Year: 2020 — Province: Alberta
Certificate of Achievement Recipient
Black Gold Outreach School
English, language arts, social studies, Aboriginal studies, career and life management, grades 10 to 12
Beaumont, Alberta
Michelle's greatest strength is one of her greatest assets: she has the special gift of knowing how to create a safe space for students to develop their voice. This involves stepping back, being quiet, and being less, so the student can be more.
Michelle Haveroen inspires her students because she candidly shares that she's overcome obstacles and adversity early in her life which led her to developed a strong sense of resiliency. Many of her students struggle with behavioural, attendance or learning challenges. She is their champion, making it possible for them to get a fresh start and to see a bright future for themselves.
Teaching approach
Michelle makes students aware of the connections between success in school and success in life. Then, she helps them examine their dreams, so they can identify careers of interest and plot routes toward them—even if those routes require achievements that seem impossible to the students at first.
In the classroom
- Adapts teaching tools and strategies to each student's needs: embeds QR codes in class materials so distance-education students can use their phones to learn; provides written feedback for students who find oral assessments stressful.
- Ensures students can access career opportunities: made a print version of a child care services course for a student without reliable Internet service; created bite-sized goals for an anxious student so he could succeed in an apprenticeship program.
- Builds strong relationships: texted a shy student during commencement until she came to the ceremony to get her diploma; alumni return years later to chat; principal calls her "the heart of our school."
- Focuses on outcomes, not processes: is open to students' suggestions for the best ways to test their understanding of course content; considers interdisciplinary approaches.
Outstanding achievements
- Planned a school division-wide trip to Vimy Ridge: helped students advocate to continue the trip when a terrorism incident put plans in question; planned activities for more than 200 participants.
- Enhances students' capacities so they can exceed expectations: student with severe autism was aggressive and verbally abusive; Michelle worked with him for three years, helping him to learn communication skills such that he was able to attend a culinary seminar requiring teamwork.
- Developed Indigenous studies courses for school division: inspired by a student who had taken a similar class in another system; now serves as a resource for other teachers.
- Creates small group seminars to provide additional support for students: topics include career planning and resume writing.
Get in touch!
Black Gold Outreach School
Unit 102, 5204 — 50 Avenue
Beaumont AB T4X 1E3
780-929-5468
bgo@blackgold.ca
https://bgo.blackgold.ca/