SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
In many ways, Nicole Tremblay is every teacher's dream.
Cheryl Burlington, left, says it feels like things have come full circle since Nicole Tremblay was in her Grade 3 class at Range Lake North School in 2000-01. Tremblay is nearing the end of a student-teacher placement in Burlington's class. Here, the pair hold photos of themselves on Tuesday from the last time they shared a classroom at NJ Macpherson School. - Laura Busch/NNSL photo
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The 21-year-old Yellowknifer, who is in her third year of a teaching degree at the University of Alberta,
returned to the classroom of her former Grade 3 teacher last month for her first full-time student teacher placement.
"It is kind of nice to see that young people are coming up and they're going to be taking over soon. It's fun to see that – it's rewarding," said Cheryl Burlington, who has been a teacher with Yellowknife Education District No. 1 for the past 26 years.
Burlington has mentored about eight student teachers before but this is her first former student.
"It sort of makes it seem like the whole circle has come around," she said.
Twelve years ago, Burlington taught Tremblay in Grade 3 at Range Lake North School.
Over the years, Burlington estimates she has taught about 600 students – and she still keeps photos of every one. While thumbing through old photos in the staff room at NJ Macpherson School from when Tremblay was a student, Burlington points out a few of the children, saying she still receives letters from this student or the other one. She has been to a few weddings, and lately some children of former students are starting to enter the Yellowknife school system.
Seeing former students grown up gives closure to wondering what kind of adults they will become, she said. However, it's even more special with Tremblay in her class.
"This is especially rewarding because it goes beyond the visit back – it's now connecting in a way that's kind of meaningful and it's nice to know that a former student wants to pursue (teaching)," she said. "It makes you feel that, you know, maybe you've made a difference somewhere along the line."
For the past five weeks, Tremblay has been in Burlington's Grade 2-3 split class at NJ Macpherson.
While she has been placed in classrooms before in Edmonton, this is Tremblay's first time teaching lessons. In the first few weeks of the placement, Burlington gradually gave her more and more responsibility and on week five, Tremblay is teaching 50 per cent of the lessons and has been left alone in charge of the students.
Tremblay said she's loving working with young children, and has caused her to question her original intention to teach older grades. It is also somewhat eerie being back in Grade 3 with her former Grade 3 teacher, she said. Some things are the same – such as the songs Burlington teaches students to help them remember their multiplication tables – only this time, she is the one at the front of the classroom.
When it came time to decide where she wanted to do the first of two required placements, Tremblay didn't hesitate about coming back to Yellowknife, although it was purely coincidental that she was placed in a class with Burlington.
"I wanted to come back because I wanted to get experience up North and I honestly wanted to be able to work with some of my old teachers," she said. "This is home for me so it all worked out perfectly."
After she finishes her education degree, which she expects will take two more years, Tremblay wants to return home to the North.
"I'd be one to stay here for a while," she said. "You get great experience here – you get experiences you wouldn't get in Edmonton and other places. Also, people are just battling to get jobs down south."
