A lifelong search for a good teacher
Education News | Page 33
Dr . Patrick Lewis retired at the end of June , 2022 after an 18-year career with the Faculty of Education . Photo credit : Shuana Niessen
" The last thing in the world I was ever going to do was become a teacher !" says Dr . Patrick Lewis , who ended up teaching 17 years in elementary school and another 18 years in preservice and in-service teacher education .
While he was a child , Patrick really enjoyed school until Grade 7 , when he suddently didn ’ t find school that engaging or much fun anymore . In fact , he ended up leaving high school early . But , fast-forward to 1985 , and he and his partner Karen had a new little baby girl . " We were living in family housing at UBC , and I was starting graduate work in history for my master ’ s . I was realizing that I needed to do something more to support my family than fiddle away at graduate research and history , so I went across campus to the Faculty of Education and spoke to an associate dean there ."
Initially , Patrick intended to enroll in the secondary teacher education program because his undergrad degree was in political science and history , but because the associate dean encouraged him to take the elementary program , he made the switch , which turned out well : " The more time I spent in K-3 , the more fun I was having . I got quite engaged and comfortable with learning alongside little people . Even during practicums , I saw the enormous growth that could happen with kids that age . So that really intrigued me and I stuck with it ."
After finishing his post-graduate certificate , Patrick was hired at Pender Island School . He had been teaching for 5 or 6 years when he began to realize that he needed a greater understanding of how to work with kids who struggle , so he returned to university to do his master ' s degree . " I thought , ' There has to be something I ' m missing .' I was working with young children and trying to figure out how to help kids who were struggling with mostly literacy and , to a lesser extent , numeracy skills ," he says .
His master ' s research did give Patrick answers , but not the answers he initially expected : " I had an unconscious sense of this , but I developed a conscious sense of the importance of building relationships with learners . So it wasn ’ t so much about finding new mechanisms for