The Alberta Teachers’ Association

Five teachers talk about the ups and downs of their chosen profession

On March 7, after a day of attending sessions at the Central East Alberta Teachers’ Convention, five teachers sat down with the ATA Magazine in a break room at the Edmonton Convention Centre. What ensued was a free-flowing and engaging conversation about the teaching profession, which produced the following excerpts.

Who was at the table?

	Charlene Nickel Grade 1, C.W. Sears Elementary School, Tofield 15 years teaching
	Madison Nickel Ecole Camrose Composite High School, Camrose First-year teacher
	Gilles Daigle CTS/PE/art/vice-principal, Killam Public School 28 years teaching
	Kristy Kaye Social studies, J.R. Robson School, Vermilion Six years teaching
	Cathy Brown Grade 6, Tofield School Nine years teaching

Why do you love teaching?

Gilles Daigle:

“The reason that I love teaching is that knowledge that I gain and the growth that I see within the people that I’m with, regardless if it’s a student or a colleague or a staff member. When you see that growth and you create those relationships, it’s a great place to be and a great profession to be in.”

Kristy Kaye:

“Coming into the education world, my aim was always to inspire every day, and what I’ve found in my six years of teaching is that the students inspire me a lot more than I think I inspire them and I learn so much from them.”

“It’s great to see them grow from when I taught them in Grade 7 to, you know, being asked to be their master of ceremony when they’re graduating in Grade 12. It’s just that gratifying feeling that you get that you have made an impact and a change in them, and you’ve inspired them somehow, and it’s coming back to you. That’s what I love about it.”

Charlene Nickel:

“I taught kindergarten for most of my career and this year I’m in Grade 1, and I would say … the change in the kids in a year is phenomenal. I always say that they’re different people when they leave my grade than the ones I met, and that’s just so, so exciting and so rewarding.

It’s not just that. It’s the relationships, not just with the kids, but with their parents too. And I feel sometimes that’s how I can contribute to my community and to the school is to make a difference with those relationships with the parents and to foster a love of learning, and a love of school with the little, little guys. When you hear from parents that the kids are excited to come to school, you can almost forego your paycheque … almost.”

Madison Nickel:

“For me, it’s the relationships to the kids, just seeing that they grow as the relationship progresses itself and how important that is.”

Cathy Brown:

“For myself, it’s making connections with my students and being invited into a part of their life and inspiring them to be the best that they can be and taking them outside their comfort zones and actually finding their own identity. It’s all about the connections and being a part of helping them find out who they are in our world.”

What brings you the greatest satisfaction?

Gilles Daigle:

“The greatest satisfaction that I find is when there’s ownership in the learning, so when a child comes to you, on their own, totally authentic and says, ‘Look what I can do,’ or ‘Look what I’ve learned.’ There’s no greater feeling than that because it’s student-led.

“When it’s student-led, it’s so gratifying because you know you’ve been part of that inspiration. And it’s a great feeling.”

Cathy Brown:

“The greatest satisfaction I get is from seeing them make that facial expression when they actually find themselves, like their self identity, where they can start thinking for themselves and it’s that aha moment when you see that, you see that in their eyes and in their body language.

And that’s what I love. You can almost pinpoint it for every child.”

What are the greatest challenges you face as a teacher?

Charlene Nickel:

“There’s just not enough time in the day to do all that I want to do and all that I need to do to help some of these kids. So you think and you think and you think. You strategize — what can I do to make the most use of time to do as much as I can to help the kids, especially the ones that are struggling.

“And you lay awake at night, trying to figure out what can I do to reach them and how can I help them?”

Gilles Daigle:

“That becomes the collaborating time. That’s where you go to another colleague in your building, saying, ‘you know, this is happening, I’m struggling.’ We all have our executive meetings when we go to bed … that’s when I do most of my thinking is in the wee hours of the night.”

How does the reality of teaching differ from what you learned in university?

Madison Nickel:

“In university, you learn so much and it’s usually the bigger picture. Then you go in the classroom and something happens and you have to make that split second decision and you’re like, ‘what do I do?’”

“University is great and you learn a lot, but knowing how to act in the classroom is something that I think just has to come with experience.”

Gilles Daigle:

“When we’re in university, we get kind of this mindset about our philosophy, and then when we get to our teaching practice it’s not quite the same. That’s because we get restrained by mandated things from either a provincial body or a division. That, as a classroom teacher, becomes a struggle sometimes because you have a philosophy and you’re mandated things at times.”

Charlene Nickel:

“You can have the world’s greatest lesson plan figured out, but if you don’t have classroom management, you won’t get to that lesson. You won’t carry it out the way you envisioned.”

Kristy Kaye:

“I think university is great for theory-based book smarts—the ideal classroom, here’s what you need to know, this is your major, this is your minor. You go out with so much knowledge and competence in that realm but the classroom itself is a whole other world.”

“I graduated from the University of Alberta and I wish we had longer stretches of practicums and more practicums. I did my most learning in the classroom. I experienced my greatest failures in the classroom as well. You spend endless hours at night ‘til the crack of dawn making these beautiful lesson plans, you come in and it doesn’t always work.”

Cathy Brown:

“The big difference for me is the personalities and the dynamics of a classroom. It changes every year. We really have to be adaptable.”

“I wish I would have known that I had to count money for sports.”

Charlene Nickel:

“I strongly believe classroom management is so huge, and I didn’t learn enough about that part of it in university. I had to figure it out … talk to colleagues, learn from being a parent, you know, all your life experiences come into play with that. That’s not a book thing. That’s a practical thing.”

How has teaching changed during the course of your career?

Madison Nickel:

“Not a lot for me, from September to now.” (The group laughs)

Kristy Kaye:

“The biggest thing is how advanced technology is, and how to keep up with it and how to bring it into my classroom for planned and purposeful instruction, and give the students the best opportunity with it. I feel like, every three months, every day almost, I’m trying to advance to something better.”

Charlene Nickel:

“There’s more curriculum to get through. Back in the day … there was play time. And now, I feel a lot of pressure, like, we can’t waste any time because we’ve got to get through the curriculum.”

Gilles Daigle:

“I’m doing coding with my kids — I teach robotics — and they basically teach me. Because I’m the leader in the room, I’ll give them a problem … here’s your challenge question. That’s something that’s different from 25 years ago is that I give them a blanket statement challenge … and the stuff that they come up with is ingenius, like the kids are making robots like you wouldn’t believe and it’s all based on one challenge question.”

If you think back to yourself at the point where you were choosing your career, if you had known then what you know now about teaching, would you choose it again?

Gilles Daigle:

“One hundred per cent.”

Kristy Kaye:

“It’s who I am.”

Cathy Brown:

“I absolutely love it. I wish I would have done it sooner.”

Charlene Nickel:

“It’s who you are … I just I can’t imagine anything else.”

What do you hope for?

Kristy Kaye:

“I hope the best for all of my students and that’s going to look different for all of them but I hope the best for them. I hope life is good to them. I hope they’re happy, they’re healthy. I just want the best for them.”

Cathy Brown:

“And I hope that they find themselves, they find their true identity and have the confidence to be themselves and to bring their best to this world that we live in.”

Charlene Nickel:

“To be the best that they can be.”

Gilles Daigle:

“I would hope that, from our public education, because we’re all in public education, that they’ve created a set of tools in their toolbox to understand how they learn, and if they learn how to learn on their own, like you say, they’ll be happy.”

Madison Nickel:

“I’d say just to keep doing it. You know, I only have half a year experience. I don’t have a permanent contract, a permanent certificate or anything … so just to be in a situation where I will keep on enjoying it.”

Comments have been edited for clarity.