Like any educator worth their salt I am a lifelong learner, not just of facts but of skills. As a teacher, I bring with me an array of valuable competencies.
- Critical Thinking: I take care to expose myself to as many viewpoints as possible in daily life, in my media connsumption, and in academic work as possible, in order to come as close to the truth as I can. I am a habitual analyzer of information, and never undertake anything without fully considering all available angles and reflecting on the right course of action.
- Communication, Collaboration & Teamwork: I understand the importance of teamwork, and the role that communication plays in making everything run smoothly in a professional setting. Regardless of what job I am doing, I regularly send and exchange information personally and via e-mail and other digital messaging media with team members and superiors. In the teaching context, I maintain a regular flow of communication that connects me to student, administration, guardian, and colleagues.
- Intercultural Awareness: I have lengthy experience working in settings where I was not part of the dominant culture, and working in settings where a great many cultural backgrounds were represented. I have learned to sensitively navigate intercultural settings, and take care to model such behaviour for students.
- Information & Digital Literacy: I am a regular and proficient user of technology, online and off, and am able to use technology to communicate, create, and find reliable information in an efficient manner.
- Civic, Ethical & Professional Responsibility: I hold myself to a high standard of professional responsibilty and performance, and take care to be knowledgable about and uphold the ethical guidelines of the teaching profession. I try to keep myself informed and reflective enough to act in a civically responsible manner, and see it as one of the paramount goals of teaching to help students cultivate such patterns of behaviour.
- Adaptability: I have often found myself in professional situations characterized by a high degree of unpredicatability: colleagues absent without notice, resources unavailable, technology, not working–the list goes on! Thanks to these challenges I can make the best of any situation, adapting on the fly to circumstances as they emerge.