Educators demonstrate a broad knowledge base and an understanding of areas they teach.
Standard 6 is teachers demonstrating an understanding of the curriculum and the subjects that they are teaching. This standard means holding a broad knowledge base in multiple different subject areas and bringing all of that information together in teaching their lessons to the students. Teachers have to connect their knowledge of the topic to the curriculum so that the students are learning what they are supposed to be. To me, standard 6 means understanding the areas we teach and having a broad knowledge base. At the same time, it is about knowing that we cannot hold all of the knowledge on any given subject and that is okay too. Sometimes our students will know more than we do about a certain topic and they can be the teachers. I think it is important to be vulnerable with students and tell them that we do not have all of the answers and it is okay to make mistakes. We can all learn together. Teachers can also collaborate with each other and ask for help if they do not know something about a particular subject.
My artefact for this standard is from my 4-week practicum where I taught a grade 6/7 class. I taught an ELA unit on Cinderella stories from different cultures around the world. There was a story from China, Caribbean, Persia, Mexico, Germany, and two Indigenous cultures. Each day during ELA we would read one of the stories together and discuss which culture it came from, any similarities or differences between the particular story and Cinderella, the element of magic, setting and the characters. After we read all of the stories we did a directed draw of Cinderella and the students had to tailor their drawing to a Cinderella from one of the books that we read. We watched the Disney Cinderella as a class to finish the unit.
This artefact reflects the standard because I understood the ELA curriculum that fit into the unit and I had some knowledge of Cinderella but I had not seen all of the different versions from cultures all over the world before. For each book, I drew from my knowledge and experience of Cinderella and my English degree to teach the lessons. But before each lesson I also read the informational packet the book came with and pre-read each book so that I had more knowledge on them and could anticipate questions. I also told the students upfront that I may pronounce things wrong because some of the books had the language of the culture in them. I believe I modelled the standard by combining my knowledge of the subject and materials with being vulnerable about not knowing everything about each book and where it comes from.
