As an educator, I see myself as a learner first. It is paramount to me that I work with peers, mentors, fellow educators, and students to better understand the impact that I and lessons I facilitate have on student learning. Through examining this feedback with humility, I continue to evolve my teaching to best meet the needs of the learners that I work with.
Thoughts from Fellow Educators
Each week that I hda students, I would pass out feedback forms to the chaperones in my group that they would use to help me build my teaching craft. Often times, the chaperones were teachers from the schools that were visiting IslandWood, giving them a unique perspective and helping me to gain insight from a variety of educators with diverse experiences.
There are a few aspects of one of these forms I would like to share. This was after a teaching week fairly early in the school year, and this teacher not only was helpful throughout the week but used this form as a way to give me details about what was working in my approach and what I could do better next time.
"On Wed, when Emma did a trail game, students had a slightly better time staying together. Continuous engagement is really important."
This felt like a valuable observation because it affirmed that my choice to try something new in the middle of the week was an adjustment that fostered conditions for the group working even better together. In the following teaching weeks, I ensured that I remained flexible and creative when approaching different groups of students with different needs.
"When seeing behavior you don't want, instead of pointing out what you don't want to see, tell them what you would like to see. If you tell them what they're doing wrong, or what not to do, they don't have a clear understanding of what they should do."
This was so useful to contextualize for me! At this time, early in my teaching experience, I think I was so worried about safety and making sure that kids were respectful of the natural environment that I got myself into a deficit mindset. After receiving this feedback, I made sure that I would model what type of behaviors were safe and expected so that students understood the boundaries I was creating more clearly.
Letters from past students
When I received these letters from a group of students, I felt so grateful for the time I had spent with them and the things we had learned together. There are a few comments from these notes that felt especially impactful to me as an educator:
"You'd always take your time to respect and look at nature."
Part of my approach to teaching in the out-of-doors is practicing slowness and thoughtful engagement with the world around us. I try to incorporate mindful breathing, reflective exercises, and frequent trail stops as moves to be inclusive of all bodies and minds who may benefit from slower pacing or more time and ways to process information, and as a way to model what it looks like to let gratitude and wonder be a guide to making sense of the world. Often, the narrative that gets perpetuated about outdoor recreation can be one of rigor and struggle, and I continuously attempt to disrupt those narratives to make room for other ways of being and relating to our Earthly kin. When I'm out in the field with learners, I hope to always encourage others to share moments of slowness and mindfulness with me and their community to help us find ways of connecting to our world.
"I really appreciate that you made me comfortable and you made it fun."
Before learning can happen, physical, mental, and emotional needs must be met. In the context of IslandWood, having 4 days with a group of students made me realize just how important it is to have meaningful relationships with a community of learners and allows for me to understand more about what inspires and challenges the community and how to meet individuals needs. Hearing that students felt comfortable with me is one of the best pieces of feedback I can imagine. I continue to learn more about how I can make inclusive, comfortable learning environments for all of the learners I work with.
"Thank you for being the right amount of strict. Thank you for being there."
Part of my personal pedagogy is prioritizing relationality over punishment. Again, the context of the School Overnight Program at IslandWood leaves such little time to gain the trust of students, but that doesn't stop complex situations and conflicts from arising within the learning community. When a student has a hard time paying attention, may be acting disruptive, or enters a conflict with another student, my goal as their instructor was to check in with students to see what might be going on with the hopes of diffusing tensions, understanding the needs of that student, and giving space for big emotions that might be coming up, rather than jumping to discipline as a quick fix. With this in mind, I continue to prioritize trying to understand more about my learners so that I can guide them through activities in ways that make sense for them and empower them to do their best.
"I appreciated how flexible you were with the plans."
When I plan and set up activities, I try to imagine all of the ways that engagement might look and being explicit with students about what I expect from them and allow room for individuals to decide for themselves what they'd like to get out of activity. However, if I have something planned that seems like it doesn't match the energy of the group, or if I have a lot of requests for something that I didn't have planned, I try my best to accomodate the needs and desires of the community. Sometimes this looks like taking a break for some free play time in a field or wild zone, and sometimes it looks like winging a lesson I didn't have prepped for the day and making the most out of it. In this way, I continue to practice sharing power with my learners and thus allowing their learning to become more personal and meaningful.
"You have a great way of explaining things."
When I first started teaching, one of the things I was most nervous for was how I would approach discussing complex ideas with learners. Right away, I saw the benefits of facilitating individual, small, and large group discussions and reflections instead of relying on myself to explain every last detail of something. Still, in the times where explanations are needed, to introduce games or activities with specific expectations and boundaries, I work to engage learners and make room for the communities input if they know something I don't or have other ideas on how something can be done. I continue to lean on empowering learners to be their own experts while keeping my explanations to the point, thoughtful, and accessible.