My overall field experience was surprising and very inspiring. I was shocked by how many different things I enjoyed and how different it was going to a school and viewing it from a teacher’s side versus when I was a student. At first, going into this, I was honestly expecting myself not to like it. I had myself in the mindset of only wanting to teach older students and only enjoying teaching higher-level classes like calculus. However, I was astonished when I immensely enjoyed being with the younger students doing all sorts of subjects like simple art projects and even being with kindergartens singing and dancing. I learnt through this experience that putting myself out of my comfort zone helps me open myself to new ideas and learn more about myself. I am now unsure if I want to only be a secondary teacher. I also got to form so many great relationships with a bunch of the students and learnt how it was much easier to help the students when I broke that barrier of being strictly a teacher but also a friend to them.

Some beliefs of teaching and learning that emerged were the importance of representation and inclusion. I always knew this was an essential factor but did not expect how greatly represented it was within the school system. In my elementary school, we had nothing like this and no open discussions about diversity. It may not have been as openly discussed in our society when I was younger. Still, even in high school, when I felt it became a much more extensive discussion in our world, my school barely discussed those topics and had the slightest amount of representation. Everything in our society affects these students as they grow up, and they need to be educated on significant events in our society and how important inclusion is so they can reflect these crucial aspects of our society in their future careers and lives.

It surprised me how much I enjoyed being with the lower grades and experiencing helping the students with subjects other than the ones I enjoyed doing. Again, it surprised me with all the fantastic representation and the flags, posters, and boards. The flags also had a descriptive sign beside describing what the flag means, turning these flags into a learning experience to educate the students on what these different lgbtq+ flags represent. Some questions I have now are how, as a future math teacher, I can ensure that even though my classroom will be mainly math related, I can have a safe classroom for the students and also be open to discussions about societal topics such as diversity and inclusion. I need to learn more about how the environment in a high school with older students differs from the elementary schools I have been in and the teaching methods I can use since I didn’t do much actual teaching in this field.

Overall, this experience was a great way to challenge me and expose myself to different options I have for being an educator. It showed me how much I want to be an educator and made me more excited to have my own classroom and be able to teach future students and be their inspiration like some of my past educators have been to me.