Employment:

Summer Camp Instructor

I was a summer camp instructor for two summers leading up to the BED program. This was a very challenging job due to the low funding and was used as more of a daycare than it was as a summer camp. From this experience, I drew many positives. This experience allowed me to practice providing entertainment to a group of 10-12 children on a small budget. This translates perfectly into teaching because essentially that is what we need to do. This camp mostly centered around art and sports games so I spent many hours researching games that required little to no equipment and art projects that required cheap and easy to find supplies. I found these searching skills useful when creating my lesson/unit plans because I knew of plenty of websites that have easy art projects for young children. These art projects could easily turn educational as well. For example, students creating a flower out of paper could turn into a lesson on the parts of a flower. Overall, this experience was beneficial for building my teacher persona as I was in a place of authority and responsible for maintaining peace while having fun with a group of children kinda like in a classroom.

Ballie House Tour Coordinator

I was a tour guide at a historic building in Merritt called the Ballie house for one summer. Part of my job was to plan and guide elementary school classes through a tour of the house and then play some fun educational games with them outside. This experience allowed me to get practice at planning activities for a class of 20 students for a few hours. Reflecting back on this experience now, this was beneficial for me because I got to see what it looked like from an employee’s point of view when a class goes on a field trip. Because I have been on the other side of these field trips, I know the work that goes into hosting a class even for a few hours. I think this is important for me to realize as a future teacher because we should really appreciate the places that allow us to bring our classes for field trips. Getting the class to make a thank-you card or make some form of thank-you gift would be a great way to model to your class to be thankful to the establishments that host field trips when they do happen.

Travel:

Thailand

Traveling to Thailand was a very eye-opening experience for me. This was the first time I had traveled to another country that was not the USA and I spent a month backpacking around. When I first arrived it was pretty evident I was experiencing culture shock even though I had done plenty of research beforehand. Just being around another culture really opened my mind to the fact that everyone lives differently and no way is better than the other. While I was abroad I met many people who were there to teach English in Bangkok and that really piqued my interest. I had many conversations with one friend on how she enjoyed teaching there. Hearing these experiences has had me considering going overseas to teach once I am finished school. I think this would be valuable for me because I would get to experience a different school setting and teaching from the perspective of a different culture. I believe in gaining all the perspectives I can on teaching to find what best works for me and my future students and teaching abroad would be the perfect way to expand my teaching abilities.