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Nagel was presented with the scholarship at the annual OCT Awards ceremony on March 1, where she had an opportunity to address her colleagues. During her comments, Nagel shared that her own educational experience included school refusal behaviour and dropping out of the regular school system to attend an alternative school called SALEP. She also spoke about living with post-traumatic stress disorder, as both a student and educator, and how she uses tools to manage the disorder.

“Being able to talk about the importance of mental health and resilience for students and educators by speaking about my story to the council was life-changing” said Nagel. “I would like to thank the educators who never gave up on me and encouraged me to be the best version of myself.”

Colleagues describe Nagel as a resilient and passionate dramatic arts and French as a second language educator who quickly builds strong rapport with her students by being open, honest, and passionate about her lessons. She is known to create inclusive and safe environments for her students by incorporating student voice and choice, using preferred pronouns, and teaching from an equitable lens.

“Kara was an exceptional student who learned to use drama as a teaching methodology to effectively and artistically explore issues of mental health and teaching,” said course director Kathleen Gould-Lundy. “Her work in applied theatre was exceptional, and she quickly grasped how performance inquiry can shine the light on research that matters. I am thrilled that she has been granted this award.”

Winning the award has enabled Nagel to attend more professional development opportunities and meet people from OCT. She participates in at least 20 hours of professional development each month including the Ontario Modern Language Teachers Association(OMLTA), the Council of Ontario Drama and Dance Educators (CODE), Indspire, and French as a Second Language (FSL) chat on Twitter where she continues to learn, relearn, and unlearn.

“The Ontario College of Teachers Scholarship Program recognizes and supports excellence in teacher education,” said College Council Chair Angela De Palma. “We are proud to acknowledgeÌęKara’s achievements and the many hours she devoted to her community and teacher studies. We wish her continued success in her future teaching career.”

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Great feature piece in the Toronto Sun this past week showcasing our unique Bachelor of Education, Technological Education program which provides skilled tradespeople with both in-class and hands-on training to become technology education teachers. Read the full story

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Course director Ixchel Bennett recently welcomed guest speaker Christina Saunders to her “Issues in Indigenous Education” class to speak to teacher candidates (TCs) about her work as an Aboriginal woman and educator with the Toronto District School Board (TDSB).

Christina held a sharing circle of "speaking your truth" with TCs on the topics of appropriation vs. appreciation, debunking myths, reconciliation, and treaties. She also provided them with insight into her role as an Instructional Leader at the TDSB’s Indigenous Education Centre where she develops and leads various professional learning workshops for school board personnel on how to develop and integrate Indigenous education into their lesson plans and deconstructing Indigenous stereotypes.

“Sharing Circles are an essential part of the oral tradition of Indigenous communities that provide opportunities for each voice to be heard, respected, and valued,” said Bennett. “The sharing circle that Christina held with the students gave them a first-hand account of an Indigenous tradition that could be incorporated into their future teaching practice to ensure that their students are given an equal opportunity to share their opinions and ideas.”

"The insight and first-hand account of the work that the TDSB and other school boards across Ontario are doing in response to the call for reconciliation that Christina provided us with was invaluable,” said teacher candidate Carlos Escamilla Duarte. “Hearing about her many experiences and challenges gave us a true sense of the importance of integrating Indigenous perspectives and knowledge into our future teaching practice(s).”

Saunders also sits on the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario's (ETFO) Aboriginal Education Standing Committee and is deeply committed to leading the transformation of the education system so that Aboriginal and other marginalized students feel safe and can reach their full potential. Her recent article in ETFO's Voice provides educators with information on

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Why did you want to become a secondee at 91ŃÇÉ«?
I’m thinking of a quote by Fred Divito: “If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you.” I was looking for a new challenge, something outside of my comfort zone, saw the opportunity at 91ŃÇÉ« and decided to throw my application into the mix. Now that I’m entering my eighth year with the Faculty of Education, it was easily one of the best professional decisions I’ve ever made.

What school board are you affiliated with?
I was a Professional Learning Network (PLN) Teacher for Health and Physical Education (HPE) for the North Region of Toronto at the TCDSB. As an HPE PLN Lead Teacher in my board, I played a key role in liaising with and guiding a network of stakeholders that facilitated opportunities to help build HPE capacity and expertise with teachers.

What inspires you to teach?
The STUDENTS. The ability to build relationships to engage students, and make meaningful connections; the ability to live and share my passion and enthusiasm for HPE; and, getting teachers to critically think about HPE as small changes in commitment to lifestyle, not simply as the subject matter that we teach.

What courses are you presently teaching?
Teaching Physical Education and I am also the Community Practicum Coordinator.

What’s the most exciting thing that has happened in your classroom this year?
Receiving affirmation from students that participating in ‘brain breaks’ and ‘boredom busters’ during an 8:30am class REALLY DOES have a positive impact on the attention span and memory of executive brain function, and therefore on student learning.

What are you most surprised about now that you are working at 91ŃÇɫ’s Faculty of Education?
My enhanced and restored commitment to reflective teaching practice, social justice and equity, and the many ‘teachings’ I’ve learned from and with the teacher candidates.

What would your students be surprised to know about you?
‘Less than one-tenth of one percent of the world's population will dare to complete the distance of a marathon’. After just recently taking up long distance running in the past five years, I have run six marathons (including two Boston Marathons, and completed one pregnant with my daughter). I would LOVE to take part in Community Theatre (even though I’m an introvert, and I don’t have the voice nor dramatic arts skills to back up my ‘dream’).

What advice would you give to teacher candidates?
Enjoy the experience and have fun. Take the time to be mindful of why you teach in the first place. Take time for self-care. Be open to take risks and try new ideas; listen, observe, think, embrace challenge, be resilient, ask questions.

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The Faculty’s unique community practicum placement gives 91ŃÇÉ« Teacher Candidates (TCs) an opportunity to study communities and their schools in order to develop a better understanding of the communities that students come from. TCs learn how to access community resources to support families, build relationships with community partners, and consider the assumptions and biases that have an impact on learning and the school experience.

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Teacher candidates chose their favourite classical poem that meant something to them, connected it to class readings and research, wrote about it, and then did a reading of the poem to their classmates, which included commentary on how they interpreted the poem.

“The beauty of this assignment was that the teacher candidates can do exactly what we did in our seminar in their own classrooms, providing their students with the same kind of experience of reading, writing sharing and celebrating literacy,” said course director Lorin Schwarz. “It also pushed them to find their own personal voice to explain their poems of choice forcing some of them to work outside of their comfort zones.”

The yearbooks, which were printed as an anthology for all of the teacher candidates to keep, are functional year-long poetry units that satisfy Ministry of Education curriculum expectations across the Language Arts and English curriculum documents, so teacher candidates can use the yearbooks in their classrooms and provide their students with the experience of reading, writing, sharing and celebrating literacy.

“Poetry is the essence of literacy and is a big theme in English Education,” said Schwarz. “The amazing irony is that students who are comfortable with poetry are also often more adept to reading, writing, listening and speaking; they understand media and metaphor and imagistic thought; they are more sensitive to other points-of-view and the ways in which language works to define us. Poetry allows us to share who we are and what we know about each other which is where all teaching and learning begins.”

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Within the Gallery, the 91ŃÇÉ« teacher candidates witnessed a portrayal of Indigenous people and culture represented in a variety of contexts including art pieces, artifacts and multimedia spaces. The exhibit, which was created in collaboration with the Native Learning Center of Toronto, was curated with the goal of encouraging visitors to critically think about how and why portrayals of Indigenous peoples and culture are shown in the “past” and not the “present”. One of the ROM’s main initiatives is to unpack the stereotypes and wrongful portrayal of Indigenous peoples through their exhibits in order to give visitors a true and accurate understanding of the culture and contributions of Canada’s First Peoples to Canadian society.

“My experience at the ROM left me immersed within the dialogue and in-depth discussion of Indigenous history,” said teacher candidate Nancy Rostom “I was inspired by how much effort the ROM invested into appropriately representing the history of Indigenous Peoples through this exhibit. It was incredibleÌęto realize the amount of information I actually did not know of Indigenous past and present history, and to also realize the amount of information that is omitted from our history books.”

“As Teachers Candidates we learned that we have to be vigilant of what resources we use in the classroom when representing Indigenous Peoples and their culture,” said teacher candidate Zuleika Sattaur. “As future educators it is both our role and responsibility to not only unpack our own personal biases and prejudices, but to also provide a safe space for students to unpack their own biases and prejudices.”

As a part of their post-trip assignment, TCs were required to write a reflection of their experience at the ROM outlining how they can incorporate what they learned into their practicum placements and future teaching practice.

“The trip to the ROM was an opportunity for teacher candidates to experience first-hand how institutions are decolonizing their spaces by learning, unlearning and relearning Indigenous education,” said course director Ixchel Bennett. “TCs were not only challenged to examine their own personal biases and prejudices of Indigenous Peoples, but were also exposed to some of the ways that they could improve their knowledge and understanding of the past and present histories of Indigenous culture in order to be effective future educators.”

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In collaboration with a researcher and former NTIP Coordinator from a local school board, their study brings together small groups of pre-service mentor teachers with several highly trained mentors from the NTIP program in a full day of professional development, with a second day spent alongside teacher candidates.

Over the course of two days, the pre-service mentors will gain valuable tools and strategies for mentorship and the teacher candidates have a unique opportunity to engage in deep, purposeful, and reflective dialogues with their mentors.

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The multimedia resource for teachers that was designed with and for all education staff across Ontario, is the result of a journey that shares wisdom and guidance from First Nations, MĂ©tis and Inuit Elders, educators, community partners, parents, families and caregivers so that together we may strengthen support for Indigenous students and their families.

"The students and team members at Glendon were honoured and grateful that COPA chose us to be the first audience to be exposed to this incredible new resource,” said Glendon Site Coordinator and French as a Second Language Course Director James Steele. “Learning about authentic and meaningful ways to better serve our students, families, and communities of First Nations, MĂ©tis, and Inuit heritage is a fundamental part of being an educator, and COPA's outstanding resources in French and English help all of us achieve this."

Joining the Circle offers 10 animated vignettes in French, English, close-captioned, and several Indigenous languages and has questions for discussion for each of these vignettes. The toolkit also offers short videos of interviews with Indigenous community members. ÌęAll of the videos can be used as minds-on activities prior to a lessons or starting points for discussion. ÌęThe guide offers information about treaties, the scrip system, residential schools and many, many more topics to assist educators on their journey of learning more about Canada's First Peoples. ÌęIt also provides suggestions of a activities to use within the school setting and aligns with COPA’s vision to have schools where everyone can feel safe, strong and free.

The main goal of the toolkit is to strengthen support for First Nations,ÌęMĂ©tis and Inuit students and their families through building relationships. ÌęOther goals are to provide ideas for increased awareness of Indigenous realities, histories, cultures, and to promote reconciliation.

“When students see themselves reflected in the curriculum and learn together with their educators and classmates about our rich histories, cultures and present day realities, then they will feel more welcomed within the school community”, said Deb St. Amant, project lead at COPA. Ìę“This can begin to help heal the inter-generational trauma experienced by so many Indigenous families as a result of residential schools, the sixties scoop, racism, and bullying.”

Teacher candidates at the Glendon site were able to learn about this multimedia resource and reflect on topics such asÌępride and identity; understanding racism and discrimination against First Nations, MĂ©tis and Inuit peoples; building and strengthening relationships with Indigenous students and families; and nurturing safe and healthy schools and communities.

"The COPA presentation, in addition to all ofÌęthe resources the organization provides,ÌęhaveÌęopened up my eyes to learning and teaching about First Nations, MĂ©tis and Inuit education”, said teacher candidate Olena Olejarczyk. “I appreciated the time the presenters took to show us the outstandingÌęwebsite and resourceÌękits that we could order online, as well as the chance to be exposed to indigenous languages that are alive and well in Ontario."

Full details aboutÌę COPA and its resources can be found at .

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