My Adventures in Education

As the title suggests, yesterday was the last day of class. With it comes a whole range of emotions. If you are a teacher, you likely know exactly what I'm talking about! If you are a teacher candidate, you'll know soon enough. Exhaustion has begun to set in - my brain knows that it's almost the summer break, so I have been hitting the snooze button more and I feel like I can't think/plan anymore! But end of year is also a little sad. I've really enjoyed my classes and the students that I have taught, so it's hard to say goodbye. Some goodbyes in my ESL class are permanent, as they are leaving for different schools or moving to different cities. This always seems to make it harder. ESL teachers are, at most times, more than just teachers. We are the first Canadian experience for many of our students, and they often come to us with questions about Canadian society, homestay/guardian issues, questions about classes and how schools work here, course selection ...

It has been a while since I last posted. Things have been very busy as the school year wraps up. For some reason June always seems to come out of nowhere, and things feel rushed and chaotic. It didn't help that my family and I chose to buy a house and have a closing date in the final month of school, but alas, life happens.  I always seem to find June a difficult month. I'm always questioning how I taught certain units, or whether or not the expectations that I had for a particular evaluation were fair. It's tough to see your students struggling without wondering if you could have done something differently. They aren't all struggling, or else it would be really clear, but I often think that if I could design the course in such a way that everyone could learn more easily, perhaps I could help the weaker ones, which still supports the strong students as well. The question always comes down to 'how.' The 'how' seems impossible. Every year, my student...