The main thing, of course, always is the fact that there is only one of you in the world, just one, and if that is not fulfilled, then something has been lost.

– Martha graham

This quote resonated with me because it highlights the belief that each student has a unique voice to contribute and the role of the teacher is to create an environment where students can discover, develop, and practice expressing those voices.  Education should empower students to explore the roles they wish to play in society, provide them with opportunities to develop the skills, knowledge, and confidence needed to succeed, and present at least one possible path towards achieving their goals.  

I would foster student growth through class wide inquiry based projects which allow students to explore and pursue their own interests while developing their voices and experimenting with different roles that contribute to the classroom community.   

One example of such a project would be to explore the benefits of naturalizing part of the school grounds.  Working with local Indigenous communities, students would explore Indigenous knowledge and philosophies as well as scientific inquiry about the local habitat, impact of humans on that habitat, and strategies for minimizing that impact.   This project would also cover the following cross curricular areas: PE (explore natural elements that would help with physical development such as rocks and trees and the arrangement thereof), social studies (advocating for change, map reading and drawing), ADST (designing the naturalized area), arts (creating visual representations of the design), language arts (developing a presentation to advocate for desired change; and math (calculating proportions – what proportion of the school grounds will be naturalized, and what proportion will remain lawn – and finances/budgeting).

A cross curricular project design enables students to view the issue from multiple perspectives.  This approach ensures that every student can make meaningful contributions to the class’ learning and project development in ways that maximize their strengths.

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Writing my philosophy of education clarified for me that, in order to truly foster the development of the Core Competencies in students, we need to embrace a more personalized and inclusive approach to education. Every student is unique and it is only by recognizing and valuing this diversity that  we can create an environment that empowers each student to reach their full potential.