In 2008 a friend and I we given the opportunity to coach our own team of 6-8 year olds in our local co-op soccer league. It was an amazing experience and my first time taking on the role of a teacher of any kind. Though I had played soccer all throughout elementary and high school, teaching it to children is a completely different skillset. I learned the hard way that managing a group of children can be exceptionally challenging. Looking back on it now, I can say we really had no idea what we were doing, but it likely was the first experience that put the idea that I may be able to be a teacher in my head.
Highland Park Elementary
In order to complete the volunteer hours required to satisfy the prerequisites of the education program, I volunteered in my old elementary school. It was an amazing opportunity, and I was able to spend time helping out in classrooms from kindergarten to grade 5. I did a little bit of everything, from reading to the class, to conducting math and spelling tests, helping students with questions, and a lot of helping put on snow pants, boots, and mittens. Going into it, I expected to enjoy the older grades better, but was surprised to learn that I absolutely loved working in the kindergarten class. The teacher Kim Sandburg was amazing and actually taught me back when I was in grade 4. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to stay on after I had received all of my required hours to just volunteer in the kindergarten class.
Psychology
When I was doing my psychology degree at UBCO, I volunteered to be a part of several different student organized studies and experiments. It was a great experience for me to see firsthand how these studies were conducted and I learned a lot. UBCO had great organization that linked volunteers with graduate program students who were running studies and experiments, so it was very easy to see what was available and choose ones that you were interested in.
