Kingfisher Seminar

I attended a professional development seminar for teachers that was focused on how teachers can implement education on the salmon species and how they are a keystone species in our environment. This seminar included presentations by Nan Stevens, Dr. Bill Cohen, and Dr. Milt McClaren. Indigenous perspectives, teaching methods, and scientific studies were all topics that these speakers brought forward. Although these were all very different perspectives, it was all tied together to give teacher’s the message of how important it is to raise a generation of students who appreciate the environment and have knowledge of how they can care for it.

https://www.kingfishercentre.org/salmonforever2019.html

TRU Equity Circle

TRU hosted an equity circle that was focused on bringing light to how and why we, as teachers, need to support Indigenous education. Amie McLean was the head speaker of this circle, and told a very emotional story of how she overcame obstacles in her life because of the supports that she had. This was very emotional and caused everyone in the room to think about our privileges. We then took part in a “snowball” activity where we all wrote down a question we had about equity, threw our questions into the center of the circle, picked a question up, and gathered into groups to discuss and come up with answers. We then came back together to share anything we had faced with our questions, and closed with an Indigenous practice and speech. This seminar enlightened me with the knowledge of how others may not have had the same opportunities as me to succeed, and need extra support. This is our responsibility as teachers, to ensure that there is equality in our classrooms by offering extra support to those who need it.

Different Generations in the Workplace

I attended a seminar while I was working in the forestry industry that focused on how to work alongside different generations of people. At this time I was not pursuing my career as a teacher, but as I look back, it is incredibly beneficial to my teaching practices. The speaker brought forth how there is a divide in the older generations and the younger generations with how we few equity and equality. We discussed stereotypes of each generation, challenges we face while communicating with different generations, but what stood out to me the most, was how much we can learn from each other. As teachers, we will be teaching different generations throughout our careers, sometimes working with grandparents who are guardians of our students, working along side different generations, and the list goes on. Through out the past there has always been a negative stigma surrounding the younger generations and how “spoiled” they are. The speaker of this seminar brought up something that should seem obvious to us, but he mentioned how a generation is a product of another generation, therefor we are all “in this together”.