This was a unique experience for me, I had heard about taking your kid to work day but did not actually know when I would have the opportunity to visit and take part in any of my parents work. My teachers gave me some work to do, which meant that I had to do a video along with an interview; I had to consider our driving question, ‘how members of the workplace fill their role in modern society by working’.

For ‘take your kid to work day’, I went to Stratfordhall which is a independent K-12 IB school, my mother run the learning resource department in the junior school. To start off the day I did not interview anyone and chose to spend time shadowing my mother while she taught multiple classes, I helped with gr. 1s and 2s and found that working with young children is not easy. Even though it was something I was not used to, I still enjoyed helping them (mostly during phonics activities).

The next part is the interview I had with a teacher called Mr. Skipper. He is a grade six teacher and heads up the SOGI and LGBTQ+ work at the school. He is a really funny teacher and knows my parents well. He was willing to let me interview him during his day which was something I was grateful for. During the interview I ask questions like “How does your role in the school impact the people in the school and community?”, and “Do you feel that this job is helping you fill your role in modern society, and why?”.  I learned a lot about how to interview from Mr. Skipper who was kind but wanted me to learn from this experience too. If you want to know the answers he gave to questions like those, then be sure to watch the video I made that is at the bottom of the post.

Then after the interview I got to go to the roof of the building where kids are allowed to play at break. My job was just to watch over them and make sure nothing bad happened. Then after that I got to go down to what is called the Idea Lab. This is a maker space filled with tools such  programable robots, multiple rooms filled with extra wood and crafts for the students to build with, a kitchen, textile tools and works spaces. This is the space at Stratfordhall I enjoyed the most because of all the different ways students can create, although there was one place that I got to use that was even better. 

This was the room with more advanced types of technology like 3D printing, and laser cutting. I was lucky enough to be able to use the laser cutter for some fun in designing my own book cover. A teacher named Mrs. Ryan allowed me to use the computer that was attached to the laser cutter to program a short set of commands making the laser take off just the first layer of the book, that way I was able to create a design without ripping through the whole book. Since I was etching a sketch book I decided to entitle it “Noah’s non electronic illustrations” with a “limited edition” carved in the bottom. The ironic thing was that the picture of the bike I had put on the cover was actually done on my iPad and not by hand.

One thing that I think is important to add is that my mother told me that the reason this room now exists is because when she used to teach down in that area, kids who needed a break would come down and relax by building and creating things. Then the idea spread and more and more people found it helpful to have a space where everyone is welcome to use their imaginations until the whole space was transformed into the room I spoke about in the beginning.

To conclude I had an amazing time learning what it is like to be a teacher at school. I got an interview that helped me along with my driving question and many opportunities to try out new types of technologies that live in the school and even got to create my own book cover. I am very proud of my video that addresses the driving question, ‘how members of the work place fulfill their role in modern society by working’.

That’s all for now.