Design Forward
An emergent exploration of critical instructional design.
Design Forward
Portfolio Part: Mr. Soule’s Teaching Origin
Your Teaching Origins
Mr. Soule’s Teaching Origin
Step One
In the boxes below, Name those things/people/experiences that have shaped your approach to teaching. Describe their Influence. Add as many as you would like.
In the Rank column, try to rank your influences (as best as you can), where the lowest number means the greatest amount of influence.
| Name | Influence | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Ben Soule | My younger brother Ben is autistic, so from an early age I had to take a somewhat difficult tack in terms of being an older brother. It’s normal for older brothers to be mentor figures for younger brothers, but because Ben needed a great deal more patience and guidance than other boys, I had to deal with the responsibility more so I feel. I think this was a primary driver towards education. | 1 |
| Boy Scouts | The scouting movement (when it’s going well) challenges young people to be mentors to younger kids (boys, but of course girls too now!). From 10-18 I had to learn from other boys and then transfer those skills to kids as I got older. I feel that this was another big influence in my abilities as a teacher, | 4 |
| Summer Camp Staff | The scouting program influenced me to work at a summer camp called Camp Bell. These are some of the best summers of my life, easily. I had a lot of fun, but throughout the fun was a strong undercurrent of high expectations and responsibilities. I also had to cultivate management experience and customer service skills-both of which have influenced my teaching. | 2 |
| Ski Instructor | I taught skiing to kids age 4-84. Again-the responsibility. But there was also the skill of helping someone learn something that makes them uncomfortable. Skiing can be terrifying to kids, in the same way reading out loud or mastering a scary math skill can cause anxiety too. I benefitted from learning to work with reluctant learners and enthusiastic learners sometimes in the same group. | 3 |
| Being a Dad | My son is 5, so the revelations of fatherhood’s influence on my teaching is new. However, I am much more likely to view my students as children who were once babies. For some reason, i find this influential. I think it’s because I can picture them as purely helpless which humbles them in a way I can respect. Helps me cultivate patience. | 5 |
Step Two
Choose three influences you identified and write three paragraphs about the impact they had on your teaching.
Paragraph 1: Identify specific ways in which these influences can be seen in your teaching.
Paragraph 2: Discuss whether you feel like that overall impact has been positive or negative.
Paragraph 3: Imagine your future teaching self and write how you would like to further integrate or eliminate these influences.
This is an interesting assignment because I think I have thought about this for a long time but have never truly put it into words other than to try and communicate it via my resume’s when I was job hunting.
In general, I find the idea of patience and compassion to be the main influence those experiences had on me. I think I am pretty well programmed to work to cultivate positive relationships with students than most because from an early age I had to practice those skills. In a way, I have been teaching since age 3. I sort of recognize the boldness of that statement, but I think it holds up. I am very grateful for all those experiences, positive and negative because I think they have given me an edge.
Therapy has given me a chance to step away from my reality and evaluate myself and one thing I do think that’s a negative is my general anxiety levels. I think having the responsibilities I had in all those jobs and experiences caused me to sort of turn into a catastrophizing worry wart. The stakes of losing a ski student, a camper, my brother, etc are all high. If I had had more typical “kid jobs” like bagging groceries or stocking shelves in a retail setting, I am not sure I would have the curse of being someone who is pretty well conditioned to project ahead to the negatives rather than the positives or simply live in the moment. As mentioned above, I think they turned me into a good teacher, but perhaps programmed me to be less happy overall. Don’t get me wrong-I lead a wonderful life full of blessings and goodness, but yikes, sometimes I am perhaps too good and seeing the worst in a situation and worrying about it before it occurs.
A goal I am currently trying to bring into my own life that is very much in line with what I want my future self to know and appreciate is the need to relax. I heard a quote recently that resonated with me: “Don’t leave the best of you at work and bring the leftovers home”. I do think I was putting too much of myself into the job, to the point where if something went poorly at the job out of my control in the classroom or even greater school community, it impacted too much. I am trying to regulate my duties as a teacher better relative to my duties as a father, friend, partner, and so on. Balance. Relaxation. Recharging. 3 key words I want future teacher version of Mr. Soule to embrace.
