From our first teacher competency https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/teachered/competencies-12/ “1) develop an awareness of your worldview and how this relates to others’ worldviews“
TEACHER IDENTITY
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE ‘EFFECTIVE’?
To me being effective means to use your time efficiently in a way that there is minimal unnecessary downtime and for students to be able to learn effectively and be encouraged to continue learning and to try again when they make mistakes.
WHAT CHARACTERISTICS DOES AN EFFECTIVE TEACHER HAVE?
An effective teacher has the ability to pivot when the planned method of teaching is not working for a class, is able to work with students to be able to grow their learning rather than taking on all of the work for the student. An effective teacher also understands that they also need to continue learning to be able to teach their students.
WHAT KIND OF TEACHER DO I WANT TO BECOME?
I want to be a teacher who cares for their students. I want to have my teaching style be a collaboration between me and the students for their learning rather than me telling them all how they will learn something. I want it to be a collaborative way of students being able to show me how they learned the material. I want my students to feel safe and accepted in the space and not terrified of making mistakes.
WHAT DO I NEED TO LEARN TO BECOME AN EFFECTIVE TEACHER?
I need to learn to be confident in myself as a teacher and actually see my abilities and know honestly were I need to continue learning and when I need to further my learning in certain areas so that I can still be present while teaching. I need to learn how to evaluate and assess a variety of different ways students may show their learning even when they are not the conventional ways that are assessed or evaluated. I also need to understand how to use technology better so that I can use a computer and not have lots of wasted time from me not being able to figure something out.
WHAT ARE MY BELIEFS ABOUT TEACHING (MY TEACHING PHILOSOPHY)?
I believe that teachers should be safe spaces for their students though they do need to be able to make the call when a situation needs to be reported to the correct people and also need to be able to draw a line with their students for what the boundaries for that safe space and for the teacher as well. I believe that students should be able to try something again even if it is a redo and re submit as long as it is within the time frame of not the last minute and as long as the student has taken accountability for their work and discussed what needs to be corrected or changed with the teacher. I believe that every student can learn but just may need more time or different ways of learning or expressing their learning to show their abilities.
WORLD VIEW
WHAT IS A WORLDVIEW?
To me a worldview is what you have build up from your family community and life experience to how you see and interact with the world around you.
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR WORLDVIEW?
My worldview is influenced by me being an Agender individual meaning I do not feel like I have a gender so my views on others with their gender identity is really open and trying to be respectful of how everyone identifies. I am someone with has struggled socially for most of my life so I try to be very accommodating to everyone for their social behaviours knowing that not everyone understands how awkward something is, I will tell them if something comes off a certain way but I try not to assume ill intent. I view the planet as something that we need to protect rather than killing it off the way we have been.
I feel a lot of my worldview can also be summed up quite well by an Optimus prime quote “ Freedom is the right of all sentient beings” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2MXa-eUz2cAt 1:51), I believe that everyone should be able to express themselves as long as it is not harming others.
WHILE THINKING ABOUT YOUR OWN WORLDVIEW, ALSO CONSIDER THE IMPACT OF YOUR ETHNOCULTURE, SOCIOECONOMIC, GEOPOLITICAL, AND SPIRITUAL IDENTITIES
I have grown up my entire life in the same town and have had both parents working my whole life and never needed to worry about where food was coming from. I was able to go through school in a French immersion program with support from my family. I was raised agnostic and my parent never really talked about religion though now as an adult I have a rather land based spiritual belief system that grows and changes with me as I learn and grow as a person as well.
WHY, AS A TEACHER, IS IT IMPORTANT TO BE AWARE OF YOUR OWN WORLDVIEW, AS WELL AS THOSE OF YOUR STUDENTS AND SCHOOL COMMUNITY?
It is important to be aware of your own worldviews to be able the keep in check if your worldviews are starting to seep into your teaching too much especially in ways that can cause harm to others especially if your world view is different from your students’ worldview. Being aware of your students’ worldviews can help form relationships with your students by knowing them and knowing what drives them to be who they are and how they are and knowing why they may behave certain ways and to not take offense when something is not how you would expect it.
WHEN CAN YOU CONSIDER IT TO BE NECESSARY TO CHALLENGE THE WESTERN WORLDVIEW AS IT IMPACTS THE K-12 EDUCATION SYSTEM?
It is necessary to challenge the western worldview in the education system constantly, as a teacher it is important to also consider who is telling the story. When teaching something since you will have so many different students from different walks of life and it is important for those students to also feel represented. So it is important to question the curriculum and also model to students that it is good to question things and examine what parts are affected by certain groups interests. I find it valuable to spend time with students working together to find where there are differences between their own worldviews versus the curriculum and also pointing out when other worldviews are being represented for students as well.
WHAT ASPECTS OF THE BC CURRICULUM REINFORCE OR CHALLENGE A WESTERN WORLDVIEW?
The concept of understand/know/do that is in the curriculum resembles some of the indigenous ways of learning that we looked at in social studies. Though the very regimented way that we still have for the curriculum does put a time limit on learning certain skills even though learning is not always linear like the western worldview likes to present things as. The ways we are now being pushed to do things in a cross curricular way can be seen more as an everything is connected way which is far different than the very western way of everything being its own separate box. The incorporation of the First peoples Principles also helps to begin to challenge the western worldview.
