学校訪問記録

The teacher I was intoroduced for class observation was an amazing woman. The first impression was kind and calm. 
I found several differences between Canadian classrooms and Japanese ones on day1, but before moving to the point, let me introduce my cute teacher and her amazingness.

Her school routine starts from having her son into her Grade5/6 classroom.
Students coming early to the classroom play with her son and take care of him until the kindergarten class starts. (BTW her son is still 4 years old and so cute...)

Before I asked about her class, she aproached me and talked about her class: There are 6 kids who has diagnosed as ADHD in this class. The class size was only 25, so almost 1/4 was one of them. 

ADHD is a chronic condition marked by persistent inattention, hyperactivity, and sometimes impulsivity. ADHD begins in childhood and often lasts into adulthood. As many as 2 out of every 3 children with ADHD continue to have symptoms as adults.

ADHD Definition, What ADHD stands for, Statistics and More

But she does recognize that everyone has different needs, and tackle to have inclusive classrooom for everyone by explaing that what equity means to grade5/6 kids. 

The most striking thing jumped into my eyes was the class goal put on the wall.

"TOGETHER WE WILL CHANGE THE WORLD!"

The amazing thing here is that this goal was created by students thoughts. Not by teachers pressure. Every student has journal entries once in a while, and she encouraged students to pick up some ideas from the jounrnals. This is very cute and gives the feeling "you can achieve anything you want!"

I felt that the teacher's atmosphere contributes the positive classrooms and helps embracing different cultural backgrounds. 

So, from here, I will sum up some points I found, compared to Japanese schools.

• TDSB (Toronto Distinct School Board) is working for spreding edutech.

It was surpring to see that everyone started to bring the laptop from the library and work for their own projects in Science class.
Every teaher and student has their Google Classroom accounts and ulitize it inside and outside of class. By doing so, teachers can not only reduce papers, but also give comments immidiately, see how long students contribute to the projects, give them opportunities to use technologies, and encourage creativity. 
Students, 11-12 years old kids, were fully using PowerPoint to explain their research about bacterias for their major project, which I did probably after entering university. 
In other clasess, students did not use any textbooks. They are focusing on listening to their teachers and having their own ideas to discuss.

• Classroom arrangement 

This was another surprise for me: there is a comfy sofa in corner of the classroom!!!!
Students are allowed to move from their desks when they work for their projects as long as they don't make noize and bother others.
It would be impossible in Japanese classroom where desks are lining up straight.  
In addition, the teacher desk was pretty simple: there was nothing on the desk except for her laptop. Usually, there are a lot of materials including handouts or textbooks in Japanese teachers desks, so that was quite striking to me.

• Practicum system

When I went to the clasroom, another 2 student teachers were working with her.
Whereas Japanese practcum is very intense, which is likery to 2-3 weeks, their practicum systems, though it would depand on which school they get in, go through much longer time. One of them are on the 8 weeks in Kingergarden, 8 weeks in grade1-3, and another 8 weeks in grade 4-6. The other student teacher from York is in the 2 years programs!! 
While these periods, they make lesson plans, success curriculams, and evaluate studnts' work with teachers help. By looking through a whole year activities in school, they would be prepared to be a teacher mentally and knowledgeably.

• Teachers' working style

There was no teacher meeting after finishing all the classes in a day. As long as I recognize, there was no mornign meeting as well. 
All the information that should be shared was broadcasted through the school radio in the morning, including acknowledgement of the land and school schedule.
Staffroom was also kinda empty, so I was wondering how teachers work in school...

Although there are more things to share, I cannnot write every single detail here at once. 
After finishing 4 dyas of class observations, I will share my thoughts on Facebook or somewhere? 
I'll go to her classroom tomorrow as well, so I'd like to look at different points and hopefully ask some questions to her.
I'm so excited :) 

BTW unlike Japanese practicum or class observation, studets teacher in Canada do not have to care about what they wear: I wore a business casual style shirt, pants, and sneaker, and there was no problem. I like that.