Teacher Interview With Julia Cale of St.Annes Catholic Secondary School
I interviewed Julia Cale from my high school. She was my teacher for SAP (sociology anthropology psychology) and another course called World issues. Her classes were taught in such a way that i felt like i was learning, and there was far less stress involved for me as I took those courses. For this reason, I decided to interview her.
What do you bring to teaching?
I think what I bring to teaching is the variety of experiences that I had before i got into teaching, so, I didn't just go from elementary school to secondary school to university to teaching, I was out working, and so I think what I bring with me are those experiences so I think my goal with teaching is that I teach you not to need me and I don't mean that in a bad way I mean that in the way that you should always know what doing and how and why you're doing it and your job is to work on those things and use me as a guide to help you get to where you want to go. I use the saying: I can give you a fish so you can eat for a day or I can teach you to fish so you eat for life, and thats really what I believe, and plus, I'm very passionate about all the things that I teach, I'm lucky that I am able to teach variety of courses, i teach history, geography, french, religion and I teach sociology and psychology and anthropology and all those jobs and I have a background in all of those so I think I bring that passion with me so that when I'm teaching its not just memorizing and regurgitating its actually delving into the subject to see how it can be relevant in your life and making those connections, but along the way, you're getting the confidence to do the work on your own because I think unfortunately in some cases, and may its just human nature, but when somebody's in charge whether its a teacher or a boss, theres power involved, and I don't see myself at the centre or the front of the group, I see myself as among the people, and I think thats what I bring to teaching, and I realize that not everyday a good day, and that not everybody enjoys what I'm teaching, and thats fine.
What do you feel that you do differently in your classroom specifically?
I think with all of my classes again, I really try to lay it out so that the first day you come to class you know what were doing for the year, and the for each unit you get a newsletter, and it tells you what were doing, it gives you the due dates so if something comes up, you know, in three weeks if you're going somewhere you can talk to me, then I try to give you the outline for the homework because I think its important that you come to class having an idea about what were going to talk about and then to take that skill with you and then I give lots of time in the class to work on their task so I can be there in case you have any questions because my job is to make sure you do it correctly, not to give you the task and leave you hanging, and hope for the best, I've always made the analogy to the teachers here that this is kind of like the training before the race, and the race is always going to be different, theres different things that come up, but hopefully I can give you some of the tools and the training so when it comes to the race, you're able to do it to the best of your ability.
What does the phrase, "the creative process" mean to you as a teacher?
Well, its about exploring, the creative process is about exploring, because you have an idea of what you're looking for but when you actually start doing whatever you're doing you find all these interesting thing that you never knew about. So the creative process, its kind of like the way I cook, I hardly ever follow a recipe, I say oh yeah, I like this type of food, and I think I like this I like that, and I throw it all in and I mix it, and I enjoy it, and you know what, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't and sometimes the creative process works out and sometimes it doesn't, but if it doesn't work out you just say oh well I'm not gonna do that again, but its a journey, its an adventure, and I'm not scared of failing, I have failed, but its all about just letting yourself go and diving in and having fun, and using all the things you've learned and seeing what happens, because you never know what the outcome is going to be.