Following in My Mother’s Footsteps

My mom was delighted when I announced my plans to go into teaching. Being a retired teacher herself, she seemed thrilled by the idea that I would be following in her pedagogical footsteps. Just how closely I’d be retracing those steps has come as a surprise to us both.

This past week I began my third practicum placement. This time around, I’m at Clinton Street Junior Public School — the same school where Mom completed her first practicum back in 1960! Actually, it turns out that it’s the same entity but not the same building. The original structure, built in 1888, was demolished in 1966 and then the current school was built on the same site (a few blocks southwest of Honest Ed’s).

While Mom was placed in a grade 1 class, I am student teaching in a special education class of eight developmentally delayed students. Interestingly enough, Mom went on to be a teacher of the deaf and of special needs students, although much younger children than the eight-year-olds in my class.

My own experience with special needs students is minimal. I spent a few weeks during my time teaching in Japan working with two developmentally delayed grade 7 students, but otherwise I’ve had no other formal experience or training. Fortunately, my host teacher at Clinton is a 20-year veteran who has worked with her current teaching assistant for more than ten of those years. They’re both fantastic with the students and their classroom routines and materials are exceptionally well-organized. Meanwhile, the students themselves, who are mostly autistic or children with Down syndrome, are quite high-functioning and cheerful. As such, it has been a very gentle introduction to special education for me. This week I’ll begin teaching a five-week unit on the five senses. Not surprisingly, the teacher already has some material in her impressive stores and I’m further mining Mom’s experience for more ideas, so I’ll have no shortage of resources with which to work.

Although there are plenty of differences between Mom’s experiences and my own, I nevertheless feel a shiver of excitement to be covering a lot of similar ground. It’s almost fulfilling enough for me to contemplate also trying my hand at accounting to further connect with Dad … almost, but not quite — sorry, Dad!