Images speak volume to many areas in life. With photography being a passion of mine, I am often on the other side of the camera. It was challenging to find images that speak to my journey to becoming a teacher, but I have some that do, and some that I have taken that interpret my journey to becoming a teacher and growing within myself.
This picture was taken when I graduated high school. My school honored its Indigenous students with a dinner and celebration of our successes, learning, and completion of high school. It was where I received my Metis sash, which represents the Metis people, and the Metis Lifelong Learning framework is something I wish to use in my teaching career, as well as the promotion of Metis identity, culture, and tradition.
This image is of myself and my Aunt, who I taught how to sail and roll up a sail for storage. It represents my work that I did for the summer of 2018 teaching youth how to sail. It was arguably the beginning of my teaching career, and inspired me to consider teaching in hindsight. Teaching sailing is challenging, especially for youth, but seeing them successfully perform a maneuver brought me a lot of joy
This image is of my wife Luciana, who I have been teaching about photography. Though I am by no means a professional photographer, my wife has very much learned from me about the subject of photography. My approach to teaching her is/was essentially handing her my camera and giving her a few pointers then letting her do her best. Her images have turned out excellent. I think this image reflects my liking for the strategy of hands-on learning, as well as it can be challenging to teach something subjective like photography, so it demonstrates competency in understanding students’ unique work and creativity.
This image is of my film camera. My father gifted it to me at my request. My father is who taught me photography and instilled my passion for it. I wanted to learn more, and so I took up shooting and developing film; vastly different techniques compared to digital photography. I hope to strive for in my teaching career to allow students to experience new activities and things to try, and I hope from their experience, they may find new and exciting things to be passionate about.
Finally, this image is from my wedding day. Though it does not pertain directly to teaching, it arguably could represent the learning I have had to take to get to where I am today. My wife has taught me many things, and I think as a teacher, we must always remember that it is a two way street. Our students will teach us so much, and we must be willing to accept and learn from them.