I’m halfway through my first week of practice teaching at Eastwood Collegiate, and having a great time. The students and school are terrific, and my associate teacher (the teacher I’m paired with) is very laid back and helpful.
Just before I left Ottawa, I attended a conference on peace and global citizenship in education. The sessions were very good, and I met interesting people. One media studies teacher discussed democracy in the school system and how the Swedish school system has done a great deal to promote it. She kindly sent me a link to the article where she had learned about this.
The article is pretty exciting. It sets out in broad strokes the kind of school system in which I’d most like to teach, one where curriculum consists of general goals rather than specific expectations, where students guide and bear responsibility for their own learning and where teachers support learning rather than lecture on topics.
