Laura Cox has been teaching for twelve years, she is passionate about what she does and jumped at the chance to share her experience. Laura found that working at the Calgary Girls Charter School has opened her to more opportunities to learn about herself and teach girls how to become strong women later in life.

Q1. What drew you to teaching?
Speaker:
Ironically, I did not like school growing up. I liked travelling and teaching felt like a great opportunity to go and travel overseas. Having summers off felt like a really big draw. That was one aspect and then the other part of it was I have always enjoyed working with kids. I did a lot of camp counselling when I was like in high school, and I used to teach swimming lessons. I've always really enjoyed seeing progressions in people and so being able to see them improve and try to be creative and find ways to help them get there. I think those were the big things that I think kind of drew me in and part of it was a bit of a lack of, I don't know what to do. I took a year off after high school and decided that teaching felt like a good career choice for me.

Q2. What do you say is your favourite subject to teach?
Speaker:
I think it switches depending on what class I'm teaching. I enjoy teaching math because I struggled with math and hated math growing up, part of the draw for me is how to make it a bit more engaging. I understand pretty well, the kids that have a hard time with it. I find ways to make it accessible for them.

Q3. What is the biggest difference in teaching all girls as opposed to co-ed?
Speaker:
I don't always know if it's better, but I think certain things work with all girls than co-ed. I notice that the girls here seem to be kids for a little bit longer in terms of their play. Seeing them, play outside at recess, go to the park kind of have all these make-believe games with the older elementary grades. It happens a little bit less frequently at co-ed schools. I think another thing I noticed is confidence. Our program focuses on how we like to raise confidence and girls are not competing with boys to be the ones to share answers. I think there's a misunderstanding about that. I think there are differences in a bit of freedom to fully be themselves. We still have a lot of the issues that would happen in any school. But I feel like girls are often more fully themselves here. There seem to be kids who are less scared of getting a wrong answer. They have those opportunities to maybe shine a bit more in some subjects that have typically been dominated by boys.

Q4. What are your favourite things about working at this school?
Speaker:
I love our Go Girls program. The opportunity to talk about equality and feminism and how that's changed over time. What that means and how it's built into our curriculum is great. We also get to teach them skills like friendship and boundaries and how to kind of communicate effectively and I think that having time for that to be built into the curriculum is special. It also feels like a very special community because the girls are accepted, they do show themselves. “I love teaching go girls because it doesn’t only shape the girls, but also myself. I have learned so much from the class too.” – an additional quote I got after the conversation ended and we were having small talk about everything we touched on.


Q5. What’s a favourite memory or some of your favourite memories that you've had while working here?
Speaker:
I always loved going to camp. I have some really good memories of grade five camp and grade nine camp and seeing students try new things and engage in some risk-taking. I remember when we went to camp, and some students had never been to the mountains before. We weren't even in the mountains, but we saw the mountains doing mini hikes or jumping from the giant swing. I feel like camp is high on my list. Another favourite memory was some of the larger building projects I've done with students. One year we had a fair and they had to make simple machines out of found materials and we had a small fair that we invited families into.

Q6. This one kind of goes back to the public schools. Why did you choose to teach in a private school as opposed to public?
Speaker:
A couple of things, my first experience teaching was overseas and then I moved to Calgary. The public school system just seems so big to navigate as a teacher, and they place you wherever you're needed. I had a cousin who worked for a different charter school, and she valued the community that was there. I think there are positive things and negative things about charter schools for sure. I chose it because of the smaller system. It just felt like I wouldn't get lost as much. I started as a sub, and I applied to a bunch of different charter schools as a sub. I worked with the girl’s school mostly and then a mat leave came up. It was more of a default for me versus a specific choice.

Q7. What are some values that you like to keep in mind to tell the girls for the future?
Speaker:
I think staying true to who they are and not trying to change who they are comes up a lot. The idea that stuff doesn't make you who you are. Having lots of conversations around uniforms which I know so many kids dislike but talking about what makes you feel valuable or what you value in other people has tried to move away from appearances and valuing who people are on the inside.


Q8. Have there been times when you noticed conflicts because it's girls and girls, I know that there are a lot of stereotypes on that. Do you think it would be different in other schools?
Speaker:
I think it would be the same in any other school. It's probably student-by-student because some students in our school will have less conflict. After all, they try to utilize some of the tools. Students would maybe have the same type of conflict because they either don't utilize the tools, or they kind of seek it out or get bored. I think sometimes we're more aware of the conflict in our school and we try to support it differently because of our home rooms. Students have two main teachers and they're talking constantly. Teachers are looking out for students all the time.  I think it's a focus of our program.  I don't think it goes away.

Q9. How did education change during COVID-19 for you, and how did you get through it?
Speaker:
It was really hard because it just took away so many things, I love teaching which is connecting and creating things together and having discussions to help deepen understanding, it became all about delivery. There was so much onus on the students to show up. If kids didn't have family support technology or quiet space, it was difficult for them. It was difficult for me because we had to go back to trying to be more traditional, just because it's difficult to create great discussions when you're on the screen. It was hard, I didn't like it. I loved being able to wake up and be at work without having to get ready and drive there. However, I did find it challenging because it took away connection and I do notice students missed skills, some did well academically, but there are some social skills gaps. My current grade fours would have gone online halfway through kindergarten. You can imagine part of kindergarten on and off in grade one. Grade two would have been a little bit more normal, but that's when they would have had to come in and had partitions and they couldn't do group things. Their experience of the start of school, they didn't have the chance to have skills like walking through the hallway quietly. We're going to work together we're going to share and of course, they have those skills, but they're a little bit further behind than what I would imagine from what I know teaching Grade 4’s before COVID. There is a difference.

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