Excitement

Throwback post from Learning About Learning, a previous blog about my journey through post-secondary education.

I'm sure this won't be my only post like this, but at this moment, I am especially filled with excitement for my chosen profession.

I have to write a curriculum unit for class and I am doing a Grade 4 unit on habitats and humans. I have gotten through planning Lesson 7, and I am enjoying myself tremendously (despite the late nights of lesson planning). All I keep thinking was, "I wish I could be using this with real students instead of filing it into a binder and handing it in for a mark."

I had a similar feeling with my Learning Center, created for the same class, pictured below. It's time to be in a classroom with children! At the same time, I know that these sorts of assignments are preparing me for the moment that I do step in front of a class.

In class, our professor was telling a story about a teacher candidate who just liked to lecture - that was his preferred teaching style. He then said that the majority of teachers have a preferred instruction method. At first, I was thinking "Hmmm... I don't have one. Is that bad?" but by the time I got to my sixth lesson, I discovered it. I love kinesthetic, active learning. I love having students out of their seats; I love assigning them characters to play in a demonstration, or taking them outside! I want to make learning fun and exciting and intriguing. This spurs me on through these assignments, to develop my skills and abilities to lead students in learning.

Redemption

Throwback post from Learning About Learning, a previous blog about my journey through post-secondary education.

For my Curriculum Foundations class, we were asked to read and respond to a chapter of Wolter's book Creation Regained. It was thought-provoking, encouraging, and sobering.

One favorite quote (of many) in this chapter is that “...in the name of Christ and his kingdom Christians must now employ all their God-given means in opposing the sickness and demonization of creation – and thus in restoring creation – in anticipation of its final 'regeneration' at the second coming....This directive holds for our private lives... but also for such public endeavors as work in advertising, labor-management relations, education, and international affairs. Christ lays his claim upon it all; nothing is exclude from the scope of his kingship.”

I think this is an integral part of living out faith in a secular world – being in the world but not of it. Many times, the secularization of the world in general and perhaps North American education in specific can seem quite complete – however, Christ still lays his claim upon it all. Based on that premise, how do we as Christian teachers go forward? Not to indoctrinate but to live our hearts and our lives in a way that reflects our relationship with him? Especially in the public system? Wolters also says that “restoration will not necessarily oppose literacy or urbanization... Instead, the coming of of the kingdom of God demands that these developments be reformed, that they be made answerable to their creational structure, and that they be subjected to the ordinances of the Creator.”

This gives us a new perspective – our classrooms are places where God's restoration comes. Our curriculum is not just curriculum, but the opportunity to reveal God's glory and redemption. Moments of difficult behavior by students can be more than that – it can be an opportunity for restoration of relationships and learning life lessons (restorative justice!). Our mandate then, more than fulfilling Ontario Curriculum Guidelines and more than maintaining classroom management, is to acknowledge God's kingship over our classrooms and be instruments of His kingdom where ever He places us.