In this course, the lessons learned were unparalleled. I found the dive into what ended up being an individual inquiry project instead of a broader project, due to the difficulty in condensed course time, to be an absolute infinity stone when it came to my own practicality in education. I found endless opportunities with the inquiry project to explore myself in ways that I hadn’t considered before; the answers were compelling. I was able to find a way to make my own personal growth and interests, connecting that with curriculum in a social studies 9 classroom to yield maximum benefit of learning in the classroom. My understanding of myself as a teacher was quite simply as an information/knowledge holder to all the answers of school, life, family, a house, etc. I think I understood that basic foundation of how I could go into a classroom, execute a lesson plan, and immediately understand how that is what teachers do everyday. However, I found that as the course went on, I could hone my practice quite a bit more and relate it to what I’ve learned in systems thinking, the iceberg model, and especially with individual inquiry. My practice has shifted to how I can use story in my classroom not always as an explicit routine, but especially as a way to orient my thinking in planning lessons and approaching things in the classroom with a different lens of how I can bring my skills from my story to the classroom and how it impacts the students positively. Ultimately, before I had this class I had little practice in how to implement my own learnings and teachings in the classroom. But with deep diving research of myself and what I value as a human being, after the class I was able to gain so much insight into story and connect that to my classroom.
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