Ms. G is the teacher in the spotlight of this month. She is the English department head, currently teaching world issues to grade 12 students at Keystone School. Ms. G spent the first five years of her teaching career working with students in Nanjing, China where she was able to explore her love of travel and experiencing different cultures.
She has been teaching at Keystone for the last 4 years, to learn more about Ms. G’s background go to our academic team page.
Teacher Spotlight Interview
Tell us about yourself.
In my spare time, I like to get out and explore my neighbourhood and the city as a whole by just walking around with general goals in mind. On the weekends and in the summer I can walk over 15 km and be out finding new routes and little pockets of houses. I also really enjoy reading a variety of genres of books from romance, historical fiction, non-fiction and regular fiction but my favourite book series comes from a Canadian author about a hidden town in the Yukon and is predominantly a mystery.
I don’t have a specific favourite cuisine, but after my time in China, I can no longer go to Chinese- North American restaurants here in Canada. There are a number of authentic Chinese places around Toronto that I am hoping to explore after the pandemic restrictions end. I enjoy trying different cuisines and dishes despite my pickiness (according to some) of what foods I don’t like to eat.
What is your favourite subject in school?
My favourite subject in school and which then became my major is history. When I was in elementary and secondary school I loved to focus on ancient history, learning about Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome but into university, it became more after the industrial revolution.
Were you an A+ student?
I worked very hard for my grades, but I was never a student who achieved higher than 80% in my courses during high school. I never let this stop me from achieving my goals and enjoying the courses as much as possible. I remember more about what I learned in those courses than my grades – especially in university. The grades I earned helped me to get into the programs I wanted to graduate with two degrees and find a career that I find really rewarding.
What did you want to be when you grew up?
With the exception of a brief time when I wanted to be an archeologist (like Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, or Sydney Fox), I have always wanted to become a teacher. I can’t even remember why I wanted to be a teacher because it had been a dream of mine from a very young age. Now, though, I can see that it fits my personality.
If you could pick up a place to travel with your students, where would you go?
If I could travel with my students I would want to travel with them to their home countries and be a tourist in their city with them as my travel guide. I always want to know more about where my students have come from and to be shown what they value and find interesting in their home cities is really important. While I was in China I would occasionally meet students on long weekends and be shown parts of the city that we all lived in that I would not have found without their intimate knowledge of the city.
What was the most challenging situation teaching during the pandemic?
I am an introvert in pretty much all aspects of my life except when I am teaching. I teach by engaging my students in as much discussion and conversation as possible in the class and when they all went online they all stopped talking (and even went off-camera a lot). This made it a lot harder for me to gauge student engagement and understanding. I also like to get to know my students’ personalities and they don’t show that genuine self as readily while on Zoom.
