Last week we were lucky enough to get the opportunity to have Dawn Bast come into our ADST class to speak with us. Dawn is a resource teacher at Blackburn Elementary who found a passion for going outside to learn. She talked to us about how she first went outside with her class as a last resort and a Hail Mary because she had behaviours in her class that she just couldn’t seem to control no matter how hard she tried. She went outside every day with this class after the first time and she found that unwanted behaviours decreased dramatically and these students became whole new children that she had never seen before. She realized then that she wanted to use this information to develop a program where going outside, learning off the land, and developing practical outdoor skills was part of the weekly and eventually daily routine. She talked to us about her journey that she travelled on her way to developing the EPIC Jr program with her principal at Blackburn. Her journey was long and hard and involved many obstacles and hurdles, so much so that she almost gave up on this program and teaching altogether because she felt as if she was never going to make it through all the hoops she was being asked to jump through. But her perseverance and work with the students and parents paid off because she had over 40 students apply and on the day she was speaking to us, the third week of the EPIC Jr program was taking place that afternoon. You could tell the pride she had in her work and how grateful she was to do what she does and that was very inspiring to me.
Although I am not sure yet if my passion for teaching is going to be rooted in land based learning, I did learn a very important lesson from Dawn. Dawn reminded me to find my personal passion and “why” for teaching and to pursue ways to make my passions turn into actions. She also taught me that it’s ok to reach out and ask for help from the administrators in your school because if they can see how passionate you are about something, they will probably be willing to do whatever is in their means to do to help make this happen. I can’t wait to find my “why” throughout my time in this program, and now because of Dawn, I can’t wait to find the people who will be willing to help me turn my dreams into actions.
