making my lunch for me at first, then slowly
showing me how to make a proper lunch. I never mentioned to them that I was worried
that we didn’t have money and played along. I would go grocery shopping with my
Ma all the time and started paying attention to what she bought and how much it
cost. We had 5 people in our family, it wasn’t cheap. I stopped bugging them
about the good snacks and would sometimes even leave snacks at home and just
take fruit and sandwich. Unfortunately, as committed as I was to sticking to
what my dad was trying to instil in me, I just couldn’t eat blasted Chicken Loaf
or Bologna. I do now, but that is not
the point. I had a teacher once in high school (yes, it happened again-no
wasn’t worse or really as bad as elementary school, but with a growing appetite
I would basically just wait and gorge at dinner when I got home, with my
family). I was so ridiculous, I was trying to apply principles to my life that
didn’t quite understand and make sense of a situation that was beyond my
understanding. I was in class after lunch one day when my stomach started
growling. My teacher at the time was not ignorant or rude. No comments about,
well that is disruptive. He actually came over to me after circling around the
class during a work period and dropped a couple Halloween candies on the desk
of some of the students, left two on mine. This was a moment that I really felt
treated (a little embarrassed, but I wasn’t the only one) and that was
something that really stuck with me. I was not the only one. I wasn’t an easy
student to work with as a teacher for a number of reasons, but one thing I have
noticed among all my phenomenal teachers is that they are open minds. They
ALWAYS listened to what a student had to say and ALWAYS gave them benefit of
the doubt when situations were questionable to say the least. This is including
administrators who I learned through the years are sometimes a student’s best
friend when in high school. Its really funny actually how sometimes
administrators know so much about a student, but the student had yet to
formally meet the administrator. I think that sort of mindset is obtained
through teamwork, great anecdotal notation of the teachers on faculty and the
depth of knowledge the administrator feels necessary to have about the student.
Mindset, in my opinion is summarized as being open minded.
It is important to the functionality of a well-rounded environment. I feel as
though I have provided a few possible case studies, feel free to use them as
needed.
Saturday, February 2, 2019
Teacher Experience: Interview with a Potential Teacher about my Five Years of Teaching in China (2019)
Transcription of Interview with Carmelo Bono
"How did you get your work visa? What was the application process like? How long did it take?"
The work visa is actually paid for ad covered by the school that I work for. They basically just in order to meet the requirements for it I just needed to prove that I was a Canadian citizen, that I had my teaching license and that was about it. But generally, for the Chinese work visas they need a Bachelor of Arts and a teaching certificate to prove that you’re a foreign expert. The school will take care of it for you generally, most places when you go overseas should.
"So anywhere will? Not just in China?'
Yes, most places should, I had a friend who was trying to get into a school in Egypt and they were having problems with their visa just due to whatever situation at the time. They were trying to tell him, “When you get here, we’ll do it.” My friend, he is a pretty careful guy, and technically without a work visa you shouldn’t even be in that country really. But they were saying, “It’s fine, it’s normally how it goes here, it’s just a delayed process.” So, he backed out of that and later on he heard someone had gotten deported because the government showed up asking for their work visa and it wasn’t yet issued. If you ever get into a position like that tell them that you will see them later.
"How did you find out about the maple leaf school?'
When I was in my professional year, we had a job fair or an education fair come through the school and we were in the Agora Circle. It was just going from place to place, school to school. Originally, I thought I was going to be going to England and I actually had an I-Day [introduction day] offer from Engage Education. I put my name in with Maple Leaf not really knowing how I felt about it and was l just like we’ll see what happens. But they were at the job fair at Lakehead in the Agora and to be honest I forgot about my application with them until later when they called me and they were like, “So, were going to be hiring for next year, what do you think?” And I was supposed to be going to England for an interview, but this just might be as good. So, just through the Lakehead Job Fair.
"What was the application process like for them?"
Generally, a lot of these places have you apply through an agency or a recruitment centre if it’s overseas. This one in particular with Maple Leaf, they have recruiters in Canada who go from school to school usually or they pay us teachers to recruit new teachers as well. They will give us a small stipend if one of our friends decides to go to Maple Leaf and work there as well if
they say they were referred by so-and-so. So, Maple Leaf is a big enough school that they can afford to do their own recruitment. But generally speaking, you’ll go to a job fair and there will be an agency there for most other schools that was hired to recruit for that school. The application is paper-based first. When you go into the interview, they will ask you more details about your practice or if you’re a first-year teacher. They will ask you what your aspirations are, if you’ve ever travelled before, are you able to acclimatize to a new environment well, what are your goals? They will ask you about your practice, but I know as well as you do that it’s a different world and as long as you have your head on your shoulders. When I was applying with Maple Leaf, they were asking me questions and I asked them if their classrooms were really that similar to what we have in Canada. My interviewer stopped for a minute and was like, “You know what, not really.” And I was like, “What would be the appropriate answer to a question like that?” And they said, “Well you answered it correctly.” And said, “That is what it would be like in Canada and I have no idea what it’s going to be like in China, what’s that going to be like?” They were like, “Well, I guess just see when you get here.” So generally, they want to see that you’re calm, cool, collect and able to handle different cultures and stuff like that. As a first-year teacher overseas they generally expect that they will mould you into the teacher that they want you to be. So, the interview process is pretty lax, there trying to really reel you in. That is what a lot of first year teachers have to remember that they [the teacher] have the upper hand in any interview, unless they have some black spot on their resume that put the hurt on them. Generally, any teacher going overseas in their first year can really pull some strings to get what they want, give or take. Salary wise maybe not, but what classes you teach and where and what campus you’re teaching on. Sometimes you can have pull on those things being a first-year teacher because most of the schools are like it’s not a big market and it’s really hard to find a lot of new teachers right now, especially with relations between China and Canada being as they are.
"What kind of supports did you have while teaching?"
It’s different now, when I first got here it was like “Well, you’re here, that’s good.” Now it’s like we have a whole system wet up for teachers where a new teacher comes in and they are partnered up with one of the returning staff who volunteers to participate in what we call the China Life Mentor Program. It’s different from school to school, and this is what worked for our school and this is what worked for our teachers in the past. It’s a relatively new thing, but the idea is now… and the reason I’m talking about this and not my personal experience is because my personal experience was very different. I showed up late and then it was a lot of very few new staff and mostly returning staff. The way it is now is what is important and that’s where they partner a new teacher and a veteran teacher up and just kind of have them show them the ropes around what is here in the city, what’s there in the city, how do things work in the school, where do you get you’re photocopying done, etc., etc. Generally, it’s a little partnership program, but other than that we have a big staff at our school campus. We have, I think one-hundred and twenty teachers or something like that, or a hundred and something teachers. So, so support from administration is always a little bit harder, you can get it, but you have to go and find them. They’re busy folks and if you are a new teacher and having issues and the admin hasn’t found you, you can always go and find them. Everyone is on a first name basis for the most part. Everyone lives in a stone throws distance of each other for the most part. So usually it’s a pretty close-knit community for better or for worse. Support systems are here, its just what you make of it. There are people who go off and do their own thing. Then there are people who put back into the system what they got out of it. There are people who just come and go as they please. The system has supports and they are here
"What were the accommodations like?"
When I first got here into Dalian, I was in boys campus and it’s a mixed bag really. So international schools will put you up and others will give you an allowance. Ours is a bit different because back then their salary was really competitive so really no one cared about accommodation. They used to give us a discount on housing so we would stay on campus. They had two campuses where I am; boys’ and girls’ campus. We are split up just because our campus is so big and it’s a bit of a situation of the dormitories, they weren’t really organized before, so they cut everything in half, boys and girls. When I got here, I was on boys’ campus and I was on the first floor. China has really nice places, some really nice places, everything is apartments though, there are no houses here. That’s not really a thing. People don’t rent out houses. China is very much an apartment country. There was a famous poem written called “Apartment House” and when I read them, I know they are not about China, but I imagine that they were. So apartments are, number one, small, very small to big, very big. Very small would be bathroom, living room, and bedroom pretty much that’s it. The bedroom is like a wash closet, the bedroom and living room are technically like a bachelor pad. That’s really small. When I got here, I had a two bedroom, like pretty big place. The first night there, bedbugs. Second night there, I slept on the couch trying to get away from the bedbugs, still got bedbugs. Also had these little creepy-crawly centipede looking things running across my feet every so often. That kind of bugged me, so for two weeks I spent with the property manager trying to get rid of the bedbugs. There was a veteran teacher who was living on the top floor of that building and he said he had just gotten rid of his bed bugs. So I thought I need to get out of this place. So I did. I was there in September and I moved out in November. Part of me didn’t understand what took me so long to get out because then I did find a nice place on the first floor of a new complex. Pretty much a brand new apartment. It was a bit cold in winter because I didn’t want to pay for the heating. I was like, “Winter? What’s winter? It’s not that bad?” But yes it does get pretty cold. I should have bought
the heating. They have really nice places here, and then they have places that are not so nice. The school, they generally tell you, “Well you can come stay on our campus or you can make arrangements to move off campus on your own, out of your own pocket.” So, that’s what I have done every year after I moved out. Some teachers like living on the newer campus teacher dorms, but even then, for me the property manager is a bit of sleaze. I like being walking distance from the school and I kind of feel you’re coming home after work and going to work. There are teachers who I know that have complained about that. Back in the day they were like, “I don’t like living at work.” And that is exactly what happens where you’re staying in your office until seven o’clock at night because it’s only a stone throw away. Or the Wi-Fi works better in your office than it does in your apartment on the dorm campus. That’s the other thing too, having that separation between work is important. So, the school does have places for your to stay or you can move off of campus, either way we pay out of pocket for our accommodations.
"What were some of the challenges you faced and how did you overcome them? "
There were a lot of challenges, five years, a lot of challenges. The biggest challenge, I would say, just spending. Huge challenge there. You have got money and you want to spend it and not save it. So, for that it just came down to meeting my wife and then kind of prioritizing my trips. Seeing that if I saved up instead of doing a trip every weekend, I could do a really nice trip in February. Things like that. So, spending was a big one. Language wasn’t much of a barrier for me because I enjoy learning languages. For me when I got here a lot my friends asked me if I speak Chinese and I didn’t. They wondered how I could communicate so well, and you have to be willing to listen. Sometimes listening is more than just words. So, language wasn’t much of a barrier. Food wasn’t much of a barrier. I eat everything and I love Chinese food. Work was a barrier. Our campus, our school, is never ending work and a lot of us weren’t really taught or shown how to leave work at work. It became a bit of a problem where a lot of our teachers were stressed. With no time to do anything, because back in the day we were expected to assess, assess, assess, assess. Not just diagnostic assessment, not just formative assess, we had copious amounts of summative assessment and it was outrageously ridiculous. They never taught how to time manage, and some of us kind of sought out help and checked things out and educated ourselves a bit further and that we had some leeway with what we did in class. It was hard to get that support from the school because we had a huge turnover in administration at the time and unless they were teaching the same things we were teaching, they wouldn’t really know what we were talking about unless we sat down with them and gave them a piece of mind. But, just how much work was involved and how to leave it at work rather than take it with you every night and spending, that was basically it for me. Some teachers have complained that the food is too oily. But it depends on the person really, but for me I’m not a difficult person to adapt. So just spending and work. And if you do go somewhere, appreciate the money you have and don’t take advantage of it too much. Make sure you learn that you don’t live to work.
"What is your classroom like and what does a typical day look like?"
So, I’m one of the fortunate teachers, I have my own classroom which is great. I think the first four years here I always shared a classroom. Our classrooms aren’t really our own, we aren’t allowed to do much to them. They don’t like when we put stuff on the walls because it wrecks the paint. We have two Bristol boards, no smartboard, we have a projector. Generally, I make it work for me. Decorating my class was the hardest part because every so often you seen your stuff come off the Bristol board and replaced with some random stuff. Then you find out your class is also a homeroom class and that they had to put something up. Generally, if you’re teaching four blocks of something that you’re in the same classroom for they will try to keep in that classroom which is nice. If you wanted to get a smartboard or something like that or a bookshelf, generally, you have to do that yourself. It’s not easy, you could, but it’s not easy. I use a lot of whiteboards, like miniature whiteboards for student to student. Classroom size is the best this year. The biggest I have is twenty-eight. The smallest I’ve got is twenty-five. In the past I’ve had somewhere between an average between twenty-eight students. The smallest class I’ve ever had in the past was for an English class of maybe twenty-six or twenty-seven and the largest class was thirty-two in my first year. So, this is by far the best year Ive had. My class isn’t quite my own, but I make it work. I’ve got a projector and that’s really all I need. Most of the students are doing a student-to-student activity. Each of my students have a cell-phone. Some of them have an iPad too. Each have a laptop that was part of their tuition at our school. So for the most part I use Edmodo which is an online classroom. But I use that for the most part and pass everything to my students through there. They all laugh and get very upset at times because I try to leave all of my notes on Edmodo. Once in a while they will be like, “Sir can I get this on paper?” And I’m like, “I could do that, I could put it on paper for you, but how many trees are we going to kill in the process of this?” They start laughing and are like, “Sir, please. Look at how many other teachers are printing off three-hundred pages a day.” I try to go paperless, but its difficult to say to the least. Classroom, not bad, day-to-day we have to be to the office for 7:30am and were expected to be there until 4:30pm. Classes end at 3:40pm and we have office hours from 3:40-4:30. Were expected to hold at least one tutorial session a week. No one is really sure what exactly that entails, but each teacher does try to utilize that for the students because the students generally do need that extra help. Usually I try to get to the office by 7:00am, but sometimes depending on how my son is being in the morning or how late I sleep in I’ll be there at 7:00 or 7:30. Our homeroom starts at 7:40. Homeroom is twenty minutes and each block is about seventy-five minutes after that. WE have an exercise break from 10:35-11:00. Every Monday, exercise break is a flag ceremony and it’s kind of like how we do in Canada the monthly assembly announcements. Something similar to that idea. Except this one they raise the Chinese flag, the Canadian flag, and then our school’s flag. They read out some announcements or some other things. Whatever they are going on about that week. Some teachers have clubs after school. I used to and then when we had my son, I kind of took a step back from that. Typical day-to-day, 7:00 to about 5:30.
"What is the curriculum like? Did you have to make any adjustments?"
BC and Ontario Curriculum, it’s not different it’s not the same. It requires time and reading. When I first got here, I studied up on the curriculum of what I was going to be teaching and it was pretty much the same thing as Ontario. Now it’s a little bit different. Now even though they follow the same principals and pedagogy, the way that you present it to the administration, the way that you do your lesson plans, the way that you use abbreviations is all different now. Core competencies here are similar ideas to application, thinking and inquiry, understanding, communication, and knowledge. So instead of assessing marks to them they are student reflection pieces. The students are expected to use this self-reflection to improve themselves throughout their high school career. We have big ideas which we have in Ontario. But now the way that they kind of make everything match up its like… we have know, do, and understand. The same as in Ontario objectives. The know, do, and understand all come from the curriculum so basically the big idea, the curricular competency which is basically in Ontario we have the learning expectations like overall expectations and specific expectations. Here we used to have something similar but now they call it curricular competencies and generally they are just ambiguous statements of things that students should learn or could learn. The easiest way to explain this is BC is trying to turn every class, every unit into inquiry units. So, instead of having a structured content aspect to their education their trying to incorporate more opportunity for students to develop their own learning interests, their own pathways through the class. So, an English class doesn’t really have to have a novel study per say, or it could depend on how the teacher wants to structure it or present it. At first, I didn’t have a problem adjusting to the BC Curriculum because it was very much similar to Ontario, now every teacher is, or was, having a huge headache with it because of the fact that were being told one thing but were being expected to do another. So just like Ontario talks about fewer summative assessments, more authentic assessments, things like that. That was always a goal I felt in education with BC, but it’s just not one that I’m seeing through our school. So, like right now the BC Curriculum is being divvied, like its just been passed out once again. People are now taking this new curriculum and trying to relearn it. They want us to do all these assessments and they were trying to tell us to follow the curriculum, but the new curriculum doesn’t use any of those assessments. Making the adjustments is just like a cultural thing. Our school tries to appease to the idea of, “See, look at these high marks, look how hard your kids is working at our school.” We make them work hard, we make them do well. That’s what is kind of observed by the culture here, how hard and how well the students are working. That’s the big adjustment for us as teachers. There are tenure teachers come to our school and they are like, “What is wrong with me, why does this seem so much harder than usual?” It’s because of the way that they are trying to deliver the curriculum. It’s a new thing and people are still learning. Our school is pretty young, maybe twenty-five years, but ever since it started its been changing, it’s been growing. It’s got a new school here, a new school there. Admin are being moved around all the time. Teachers are coming and going. It’s really hard for a place like this to really hold true to one pedagogy or one idea with changing admin all the time. We got a new superintendent at our school and he had a lot of good ideas. He talks a real big game, but you can see it’s not easy to make the changes. As much as you want to think that your heart is in the right place and you’ve got the right ideas its not that easy. It takes a lot of time to change what is already there. You have a lot of people doing one thing and you have to start with one person doing something else. It takes a lot of adjustment depending on what kind of teacher you are, where you come from. A lot of our teachers come from Ontario, more and more teachers coming from BC now, but there are always lots of jokes being passed around like, “And then we asked the Ontario staff what they think, and the Ontario staff seemed to think…”
"Do you find that there is a difference in how students are taught? Is there a shift toward tech in the classroom or experiential learning? Is it effective?"
It’s hard to speak in general, but I’ve seen a lot of teachers take experiential learning and really go miles with it. But then there are other classrooms that don’t. It’s not something that’s really mandated in our school, it’s one of those things, with the new curriculum coming in, that people want to see, it’s something that people want to hear about. But it’s not something that is really supported yet because then you get those questions of what have you been doing for a month? Where is all of your assessment, but its like formative assessment, the kids have been working on other stuff. Sure, we could do assessment. Then you have other teachers that are making it work, putting it kind of in the middle, assessments and experiential learning but you have to be in the right class to do that. When I was doing it, I had my food and nutrition class that was the easiest way to do because that class is built on the use of experience. Versus a class like accounting or math, it’s a little bit more difficult. They have their expectations that they are trying to meet but they find ways to make a trip the theme park do geometry. I’ve heard a few different cool experiences with math and science, but I also hear a lot of people just asking them why aren’t you doing the same as everyone else. They could but everyone else is doing the things that are paper based and they aren’t utilizing experiences with the students. So I wouldn’t say that we are there yet. Its coming but were not there yet. In terms of tech, tech is growing. We don’t have smart boards but at this point smart boards are outdated. You have a projector, laser pointer, a mouse that can hook up wirelessly and you pretty much have a smart board. Tech wise some of our campuses and system have them. Our school doesn’t. but like I said we have a white board and a projector, not exactly a smart board but it accomplishes the same job. For me I use Edmodo, Socrative, Kahoots, the whole nine yards, Dropbox. When the problem is we don’t have any experts on those things here. It’s one thing for to do something really good and then stand up and say, “This is how I did it and it worked really well.” That’s good, but what happens when a English teacher goes up to an physics teacher and asks about using experiential learning in their class, but that’s the end of that conversation. The physics teacher doesn’t know anything about the English curriculum. They don’t know. It hard to get into those discussions and we don’t have a lot of Pro D time in our department that we can just focus on those topics unless they were brought up by administration to have that discussion. But at this point they don’t want to talk about technology in the classroom because they know it will cost them an arm and a leg. As far as experiential learning goes we don’t really have that expert support here yet, they’re still trying to develop teacher-to-teacher advice on that topic.
"How did you find time to travel while working at Maple Leaf? Where have you travelled?"
That the easiest question. You make time, you just make time to travel. Where have I gone. I’ve stayed in Asia while I’ve been here because I don’t think it is a part of the world I will travel to when I am older. With Asia I never really knew what to expect here and I’m glad I got to see it. I’ve been everywhere from China to Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong. The places I haven’t been are Myanmar, Borneo, Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea are the only ones I haven’t been too. If you do get a chance to go to Asia anything you want to do you can find online and I do suggest you go online to take time and look at what you want to see if you are kind of limiting yourself to one trip. If you do work in Asia, then just throw on a backpack and pick a flight and go. When you are working here it is really easy, too easy maybe.
"How did you get your work visa? What was the application process like? How long did it take?"
The work visa is actually paid for ad covered by the school that I work for. They basically just in order to meet the requirements for it I just needed to prove that I was a Canadian citizen, that I had my teaching license and that was about it. But generally, for the Chinese work visas they need a Bachelor of Arts and a teaching certificate to prove that you’re a foreign expert. The school will take care of it for you generally, most places when you go overseas should.
"So anywhere will? Not just in China?'
Yes, most places should, I had a friend who was trying to get into a school in Egypt and they were having problems with their visa just due to whatever situation at the time. They were trying to tell him, “When you get here, we’ll do it.” My friend, he is a pretty careful guy, and technically without a work visa you shouldn’t even be in that country really. But they were saying, “It’s fine, it’s normally how it goes here, it’s just a delayed process.” So, he backed out of that and later on he heard someone had gotten deported because the government showed up asking for their work visa and it wasn’t yet issued. If you ever get into a position like that tell them that you will see them later.
"How did you find out about the maple leaf school?'
When I was in my professional year, we had a job fair or an education fair come through the school and we were in the Agora Circle. It was just going from place to place, school to school. Originally, I thought I was going to be going to England and I actually had an I-Day [introduction day] offer from Engage Education. I put my name in with Maple Leaf not really knowing how I felt about it and was l just like we’ll see what happens. But they were at the job fair at Lakehead in the Agora and to be honest I forgot about my application with them until later when they called me and they were like, “So, were going to be hiring for next year, what do you think?” And I was supposed to be going to England for an interview, but this just might be as good. So, just through the Lakehead Job Fair.
"What was the application process like for them?"
Generally, a lot of these places have you apply through an agency or a recruitment centre if it’s overseas. This one in particular with Maple Leaf, they have recruiters in Canada who go from school to school usually or they pay us teachers to recruit new teachers as well. They will give us a small stipend if one of our friends decides to go to Maple Leaf and work there as well if
they say they were referred by so-and-so. So, Maple Leaf is a big enough school that they can afford to do their own recruitment. But generally speaking, you’ll go to a job fair and there will be an agency there for most other schools that was hired to recruit for that school. The application is paper-based first. When you go into the interview, they will ask you more details about your practice or if you’re a first-year teacher. They will ask you what your aspirations are, if you’ve ever travelled before, are you able to acclimatize to a new environment well, what are your goals? They will ask you about your practice, but I know as well as you do that it’s a different world and as long as you have your head on your shoulders. When I was applying with Maple Leaf, they were asking me questions and I asked them if their classrooms were really that similar to what we have in Canada. My interviewer stopped for a minute and was like, “You know what, not really.” And I was like, “What would be the appropriate answer to a question like that?” And they said, “Well you answered it correctly.” And said, “That is what it would be like in Canada and I have no idea what it’s going to be like in China, what’s that going to be like?” They were like, “Well, I guess just see when you get here.” So generally, they want to see that you’re calm, cool, collect and able to handle different cultures and stuff like that. As a first-year teacher overseas they generally expect that they will mould you into the teacher that they want you to be. So, the interview process is pretty lax, there trying to really reel you in. That is what a lot of first year teachers have to remember that they [the teacher] have the upper hand in any interview, unless they have some black spot on their resume that put the hurt on them. Generally, any teacher going overseas in their first year can really pull some strings to get what they want, give or take. Salary wise maybe not, but what classes you teach and where and what campus you’re teaching on. Sometimes you can have pull on those things being a first-year teacher because most of the schools are like it’s not a big market and it’s really hard to find a lot of new teachers right now, especially with relations between China and Canada being as they are.
"What kind of supports did you have while teaching?"
It’s different now, when I first got here it was like “Well, you’re here, that’s good.” Now it’s like we have a whole system wet up for teachers where a new teacher comes in and they are partnered up with one of the returning staff who volunteers to participate in what we call the China Life Mentor Program. It’s different from school to school, and this is what worked for our school and this is what worked for our teachers in the past. It’s a relatively new thing, but the idea is now… and the reason I’m talking about this and not my personal experience is because my personal experience was very different. I showed up late and then it was a lot of very few new staff and mostly returning staff. The way it is now is what is important and that’s where they partner a new teacher and a veteran teacher up and just kind of have them show them the ropes around what is here in the city, what’s there in the city, how do things work in the school, where do you get you’re photocopying done, etc., etc. Generally, it’s a little partnership program, but other than that we have a big staff at our school campus. We have, I think one-hundred and twenty teachers or something like that, or a hundred and something teachers. So, so support from administration is always a little bit harder, you can get it, but you have to go and find them. They’re busy folks and if you are a new teacher and having issues and the admin hasn’t found you, you can always go and find them. Everyone is on a first name basis for the most part. Everyone lives in a stone throws distance of each other for the most part. So usually it’s a pretty close-knit community for better or for worse. Support systems are here, its just what you make of it. There are people who go off and do their own thing. Then there are people who put back into the system what they got out of it. There are people who just come and go as they please. The system has supports and they are here
"What were the accommodations like?"
When I first got here into Dalian, I was in boys campus and it’s a mixed bag really. So international schools will put you up and others will give you an allowance. Ours is a bit different because back then their salary was really competitive so really no one cared about accommodation. They used to give us a discount on housing so we would stay on campus. They had two campuses where I am; boys’ and girls’ campus. We are split up just because our campus is so big and it’s a bit of a situation of the dormitories, they weren’t really organized before, so they cut everything in half, boys and girls. When I got here, I was on boys’ campus and I was on the first floor. China has really nice places, some really nice places, everything is apartments though, there are no houses here. That’s not really a thing. People don’t rent out houses. China is very much an apartment country. There was a famous poem written called “Apartment House” and when I read them, I know they are not about China, but I imagine that they were. So apartments are, number one, small, very small to big, very big. Very small would be bathroom, living room, and bedroom pretty much that’s it. The bedroom is like a wash closet, the bedroom and living room are technically like a bachelor pad. That’s really small. When I got here, I had a two bedroom, like pretty big place. The first night there, bedbugs. Second night there, I slept on the couch trying to get away from the bedbugs, still got bedbugs. Also had these little creepy-crawly centipede looking things running across my feet every so often. That kind of bugged me, so for two weeks I spent with the property manager trying to get rid of the bedbugs. There was a veteran teacher who was living on the top floor of that building and he said he had just gotten rid of his bed bugs. So I thought I need to get out of this place. So I did. I was there in September and I moved out in November. Part of me didn’t understand what took me so long to get out because then I did find a nice place on the first floor of a new complex. Pretty much a brand new apartment. It was a bit cold in winter because I didn’t want to pay for the heating. I was like, “Winter? What’s winter? It’s not that bad?” But yes it does get pretty cold. I should have bought
the heating. They have really nice places here, and then they have places that are not so nice. The school, they generally tell you, “Well you can come stay on our campus or you can make arrangements to move off campus on your own, out of your own pocket.” So, that’s what I have done every year after I moved out. Some teachers like living on the newer campus teacher dorms, but even then, for me the property manager is a bit of sleaze. I like being walking distance from the school and I kind of feel you’re coming home after work and going to work. There are teachers who I know that have complained about that. Back in the day they were like, “I don’t like living at work.” And that is exactly what happens where you’re staying in your office until seven o’clock at night because it’s only a stone throw away. Or the Wi-Fi works better in your office than it does in your apartment on the dorm campus. That’s the other thing too, having that separation between work is important. So, the school does have places for your to stay or you can move off of campus, either way we pay out of pocket for our accommodations.
"What were some of the challenges you faced and how did you overcome them? "
There were a lot of challenges, five years, a lot of challenges. The biggest challenge, I would say, just spending. Huge challenge there. You have got money and you want to spend it and not save it. So, for that it just came down to meeting my wife and then kind of prioritizing my trips. Seeing that if I saved up instead of doing a trip every weekend, I could do a really nice trip in February. Things like that. So, spending was a big one. Language wasn’t much of a barrier for me because I enjoy learning languages. For me when I got here a lot my friends asked me if I speak Chinese and I didn’t. They wondered how I could communicate so well, and you have to be willing to listen. Sometimes listening is more than just words. So, language wasn’t much of a barrier. Food wasn’t much of a barrier. I eat everything and I love Chinese food. Work was a barrier. Our campus, our school, is never ending work and a lot of us weren’t really taught or shown how to leave work at work. It became a bit of a problem where a lot of our teachers were stressed. With no time to do anything, because back in the day we were expected to assess, assess, assess, assess. Not just diagnostic assessment, not just formative assess, we had copious amounts of summative assessment and it was outrageously ridiculous. They never taught how to time manage, and some of us kind of sought out help and checked things out and educated ourselves a bit further and that we had some leeway with what we did in class. It was hard to get that support from the school because we had a huge turnover in administration at the time and unless they were teaching the same things we were teaching, they wouldn’t really know what we were talking about unless we sat down with them and gave them a piece of mind. But, just how much work was involved and how to leave it at work rather than take it with you every night and spending, that was basically it for me. Some teachers have complained that the food is too oily. But it depends on the person really, but for me I’m not a difficult person to adapt. So just spending and work. And if you do go somewhere, appreciate the money you have and don’t take advantage of it too much. Make sure you learn that you don’t live to work.
"What is your classroom like and what does a typical day look like?"
So, I’m one of the fortunate teachers, I have my own classroom which is great. I think the first four years here I always shared a classroom. Our classrooms aren’t really our own, we aren’t allowed to do much to them. They don’t like when we put stuff on the walls because it wrecks the paint. We have two Bristol boards, no smartboard, we have a projector. Generally, I make it work for me. Decorating my class was the hardest part because every so often you seen your stuff come off the Bristol board and replaced with some random stuff. Then you find out your class is also a homeroom class and that they had to put something up. Generally, if you’re teaching four blocks of something that you’re in the same classroom for they will try to keep in that classroom which is nice. If you wanted to get a smartboard or something like that or a bookshelf, generally, you have to do that yourself. It’s not easy, you could, but it’s not easy. I use a lot of whiteboards, like miniature whiteboards for student to student. Classroom size is the best this year. The biggest I have is twenty-eight. The smallest I’ve got is twenty-five. In the past I’ve had somewhere between an average between twenty-eight students. The smallest class I’ve ever had in the past was for an English class of maybe twenty-six or twenty-seven and the largest class was thirty-two in my first year. So, this is by far the best year Ive had. My class isn’t quite my own, but I make it work. I’ve got a projector and that’s really all I need. Most of the students are doing a student-to-student activity. Each of my students have a cell-phone. Some of them have an iPad too. Each have a laptop that was part of their tuition at our school. So for the most part I use Edmodo which is an online classroom. But I use that for the most part and pass everything to my students through there. They all laugh and get very upset at times because I try to leave all of my notes on Edmodo. Once in a while they will be like, “Sir can I get this on paper?” And I’m like, “I could do that, I could put it on paper for you, but how many trees are we going to kill in the process of this?” They start laughing and are like, “Sir, please. Look at how many other teachers are printing off three-hundred pages a day.” I try to go paperless, but its difficult to say to the least. Classroom, not bad, day-to-day we have to be to the office for 7:30am and were expected to be there until 4:30pm. Classes end at 3:40pm and we have office hours from 3:40-4:30. Were expected to hold at least one tutorial session a week. No one is really sure what exactly that entails, but each teacher does try to utilize that for the students because the students generally do need that extra help. Usually I try to get to the office by 7:00am, but sometimes depending on how my son is being in the morning or how late I sleep in I’ll be there at 7:00 or 7:30. Our homeroom starts at 7:40. Homeroom is twenty minutes and each block is about seventy-five minutes after that. WE have an exercise break from 10:35-11:00. Every Monday, exercise break is a flag ceremony and it’s kind of like how we do in Canada the monthly assembly announcements. Something similar to that idea. Except this one they raise the Chinese flag, the Canadian flag, and then our school’s flag. They read out some announcements or some other things. Whatever they are going on about that week. Some teachers have clubs after school. I used to and then when we had my son, I kind of took a step back from that. Typical day-to-day, 7:00 to about 5:30.
"What is the curriculum like? Did you have to make any adjustments?"
BC and Ontario Curriculum, it’s not different it’s not the same. It requires time and reading. When I first got here, I studied up on the curriculum of what I was going to be teaching and it was pretty much the same thing as Ontario. Now it’s a little bit different. Now even though they follow the same principals and pedagogy, the way that you present it to the administration, the way that you do your lesson plans, the way that you use abbreviations is all different now. Core competencies here are similar ideas to application, thinking and inquiry, understanding, communication, and knowledge. So instead of assessing marks to them they are student reflection pieces. The students are expected to use this self-reflection to improve themselves throughout their high school career. We have big ideas which we have in Ontario. But now the way that they kind of make everything match up its like… we have know, do, and understand. The same as in Ontario objectives. The know, do, and understand all come from the curriculum so basically the big idea, the curricular competency which is basically in Ontario we have the learning expectations like overall expectations and specific expectations. Here we used to have something similar but now they call it curricular competencies and generally they are just ambiguous statements of things that students should learn or could learn. The easiest way to explain this is BC is trying to turn every class, every unit into inquiry units. So, instead of having a structured content aspect to their education their trying to incorporate more opportunity for students to develop their own learning interests, their own pathways through the class. So, an English class doesn’t really have to have a novel study per say, or it could depend on how the teacher wants to structure it or present it. At first, I didn’t have a problem adjusting to the BC Curriculum because it was very much similar to Ontario, now every teacher is, or was, having a huge headache with it because of the fact that were being told one thing but were being expected to do another. So just like Ontario talks about fewer summative assessments, more authentic assessments, things like that. That was always a goal I felt in education with BC, but it’s just not one that I’m seeing through our school. So, like right now the BC Curriculum is being divvied, like its just been passed out once again. People are now taking this new curriculum and trying to relearn it. They want us to do all these assessments and they were trying to tell us to follow the curriculum, but the new curriculum doesn’t use any of those assessments. Making the adjustments is just like a cultural thing. Our school tries to appease to the idea of, “See, look at these high marks, look how hard your kids is working at our school.” We make them work hard, we make them do well. That’s what is kind of observed by the culture here, how hard and how well the students are working. That’s the big adjustment for us as teachers. There are tenure teachers come to our school and they are like, “What is wrong with me, why does this seem so much harder than usual?” It’s because of the way that they are trying to deliver the curriculum. It’s a new thing and people are still learning. Our school is pretty young, maybe twenty-five years, but ever since it started its been changing, it’s been growing. It’s got a new school here, a new school there. Admin are being moved around all the time. Teachers are coming and going. It’s really hard for a place like this to really hold true to one pedagogy or one idea with changing admin all the time. We got a new superintendent at our school and he had a lot of good ideas. He talks a real big game, but you can see it’s not easy to make the changes. As much as you want to think that your heart is in the right place and you’ve got the right ideas its not that easy. It takes a lot of time to change what is already there. You have a lot of people doing one thing and you have to start with one person doing something else. It takes a lot of adjustment depending on what kind of teacher you are, where you come from. A lot of our teachers come from Ontario, more and more teachers coming from BC now, but there are always lots of jokes being passed around like, “And then we asked the Ontario staff what they think, and the Ontario staff seemed to think…”
"Do you find that there is a difference in how students are taught? Is there a shift toward tech in the classroom or experiential learning? Is it effective?"
It’s hard to speak in general, but I’ve seen a lot of teachers take experiential learning and really go miles with it. But then there are other classrooms that don’t. It’s not something that’s really mandated in our school, it’s one of those things, with the new curriculum coming in, that people want to see, it’s something that people want to hear about. But it’s not something that is really supported yet because then you get those questions of what have you been doing for a month? Where is all of your assessment, but its like formative assessment, the kids have been working on other stuff. Sure, we could do assessment. Then you have other teachers that are making it work, putting it kind of in the middle, assessments and experiential learning but you have to be in the right class to do that. When I was doing it, I had my food and nutrition class that was the easiest way to do because that class is built on the use of experience. Versus a class like accounting or math, it’s a little bit more difficult. They have their expectations that they are trying to meet but they find ways to make a trip the theme park do geometry. I’ve heard a few different cool experiences with math and science, but I also hear a lot of people just asking them why aren’t you doing the same as everyone else. They could but everyone else is doing the things that are paper based and they aren’t utilizing experiences with the students. So I wouldn’t say that we are there yet. Its coming but were not there yet. In terms of tech, tech is growing. We don’t have smart boards but at this point smart boards are outdated. You have a projector, laser pointer, a mouse that can hook up wirelessly and you pretty much have a smart board. Tech wise some of our campuses and system have them. Our school doesn’t. but like I said we have a white board and a projector, not exactly a smart board but it accomplishes the same job. For me I use Edmodo, Socrative, Kahoots, the whole nine yards, Dropbox. When the problem is we don’t have any experts on those things here. It’s one thing for to do something really good and then stand up and say, “This is how I did it and it worked really well.” That’s good, but what happens when a English teacher goes up to an physics teacher and asks about using experiential learning in their class, but that’s the end of that conversation. The physics teacher doesn’t know anything about the English curriculum. They don’t know. It hard to get into those discussions and we don’t have a lot of Pro D time in our department that we can just focus on those topics unless they were brought up by administration to have that discussion. But at this point they don’t want to talk about technology in the classroom because they know it will cost them an arm and a leg. As far as experiential learning goes we don’t really have that expert support here yet, they’re still trying to develop teacher-to-teacher advice on that topic.
"How did you find time to travel while working at Maple Leaf? Where have you travelled?"
That the easiest question. You make time, you just make time to travel. Where have I gone. I’ve stayed in Asia while I’ve been here because I don’t think it is a part of the world I will travel to when I am older. With Asia I never really knew what to expect here and I’m glad I got to see it. I’ve been everywhere from China to Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong. The places I haven’t been are Myanmar, Borneo, Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea are the only ones I haven’t been too. If you do get a chance to go to Asia anything you want to do you can find online and I do suggest you go online to take time and look at what you want to see if you are kind of limiting yourself to one trip. If you do work in Asia, then just throw on a backpack and pick a flight and go. When you are working here it is really easy, too easy maybe.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)