My best learning experience

Answering this question was challenging for me. As a new teacher, I have recently spent a great deal of time trying to recall my most significant K-12 experiences, with the objective of trying to adopt these same strategies that will leave a lasting impact on my own students. However, what I’ve ended up realizing is that it isn’t specific experiences, trips, or failures that have impacted me and helped me to grow, but it’s instead the personality of the teachers that stuck with me, and their actions outside of the classroom that I still remember today. After grade 4, my twin sister and I moved with our parents to a new school district and received a letter of permission to still attend our school, given we would be able to arrange our own transportation (the bus didn’t serve our new neighbourhood). While our parents were able to make this work for a couple of years, our mother was eventually no longer able to drive us because of her work schedule. Upon finding this out, one of our teachers offered to drive us to school every morning as she lived in our neighbourhood. The generosity, consideration, and selflessness that she demonstrated by sacrificing her personal time to chat with us on our drive to school will never be forgotten. While it was an untraditional lesson taught outside of the classroom, this learning experience demonstrated to me that our work as teachers does not have any boundaries. We are constantly called to demonstrate positivity, enthusiasm, patience, encouragement, and empathy, and I hope that if my students are unable to remember the irregular forms of the passé composé when they near the age of 30, they will still remember how I made them feel.

I believe that initiative is the most important learning skill in this day and age. As more and more individuals pursue post-secondary and even post-graduate education, setting oneself apart from others by demonstrating the capacity to innovate and take risks is becoming increasingly important. In order to develop initiative in my students and encourage them to show a deeper interest in learning, I give them ideas for ways in which they can go above and beyond what the curriculum requires. For example, I provide them with French learning resources that they can access in their own time, and encourage them to participate in French speaking and writing contests and exchange experiences.

Alex vandeHoef/Getty Images