At the beginning of 2020 our Education cohort was tasked with choosing one word to focus on for our upcoming practicum and to reflect on how we want to do so, I chose the word “create.” I wanted to dive into my practicum and create new opportunities, skills, materials, and ideas, both for myself as well as my students. I wanted to push my boundaries and teaching strengths, stepping into the unknown and taking risks to better myself. I wanted to shake up the Education world and come up with something groundbreaking!
Perhaps this last hope was a little too ambitious. Change takes time and creativity cannot simply be forced. Yet this idea of creating still resonates strongly with me after this practicum has come to a close, and I believe I did make strides to achieve my goals. I took to this challenge with open arms and embraced creating original unit and lesson plans for all three of my courses, not relying on already established materials my coaching teacher had available. I wanted to do this myself and create my own style of units. I challenged myself to create content around areas and subjects I was less familiar with, and more-so to request formal observations during these lessons so that I could learn from them even more. Looking back, I believe I did fairly well: I created full unit plans and lesson plans from scratch, I conceptualized new methods of teaching materials and ideas, I pushed myself to take risks and try new things, I succeeded in engaging my students and bringing out their creativity. I created.
At the same time, I struggled with the workload, I slipped mentally at times and put other things in my personal life on hold. I pushed myself near to breaking to try and achieve greatness. Now that it is all finished, I believe it was worth it, I needed to push myself to see my limits and understand what I can and cannot do. I know I cannot create awe-inspiring lessons each day, I know I cannot commit every evening to only school work and neglect my personal relationships, I know I can find balance and that it is okay to do so. I came out of this practicum having explored my pedagogy in a whole new way, and firmly believe that I achieved great things while teaching. I created relationships with my students, interesting assignments and lessons, new opportunities to explore for the entire class, and manipulatives that I will use in my future career. I created confidence in myself, confidence in my students, pride in our learning, respect in each other, and understanding of our subjects. I created.
If I could choose a new word to reflect on my practicum experience, I don’t think I would. I believe “create” sums it up nicely. Creativity is a core component to who I am as an individual and is central to who I want to be as an educator. In the end I created an experience unlike anything I have ever done before, and from that was created a new teacher.
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