In this section you want to highlight the competencies that you’ve been developing, especially those that matter the most to you. Here are some 21st century competencies to consider that are highly valued by employers:

  • Critical Thinking: Throughout my life, I have always been a huge critical thinker in that I always tend to over-analyze, question, and observe all options before I make a decision or create a final product of something academic for example. I feel that I have built my critical thinking skills by pushing myself to take risks and to always be ready for whichever life throws my way. For me as an individual, my education throughout my life has helped me tremendously in building my critical thinking skills. My education has taught me to ask “why?” regarding various topics and reflect on my learning in a thorough and articulate way. Through the Bachelor of Education Program, a variety of assignments and learning tasks have helped me build my critical thinking skills even more as we are consistently asked to reflect, reflect, and reflect even more. I believe that critical thinking skills are great to have as it can help all individuals make better decisions in everyday life and it is a strong key to success in professional development.
  • Communication: Throughout my growth in the Bachelor of Education program, I have demonstrated a tremendous amount of growth in my communication skills as I have strengthened my clear and concise verbal and written communication, active listening, assertiveness, and adaptability that are all key aspects to my professional growth as a future educator.
  • Intercultural Awareness: Throughout the Bachelor of Education program and the numerous courses I took offered me a substantial amount of growth and knowledge. I was able to see, appreciate, and ultimately understand different cultures such as the example of having Clayton Gauthier be a guest speaker in our classes when we took trips over the summer of 2022 to the University of Northern British Columbia as a cohort. It was so incredible to have him speak about his culture and do a large amount of amazing artwork that was led by him. It was truly inspiring and it was incredible to be exposed to his worldviews and the beauty of culture for everyone. This example in fact taught me more about the significance of inclusion.
  • Social Justice: Throughout the Education 397 course, I had the opportunity to watch a variety of approved professional development webinars and discussions. One professional development session that sparked my interest, included the “Keynote: From Science to Poetry in the Teaching of Reading: Reflections in a Digital Culture” led by Maryanne Wolf. I particularly enjoyed how she spoke about the correlation between literacy and social justice because this is a topic that has always interested me and is indeed something that I would like to learn more about. Throughout this webinar session, the key speaker stated that “literacy is a basic human right through every zip code and absolutely everywhere” while adding that “reading changes the brain, individual, and society”. Throughout my time in the Bachelor of Education program, I have heard similar statements to these quite consistently. After listening to Maryanne Wolf’s session, I became more inspired to dive deeper into the research of this topic and changing the lives of my future students. This webinar session ties into this course perfectly, and it reminded me of my cohort and I’s intensive week in Prince George at the University of Northern British Columbia. During class time for this course in Prince George, our professor Melanie shared her experiences, involving her teachings of literacy with her Haida Gwaii students that struggled immensely with literacy, while coming from unfortunate circumstances at home. I was inspired when she explained how her time and patience with them led them to walk the graduation stage, while some moved onto university and one student became the valedictorian of their graduating class. This example from this course illustrates Maryanne Wolfs’ quote of “reading changes the brain, individual, and society” perfectly. Without the guidance of their teacher through literacy instruction and patience, the students in Haida Gwaii would have remained in the same place of struggling with literacy and the everyday battles it created. With the exposure and practice of everything literacy, this gave them power to change their lives in the present and future. This practice indeed helps change society as well, simply because these proficient readers and writers will now have the strength to look at the people and world around them in a brighter light with understanding, empathy, compassion, and acceptance. Therefore, literacy and social justice are incredibly powerful with one another. This course and professional development webinar opportunities have taught me a great amount of new knowledge that I can bring with me into my future classrooms. It is fascinating and utterly inspiring to recognize the impact that literacy has on all human beings.

Exploring Social Justice in EDUCATION 397: Throughout this short course that focused primarily on the humanities consisting of everything literacy, I have gathered a variety of new knowledge and information that has strengthened me as a new upcoming teacher. After beginning the Bachelor of Education program and completing this course, I have simply discovered that literacy and the concept of social justice highly correlate with one another. Throughout my time in this program, I have had the opportunity to listen and engage in many professional development webinars and discussion boards including highly engaging lectures in this course that have enhanced my knowledge on literacy to a great extent. These opportunities have provided me with powerful ideas and solutions to help my future students to change the world through literacy development. This essay will explore how reading development, writing development, and literacy are a social justice issue, while examining the science-informed understandings about literacy development and effective instruction that have been explored throughout this course.

As I explored through this course, motivating readings, and professional development opportunities, I discovered the TED Talk, “Literacy is the Answer” hosted by John Trischitti. He stated a variety of critical statements that all individuals across the world should know. These included statements such as, “one billion people are illiterate” and “as vaccines help to eliminate and stop the spread of disease, literacy can help us eliminate, to stop the spread of hunger, poverty, and crime while it is simply the tool necessary to break those harsh social cycles”. I strongly believe that these statements encapsulate how literacy is viewed as a social justice issue, perfectly. Throughout this course, we have learned that the statistics prove that those who struggle with literacy are most likely to suffer throughout life. This can consist of being incarcerated, a large number of school drop-out rates, poverty, suicide, substance abuse, and more unfortunate circumstances. As I have talked about earlier in my writing throughout this program, I have personal experience with a family member that has struggled with literacy from a very young age, and is a large part of those statistics. It often breaks my heart to recognize that if I was born earlier, and had the opportunity to take this program earlier in life, I could have helped him more. As an upcoming teacher, I have recognized and gained the knowledge that “if a child is not reading proficiently by the fourth grade, children have a seventy-eight percent chance of not catching up”. Therefore, it is essential to begin literacy development as early as possible.

As I move forward in the Bachelor of Education program and venture into the next semester, I acknowledge everything that this course has taught me about effective literacy development and literacy instruction. As educators prepare for the upcoming school year with their future students and classroom, it is critical that the first thing on their minds should be how to incorporate powerful literacy instruction into their classroom. In my opinion, explicit instruction and continuous practice is key to structured and effective literacy development and instruction for our students. First, the teacher must model what is expected of students, ensure that students are engaged and motivated, immediate error correction in a kind manner is established, and we must envision a classroom that provides additional practice time while providing the supports needed for all students to obtain mastery of their own literacy development. As writing and reading appear to share a reciprocal relationship, educators must expose students to phonemic awareness which will indeed lead to handwriting and reading success. As the research states, students should be provided with ten to twenty minutes a day of writing practice. For myself, I often remember having a large amount of time and practice with my writing which helped myself in becoming a master writer for the future. Therefore, I will indeed use this research and experience in helping my future students succeed with their writing mastery which will build that correlating relationship with reading proficiency and mastery, as well. Another important type of information and knowledge that I gained with writing development included the idea of fine motor skill development. Before this course, I had no idea how critical fine motor skill development is for students as it appeared to come naturally for myself at an early age. It was fascinating to recognize that poor grip can impact a student and their writing abilities while fully impacting output, stamina, and confidence. Solutions to help poor grip includes looking for feet being directly on the floor, and if they are not, we can assist students by providing a stool for them. With fine motor skill development, it is critical to build in tasks into the classroom in order to develop the pincer grasp which includes the thumb and index finger. Therefore, there are many ways to effectively provide solutions to empower students with literacy development and literacy instruction.

  • Information & Digital Literacy: The Bachelor of Education Program has been teaching me a ton of brand-new knowledge about information and digital literacy. I particularly loved the live White Hatter presentation that took place on February 16, 2022. It was a two hour presentation about Social Media Safety and Digital Literacy For Educators. This two hour presentation taught me the importance of staying safe on the internet and how to do it, and how to remain professional on the internet. It really outlined the advantages and disadvantages of the internet for all. I would recommend  White Hatter presentations to anyone as it is currently my favorite one I have endured so far!
  • Numeric & Scientific Literacy: As I conceptualize the meaning of numeric and scientific literacy and examine how I have grown through both concepts, I look at how I have grown to understand observations, theories, methodologies along with numerical problems. Before this program, I took a variety of Biology and Math courses such as finite mathematics that helped me understand and apply this knowledge to other non-scientific and non-mathematical situations.
  • Collaboration & Teamwork: The Bachelor of Education Program has helped me develop effective collaboration and teamwork skills. Before being admitted to this program, I never realized how important it is to collaborate and work as a team with others as I always preferred completing projects on my own, but this program is teaching me that collaboration and teamwork actually helps build interpersonal skills within yourself and also enhances creativity in the classroom and with those around you. Various BCTF workshops that I have attended thus far in the program including “Managing Conflict” taught me how to work with others and how essential it is in learning.
  • Civic, Ethical & Professional Responsibility: Throughout my student teaching time and soon to be career in Education, I have always acted ethically and maintained the integrity, credibility and reputation of the profession while promising to act in such a manner throughout my entire time as an educator and thereafter. For example, I have always and will continue to adhere to confidentiality such as in respecting the privacy of students, student names, and not posting any photographs of my students on social media or other internet platforms.As I venture into my career in Education, I am incredibly excited to be part of a strong teachers’ union in which I will adhere to demonstrating the standard of acting ethically while maintaining the integrity, credibility and reputation of the profession through protecting the privacy and confidentiality of myself and other union members through the uttermost respect.
  • Creativity/Innovation: I have always been a creative individual but the Bachelor of Education program has allowed me to embrace it even farther. I have created and developed a various amount of anchor charts and word walls during my student teaching time. I find that showing my creative side helps students understand the material more effectively while seeing visuals through creative anchor charts with colorful drawings and bolded vocabulary terms. I am excited to use my creativity in my future career as an educator, and eager to try new things for myself and my students!
I loved this trait and competencies diagram that I researched and I believe that it exemplifies the success of life-long learners perfectly.