A Great Partnership: Student Teachers At Western Tech

A Brief Interview with Ms. Harris

by Koji Umezawa

There’s always been something special about “student teachers”. They are similar to "regular teachers" in the sense that they teach us things and give us marks, but it is easier to socialize with them because they don’t have the stigma of being our regular teachers. So it was a pleasant surprise for me today when I came to school to find a student teacher in my Writer’s Craft Class. Ms. Harris  from OISE at the University of Toronto is the student teacher for Mr. Bailey’s Writer’s Craft class, and was kind enough to speak with me. 

At the time of the interview, she had only been here for 2 days, but she was impressed by what she had seen of the staff and students, “I was surprised, all of the students were well-behaved, to be honest. I’ve worked in other schools where thats not the case. I was expecting some more drama, so that’s a good thing.”

Ms. Harris will be teaching a unit in Writer’s Craft on script writing, a subject she is very excited to be teaching: “I’m really passionate about that because I did a lot of film in my life experience. I took some courses like theatre, and some George Brown courses,” she said with enthusiasm. She is also excited to be working with senior students, because she has never worked with them before.

Ms. Harris will be sitting in on all of the Writer Craft classes, so students can expect to have a very passionate and attentive student teacher, who will be looking to gain as much insight out of these next few weeks as possible, “My thing is student engagement, trying to use what you’re teaching to engage the students and get feedback from them and make the classroom more democratic. I'd like, to open the class up and have some variety. I want to get some of the students'  ideas and input.”

The student teachers are with us for the next four weeks and will be helping students personally with their work as well as teaching in front of the whole class. I, for one, am looking forward to being taught by one of the new fresh faces around the school. It's a great break from the regular routine.