Scholarship winner takes the class

Tracy Beck admits that it's a lot of work being a new teacher, and she can sometimes feel overwhelmed.

"I find I need to balance teaching the way I want to teach with the demands of a 30-student classroom. It's a juggling act to fulfill all the curriculum expectations, get all my lesson planning done, and most of all, be the best I can be with the students.

"I'm an optimistic person," she adds, "and from moving around a lot when I was a kid, I'm used to facing new challenges and struggles. I pay close attention and I can see mini successes all the time, every day."

Before she became a fully qualified teacher and faced a classroom of her own, Beck, the winner of the 2004 Atkinson Scholarship for Excellence in Teacher Education, spent 10 years working as an educational assistant with the Halton District School Board.

From these 10 years of assisting, observing and working with dedicated teachers, she developed a sense of the kind of teacher she wanted to be.

Tracy Beck, now teaching Grades 10 and 11 at White Oaks SS in Oakville

"I've worked with people who are intellectually and physically disabled," she says, "so I knew even before I went to OISE that I wanted to teach a little differently. I'm interested in how students are smart, not if they are smart. I didn't want to be the kind of teacher who stands at the front of the room and tells the students to read chapter so and so and then answer the questions at the back of the chapter."

The concept of multiple intelligences was built into her faculty of education experience and is embraced by the school board she works for, as it is by all other boards.

"It's important to embrace everyone's intelligence," she says, "and to acknowledge that people are smart in different ways. Some people excel verbally, others through writing and others through some kind of artistic work.

"It's exciting to see how students can really flourish when you tap into how they are smart," she adds. "It makes them so much more eager to learn and participate. And of course the other students pick up on that and you can actually feel the enthusiasm in the classroom.

"Winning the Atkinson Scholarship was so great for me," she recalls. "It meant I could put my full self into school and not have to divide my time between learning and work."

She goes on to say that she was thrilled to be at teacher's college. "My experience was very positive. The professors were totally committed to education and teaching, and I learned so many practical teaching strategies and ways to engage the students."

When she used a particular strategy – KWL charts (What do I know now? What do I want to know? What have I learned?) – in her class this year, one of her students burst out laughing. Baffled and curious, she asked him what was so funny. "It's funny," he said, "because we're using exactly the same chart in another class I'm taking." After finding out which class it was and which teacher, she laughingly told the student that it was no big surprise. "She and I were in school together last year. It's now our first year teaching and we're trying stuff out on you to see what works." It's this kind of easy rapport that Beck maintains with her students.

Beck is currently teaching Grade 10 careers and Grade 11 workplace English at White Oaks Secondary School in Oakville, where she previously worked as an educational assistant. "My English students are 'hard to serve' and I've known many of them for years. Having sat in on classes with them and offered support in the past, I have a unique advantage in helping them reach their goals."

Beck has not let her strong commitment to people with disabilities wane. She remains a voluntary advisor for the Junior Civitan Club, a volunteer and leadership group for teens. At her school, she helps run a drama club for students with intellectual disabilities. In January, the students mount their annual performance at the Mississauga Living Arts Centre and, for Beck, nothing beats seeing the joy and pride on their faces when they take their final bows.

"In my teaching and in my volunteer work," she says, "I want to help everyone I work with see their own worth."