(Later post, actual event was in Spring 2019)
When I was little, I dreamed of becoming a teacher. I would set up a classroom in my bedroom and teach my dolls and stuffed animals. Assigning myself homework and testing everyone around me. Elementary school Kayla was so set on becoming a teacher.
This week I was asked to come present and spend time with grade 7 -8 students for their Mental Wellness Symposium Day, and quickly it turned into I was teaching three classes for a day. Three art classes to be exact. Don’t worry they paired me with the actual art teacher, and I brought back up with me. But still I was playing teacher for the day fulfilling elementary school Kayla’s dream.
My memories of junior high school are not found ones, and I’m not going to lie I was so anxious. As I walked into the school, and into the gymnasium, all those dreaded junior memories came back. And I was so not ready to teach the youths. But I was confident in my program and what I had for us to do together.
In the end, I did teach the youths. We started our class together with quick intros, jumping into a game of zip zap zop, all the easy things! Then the hard part, trying to explain my work and rec therapy to them.
Firstly, no one had any idea of what rec therapy was, not even the art teacher I was paired with. That was not surprising, but still it meant more explaining and trying to paint a picture of my studies and how this all connected to youth mental health. Explaining my schooling is quite difficult, you study leisure? Does that mean you play games all the time? Your actually have textbooks on this stuff? Yes, lots of questions and confused faces.
Thankfully me talking and explaining was only a tiny part of the class, even though my brain felt like it lasted hours. Post talking, we jumped into the important part, the part I am good at, the reason I was called to teach: Art and mental wellness.
Each student was handed a blank, white, card stock triangle. In the middle of their tables was everything you could think of from markers to metallic pastels, to stamp punchers to ribbon, and pipe cleaners. Together, all three classes, where going to make a collaborative art piece, that match the mental wellness theme of the day.
White triangle in hand the students where given their prompt, to create something that showed what made them personally feel well. Things that made them happy, excited, or picked them up when they are sad. This created a discussion around things that does helped them, things that some hadn’t really considered to be part of mental wellness; like listening to music or making their favourite snack.
In the end they all did amazing! Those triangles all turned out great, everyone’s was unique and spoke to them. And no one rolled their eyes or snorted at me. Which was a legitimate fear of mine. Plus, we where able to take the triangles and turn them back into something, another fear.
This day showcased another variation of the HeART program I had developed in the winter. We have been getting requests from around the province for the program, and those at times can be difficult to fill a small team, still learning the ropes and testing out different parts of the program. But this type of one day workshops are cost effective, travel well, and help us respond to the needs of different communities.
Turns out teaching Jr. High for a day was not as scary as I had thought it would be. It turned out be very rewarding and exciting, connecting with new youth in their community.
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