As a teacher candidate during the time of COVID-19, I have had the opportunity to experience Professional Development on a variety of levels. This time last year, I was attending in-person PRO-D conferences that were hosted by School District #57. I got to see workshops on the life-cycles of salmon, traditional Indigenous knowledge, geographical representations of Canada’s most devastating social scars, and language as classroom practice. Since March of 2020, I have experienced professional development as self-sustained work, reading, Zoom workshops, and recorded keynotes. I will admit that the sedentary nature of these shifts in our learning systems feel as though they have stunted my ability to absorb information and motivate personal reflection.

This week, for the C2C: Classrooms to Communities Conference, I invited a small group of learners from my own cohort and the Elementary Year cohort to watch the workshops at my house. Being together in the same room for the first time since February of 2020 changed the way I felt about my professional development standards for this month. Furthermore, it allowed me to acknowledge where I have fallen short as an educator in the last few months.

Learners need each other. Grasping new ideas, or old ideas from new perspectives might be possible as an individual but was much more meaningful for me when I could bounce my own interpretations off the other learners in the room. Discussion, as a tool for learning, deepened and contradicted my personal beliefs. For the first time in months, I had to leave the theatre of my own mind and consider how the learning was going to work for all four of us present. This experience is invaluable to me. In some ways, I am thankful for the time I spent learning alone because it allowed me to find gratitude for the opportunities I’ve been given to learn with my peers. In other ways, I cannot express to you the level of Zoom-fatigue I am experiencing at this moment. I probably do not need to tell you. You are likely feeling the exact same way.

Ultimately, I enjoyed all four of the workshops that I attended. I learned about the KOH learning initiative in watershed research from Fort St. James, I engaged in a high-energy discussion with Vanessa Elton about place-based learning in SD57, I cultivated a new perspective about ocean literacy in interior classrooms, and I listened to a wonderful group of hearts and minds talk about salmon spawning in Northern British Columbia. Most importantly, I reflected on these experiences on the spot with the other learners in the room and I feel that my experience was deepened for it.

I know I did not cite anything in this post. That choice is on purpose. I wanted to express that my professional development on October 21st came in the form of grounding myself in my learning. I credit this to all of the learners who chose to help me learn by coming to my house with open hearts and minds and a socially-distanced body.