Mikaela McManus

I believe that being a teacher of secondary school students means having the potential to play a significant role  in the lives of the future generation. You may have an impact not only on the knowledge they take from your class, but also on the people they become when they “grow up.”

As a secondary school teacher, you are given the opportunity to help build a more humane society. This can be done by behaving how you would want and expect your students to behave: respectful, considerate, and hardworking. These qualities are some of the most important qualities that students should learn in high school. Others include perseverance, teamwork, communication, and an open mind. All of these are key to a student’s success in any future profession. 

Whether or not my students learn these lessons will depend on how I behave and how I conduct my classroom, which will be dictated by my teaching philosophy, which has five major points:

1. Respect: If I show respect to every one of my students, their parents, my colleagues, and myself, I can expect that I will earn their respect back.
2. Have high expectations for your students, but higher expectations for yourself. It is important to make your expectations for your students clear, but it is even more important that you set high expectations for yourself because this motivates you to constantly improve.
3. Have faith in your students. This combines my first two points. I recently read Todd Whitaker’s book What Great Teachers Do Differently, and he wrote “Great teachers…expect good behaviour—and generally that’s what they get.” If you have faith that your students will behave, if you set high expectations and show them respect, then they will work hard to meet those expectations.
4. Effort is key. As a math and PE teacher, I believe that the most important thing is to try. It’s okay if you don’t always get the right answer, or if you struggle with a lay-up in basketball, because that’s how you learn. Making a good effort is half the battle in math and PE, and therefore I believe this effort should be rewarded in some way. However, in both subjects, math especially, it is necessary that you get it right sometimes. As such I believe that it is important for teachers to be available to provide extra help to students who need it, whether this is before school, during lunch, or after school. Additionally I believe being available for extra help will go a long way towards building relationships with students. 
5. Communicate the relevance of your teaching subjects. I believe that is extremely important for teachers in all subject areas to be aware of how their given subjects can be applied in the “real world” and to educate their students on these applications so that they maintain an open mind about the subject.

In September 2012, at the beginning of my second year of university I was asked to join the Physical Education Student Association (PESA) by the then-president. After learning more about what PESA was, I agreed to join; the following semester I took on the role of treasurer, and I have held this role for two full years now. My responsibilities as treasurer include keeping track of PESA’s financial accounts, reimbursing any PESA members who purchase supplies for events, and acting as a liaison between PESA and the UVic Student’s Society with regards to any financial concerns such as questions about our accounts, how to make charity donations, etc. 

PESA is an excellent student organization that works to create a fun, social, and interactive environment for students in the Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education (EPHE) department at UVic. PESA organizes numerous events and functions, which have included but are not limited to: 

• EPHE’n Amazing Race: This back-to-school event is a themed scavenger hunt around the city of Victoria that EPHE students compete in in groups.
• T-Shirt Social: Our first major social event of every school year, this September social is a fun night for students to catch up from the summer and celebrate being back in our beautiful city. As part of the event, each student gets their very own EPHE T-shirt to keep.
• Halloween Pumpkin Carving: PESA provided pumpkins to whoever wished to come and carve them in the McKinnon lobby.
• Mo’Vember Fundraiser: Each November, PESA puts on a Mo’vember fundraiser in which the male students grow their best mo’beards, mo’staches, or go mo'creative. The girls, or “Mo-Sistas”, can sponsor a “Mo-Bro” which gives them final say on how the “mo” is groomed. At the end PESA picks a winner from each category.
• Program Apparel: Each year PESA deals with local sport clothing store Passion Sports to sell select program attire to the EPHE students. This sale is always hugely popular, which makes it even better since we’re supporting a local business.
• Cartoon Crawl: Students get to dress up as their favourite cartoon character and have a night of fun around the town, with all profits from the event going to a local charity.
• EPHE Gala: This is the first year we will be putting on this event. This formal event gives EPHE students the opportunity to change out of their shorts and runners and get all dressed up for an evening of food, dancing, and entertainment to celebrate the end of the school year.