Professional Learning : In this class so far I have learned much about myself and more importantly my identity as an educator. Truth and reconciliation is something I know that needs to be addressed. Only by learning from our past mistakes and apologizing can we work together as one and learn from our mistakes. After watching and discussing “Muffins for Granny” in our seminar discussion groups, we came up with questions that were created to help guide in truth and reconciliation. A question was “How do we help address change by not pushing our boundaries” ? Looking at assignment The Journey to Reconciliation I knew I had learned about the horror’s of Residential schools to a certain degree but there was much more work to be done, not only did I have to understand a wider view of the impact of Residential Schools but how I would start my own journey. I based my assignment off a belief of light to dark to light again, in which a color scheme of white, light grey, dark grey, black, dark grey, light grey, and back to white again. I did this to show that Culture, family, heritage were embraced by Indigenous ways of life and then came the people with the fancy shirts that took that all away and destroyed it, even after the time in the school or the black section of my painting hate and loss were the only two things left for theses survivors to know. Lastly ended with light as we, future educators must bring awareness to this issues and not be afraid to speak out when this issue is discussed. I will always acknowledge the wrongs that have been done but seek to embrace an Indigenous way of healing and learning.

Unfortunately this is not the only aspect of discrimination that is present in the classroom. Everyday students must face racism, oppression, and insults that are carelessly thrown out by someone who does not realizes the impact they may have on those students. We as educators must be well prepared to face up against theses issues. Looking at a discussion within our seminar group about power and how people seek power, the trauma it causes. I understand that power will always be part of education but handling it the right way to benefit the student is the important part.

Another large part of education is embracing the fact that changes will be present, after all the only constant in this world is change. Perhaps the largest form of this we see is in technology. Phones, tablets, and so many more devices are part of peoples life, including students lives. Going on the principal that once kids are aware of this digital almost escapist world we can use technology to help students keep that comfort while integrating it into our necessary aspects of the curriculum such as English, math, and art. I have seen both in my time as a high school student and observing within my field placement that technology can used to help parents through communication and reminders on a program called “SEE-SAW” Other examples are iPads used in various activity stations for counting numbers in math. These were for younger grades I was observing but in my time at high school I used technology almost everyday. Assignments and papers were handed in on Google Docs and larger assignments on Turnitin which was useful as checks for plagiarism in Assignments. Overall I fully support the role of technology in the classroom as ways of technology grow and evolve.

With education comes a wide variety of branches to understand with it such as Treaty education, inclusive education, technology education, and anti oppressive education to name some. Over all to understand these aspects requires a lot of learning and lots of questions that I have faith will be answered in my ECS journey.