ncy306

My name is Natasha Halliwell, married to Tyler Halliwell. He is my everything including all our kids, we have seven in total. Four are ours and three we foster, (my neices). I was born in Saskatoon Saskatchewan, grew up in Thunder Bay Ontario. I moved back to Saskatoon as a pre-teen then to North Battleford as a teen to graduate. I was a Youth Care Worker in North Battleford for a while then I quit that career. I needed a change in my life, so I stopped working as a Youth Care Worker and applied for schooling again. My family and I recently moved to Regina so I can study to become a teacher in elementary and am looking forward to my future. My journey has just begun and so far it has been great, I have taken a lot of courses. I was able to begin my Journey to Reconciliation and found out a lot about my own past and history and I just want to say that am proud to be Indigenous. It was a very emotional journey for me and I know it only has begun. I want to share with you some of my "I believe" statements. I believe learning is endless, there is always something new to learn. I believe everyone learns differently. I believe that children are like sponges, they absorb everything. I believe knowledge is power. I believe nothing is impossible, the word itself spells "IM-POSSIBLE". I believe in creativity and expression. I believe everything is connected. I believe in a nurturing environment. I believe in education. As a new learner, I know my philosophical roots in education are forever going to be growing and I will always be learning. Currently out of the five different views of teaching I'm under the "Progressivism" meaning as an educator. Education focuses on the child, not the subject, content based on student interests, integrates thinking, feeling, doing and learning is active, not passive, solve problems by reflecting on own experiences, teachers begin where students are at and the teacher serves as a guide, a facilitator. Honestly, I am happy where I am at right now. I got to do my field placement at Prairie Sky School, which is an outdoor school. It was amazing. I got to teach the kids how to make dream catchers and enjoyed the stone soup with all the little ones. I learned also about colonizing practices and working with relationality: sameness and differences also the ethics of relationships relating to power relations, and connecting differences, along with, historic culture, and political identity and positioning. Also, I have learned about the topic hospitality in education, covering conditional and unconditional hospitality tensions. I have gained more and more experience in the past five years of school. I took four classes over the spring/summer of 2022/2023 and PASSED them ALL!!! HIGH-FIVE!! . As you can see -PROUD- moments! I took Treaties in the classroom, Indigenous Health, Beading and Anthropology. I've taken many classes such as, English 200, EPE 310, ELIT 101, ECS 203 and many, many more, lets say all the credit classes needed to graduate with my teaching certificate. I have currently completed my Degree in Education in primary. I'm certified. I also have decided to continue my education and am currently taking my last four classes for my Inclusive Education Certificate. Durning my education and experience I have truly grown as person and future educator and am excited to get out there and see where it takes me.