Resilient & Resourced Educator

Sheri:  Teach with Your Heart Forward  Sheri has been a thoughtful, engaged educator for 20 years primarily in the areas of Phys Ed and Guidance.  Now, during this second lockdown to start the new year, she and her educator husband are both teaching at home at the same time that their two children are learning at home. It’s not just her children who need support, Sheri admits that even the dog has needs during the day!  The impact of the pandemic on education is a learning situation for everyone and Sheri has hopes that we will learn enough to not ...

Melissa: Challenges as Opportunities   Melissa has been involved in Early Childhood Education for almost 20 years. Over those two decades, she has worked at a university ECE Centre and a regionally-run facility while also spending some time as an ECE instructor at a local college. This educator is also heavily involved in a wide variety of community building initiatives in her region and has been recognized with the Mayor's City Builder Award for her work on a wide array of local interests and causes.             As an Early Childhood Educator in a pandemic year, ...

Maria: Learning and Growing is Key to Mental Health   In her almost 20 years of being an educator, Maria has covered a whole lot of ground! She has taught math, English and Social Science while working with students from Grades 5 -12. When she wasn’t in the classroom, Maria has facilitated professional learning workshops with the Critical Thinking Consortium, been engaged in politics and now coaches educators. Maria embodies the term life-long learner and is currently doing her doctoral studies on Climate Justice Education as it connects to the mental health of young people.       Blessed to ...

Mary: Genuine Connection Matters   Mary has been an Educational Assistant for 11 years and sees her primary role as being a caring presence for her students and a positive and encouraging support for her colleagues, Mary believes in the power of intentionally reaching out to others when things get stressful and not try to go it alone.        Back in September, Mary recalls how the anxiety around the social distancing and hygiene protocols, including the multiple layers of PPE, made it stressful to meet the students where they were at. She says that “it was so ...

Kathleen: Teachers and Students Are All Learning to Adapt   Kathleen is an energetic high school math teacher who simply loves being in the classroom! With the pandemic-led learning disruptions last spring, she sees how some students continue to struggle with the self-regulation and organizational skills needed to understand challenging math concepts. Join the conversation to hear what hopes this caring educator has for her students in a post-pandemic world.       Teaching had always been a back-up plan after a senior high school math teacher suggested she’d be good at it. But that suggestion stayed with Kathleen as ...

Gwen: Don’t Reinvent the Wheel   Gwen is a seasoned and steady educator and is also my sister! While the chaotic changes this year have proved to be the greatest challenge in her 30 years of teaching, she remains firm that there is some glimmer of reasonable hope. With vulnerability, wisdom and compassion, Gwen shares her story of her personal and professional challenges in pandemic times and how she resources herself through it all.       After a decade out of the classroom, Gwen was unsure of what she’d be teaching until the week before classes started. The stress ...

Derrick & Andrea: A Two Educator Family Derrick and Andrea are a two-educator partnership and parents of young children who have unique concerns during this pandemic school year. Concerns range from safety, to scheduling to new modes of teaching and all the way to the impact on these changes on the students.       Derrick and Andrea are a study in contrasts! One loves to have things planned out, one not so much. One works in STEM and misses the regular interaction with colleagues while the other works in a congregated class with multiple EA’s in the classroom each ...

Linda: It’s Always About the Students Linda has taught almost every elementary grade and even had a short stint as an LTO in high school which has given her 30 year career such depth and breadth. In the ups and downs of this pandemic year, her resilience is grounded in thoughtful support systems that will inspire you.       Linda‘s memorable mentor was an English teacher who challenged students with her incredibly high standards. But the true inspiration for becoming an educator wasn’t necessarily this or other influential teachers. This turned out to me Linda’s father was a school ...

Lori: How are Your Happiness Chemical Levels? With her Masters in Social Work, Lori has been an itinerant social worker with multiple schools in her portfolio but is now located at one high school of almost 1600 hundred students. Lori is a well of resources on self-aware, self-care habits.   Lori loved school and is grateful for so many positive educators who cared deeply for students and made learning fun while excelling at teaching. As she regularly deals with students and their trauma in her work, she realizes now that she also has to resource herself to continue to support ...

Kim: The Power of the Pause in Prioritizing Kim is currently a Vice Principal but, in her 23 years in education, she has been a 5-6 core teacher, a 7-8 Language Arts and Visual Art teacher as well as sharing her flair for the dramatic when teaching high school French and Drama for 11 of those years. In this pandemic school year, she values the mantra of her mentor “Lend them calm, don’t join their chaos”.       Kim recalls her Grade 10 French teacher treating her students like they truly mattered and that has stuck with her all ...