Today I had the opportunity to attend a professional development day of learning! The day was called “Classrooms to Communities” and and I signed up for 2 amazing sessions. I got together with fellow teacher candidate Cedar Sherman and together we spent the day learning, 
discussing, and collaborating. Cedar is in the secondary cohort, while I am in the elementary cohort; we felt this inter cohort blending added to our discussions and we were able to share our unique perspectives on the sessions we attended together!
Session 1 – Place-Based Mental Health: Context Responsive Teacher Intervision Groups (Shirley Giroux)
The first session was all about place based mental health. Last year in the program, we focused a lot on place-based learning, so it was great to see it connected to the topic of mental health! The session discussed the connections between place and health and how our mental health can suffer if we are not supported in our communities.
The most interesting take away from me was when Shirely Cirouz said “Experiencing emotions is a strong part of working in the schools but we do not talk about it enough.” This is something I have been reflecting upon a lot lately. As an up and coming educator, I have experienced a lot of emotions over the course of my learning. There is apprehension when trying something new, excitement over visiting classrooms, anxiety over assignments, joy over collaborating, etc. There are so many emotions going on that I have found it important to talk about them. I talk and find support through my friendships with other teacher candidates (such as Cedar) and with my triad. My triad is a safe place where we can talk to each other and support each other through the emotions we are feeling. Shirley supported this idea when she went on to say, “it is important to talk about emotional aspects to prevent burn out among educators.”
Burn out is a word I hear used a lot by educators and something I am worried about. I like to think that by collaborating and discussing with my fellow teacher candidates, we can help alleviate burnout in each other. The session explained that feeling out of place and unsupported in our emotions can lead to a decline in mental health. I know that going forward, especially into our practicums, I will need to lean on my relationships to help both my triad AND my fellow teacher candidates.
Session #2 – Climate Change Action in Public Education – (What do the students want?    Frances McCoubrey. Ella Kruus, Julia Zirnhelt, Aja Hinecker, Carter Sampson, Caitlyn McCarville)
The second session was a discussion on climate change in schools and was co-facilitated by high school students. When one of the speakers pondered, “Why go to school when the world is
burning?” I was instantly engaged in this session. It was so refreshing to hear these issues discussed by students and to understand how they are handling these global anxieties. The speakers also discussed the different ways they get involved and protest/march at their schools! It was fantastic to be with Cedar for this learning because she was able to share her unique secondary perspective. We had a long discussion after the session about how we could address the topic of climate change in our future classrooms. We had to blend our ideas and find ways that would work for both of our grade preferences.
