The Wheable Frame of Mind

I was placed into the adult education program at Wheable. I got put into this slot because my traditional high school placement backed out, and I was initially worried that these would be the stereotypical students that the system rejected because of behaviour and I was pleasantly surprised by how wrong I was. Do I regret being placed there? No. Would I have chosen it? No. However, I think I really benefited from this experience in adult education instead of a traditional placement.

Honestly, I'm not complaining. I seriously loved it. I've learned a lot about different teaching styles, how to teach to a varied group, and certain things to be sensitive about with new immigrants and ESL students (such as an innocent remark, "I'm sure you've all been to the optometrist, so let's talk about lenses" could possibly offend some students if they have never had that opportunity).

The teachers at Wheable are all really nice, but because of the limited schedule of the courses, they have to really compress some units. In addition, they have to teach certain pieces of courses in different ways. For instance, because they don't have a grade 9 science course, in the grade 10 science they teach the grade 9 ecology instead of teaching the grade 10 climate change unit. They really have to focus on material that will be covered in the next grade in order to prepare them, and some of the course content gets cut. For instance, the physics unit in grade 10 is typically cut short because optics and light isn't mentioned again until university. Whether or not this is an advantage to the students remains to be seen. The other things that gets cut in Wheable is trying new teaching techniques. They simply don't have time to learn science through inquiry, which is disappointing to me since I've had it mentioned in several of my classes at Althouse.

So yes, Wheable has some good things. The people are great, it's interesting to see the different audience and learning how to cater to a very diverse spread of students is a unique challenge. The fact that the students are adults can either be good, or teachers can use it as a crutch saying, "They're adults, they can do what they want". 

Wheable opened my eyes up a lot, and that shock factor was really valuable. I got both of my teachables (which is a blessing and a curse) but honestly it's more of a realistic job experience. It's going to be tough, you get little to no prep time, and you don't find out which courses you'll be teaching until a week ahead so stay on your toes!