Last semester one of our professors had us create a project depicting our “why.” That is, why we are becoming educators. Some people struggled with how to exactly pinpoint this but I knew my reason as soon as she gave us the assignment, my dad. My dad has had a very unfortunate and avoidable experience with the education system that quite frankly breaks my heart when I hear it. He grew up in Saskatchewan on the Sturgeon Lake reserve for the first six years of his life, raised by his grandmother and other relatives. They spoke mostly Cree and lived a traditional Indigenous life. His mother attended a day school run by the church, and although we are thankful she was not brought to a residential school she was still taught the Western way of living and values. This caused her to mostly turn away from her traditional Metis upbringing and eventually my father too. When speaking about the night he left the reserve, he recalls it being dark and him being very confused. At six years old he was brought to an English school in Ontario, a completely foreign system to him. He struggled to settle into this and was not given the support he needed by his school and teachers. He made it all of six years in the education system before dropping out, not returning until he was in his mid-twenties. For as long as he has been my dad he has remained relatively hush about the first six years of his life and his experience with the education system. I know these years were very traumatizing for him. As an adult now, my heart yearns for this six-year-old boy, wishing I could have his teacher when he was brought to Ontario. It’s a peculiar feeling to look at your parent and see them as both the adult they are and the child they were. I am becoming a teacher for the students like him, that may not fit into the mold that our education system has previously wanted its students to fit into. I want to be the teacher that acts as a support system for the students that need it most, and I want to give all of my students a valuable and safe learning experience where they are welcomed as they are. I hope I can have a positive impact on the lives I will encounter, and I hope I can instill a love for lifelong learning in each of them.
