If education is a lifelong pursuit, new fall graduate Brandon Boland is up for the ride.
As a lover of fiction, Mr. Boland’s journey at Memorial began in 2013 as an English student. He toyed with the idea of becoming a writer until he found himself equally as interested in how his professors were teaching as he was in what they were teaching.
“All throughout that first degree program, things began to click. I was paying attention to what the professors were doing instead of just taking notes,” he recalled.
“I was taking mental notes of what worked and what didn’t, so I kind of just went with it.”
When he finished his bachelor of arts in 2018 and was accepted into the bachelor of education intermediate/secondary program, conjoint with a diploma in technology education, he knew it was exactly where he was meant to be.
Consistence presence
“As a new educator, my focus will be on so much more than what students know,” he said.
“While I’m excited to stand in front of a classroom of students and talk about books and movie plots, I’m equally as excited to become a constant for them. I want to be able to pull them out of a hole if they’re in a hole. I want to be able to cheer them on if they need to be cheered on. I want to be there for them.”
With the ink on his newest degree still fresh, Mr. Boland is already thinking about his next steps.
He plans to apply to the Faculty of Education’s master of education program in counselling psychology.
“My ultimate plan is not to have to bring students to guidance, but to bring guidance directly to them every single day.”
He says that his ultimate goal is to make his classroom an unofficial guidance office.
“As a teacher, you see everything in a classroom, students’ good days and bad days. I want to be a teacher who is well-equipped to deal with whatever comes my way – and to help students deal with whatever comes their way.”
Mr. Boland’s enthusiasm for teaching, paired with his passion for connecting with student, is exactly why he was named this year’s recipient of the Blair Tulk Memorial Award.
Multiple learning fronts
Even with the master’s degree on the horizon, he plans to continue his career as a classroom teacher.
“Junior high and high school are tough years to navigate, so my ultimate plan is not to have to bring students to guidance, but to bring guidance directly to them every single day.”
With an exciting milestone in his teaching career now under his belt, Mr. Boland says he is ready to begin focusing on yet another passion: writing non-fiction.
