A little bit of history

I started this blog just yesterday for two reasons. 1) to inform the public on the road one graduate travels on, the ups and downs, the moments of excitement and despair and 2) to provide myself with a space where I can reflect upon this fascinating journey. To begin this blog, I will provide some insight into my path through education so far.
I first went to Kindergarten. ok, I won't go that far, but I did go to kindergarten for 3 years which most (at least non-Europeans) have gone through. I guess it is the same as preschool but kids in Belgium do go to school from the age of 3, which I believe to be a very good system. Less money of day care and more learning and social interactions for the children. But whether or not you send your kids to kindergarten is not the point here.
I grew up in Belgium and went to school there as well. K-12 or as we say it in Belgium, elementary K-6 and secondary 1-6. I jumped around a little bit in schools, I started off doing languages but later ended up in arts school with a desire to learn more about architecture. Which is an interest but it ended up nothing more than that. My passion, as it turns out could be found in education, more specifically teaching PE (or LO in dutch). How did I find out? After high school, I decided to go into psychology as I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. During that year, I realized that I liked going to school but not in the program I was in. I only had classes a few times a week and for the rest of the time I worked in a bar. I guess nobody told me that I should be studying at that time, not working. But in the end I did learn about Freud, my only class I actually passed that year. During the exams I was reflecting on my year and knew I was not on the right path. It was my friend who told me I should become a teacher. After all, I was a ski instructor and camp leader and loved that. So after that year I signed up to the teachers' college in Gent in the program of Physical Education. A three year, integrated education program, very intense but worthwhile, even besides my growing fear of gymnastics.
Yes, if you see me perform some gymnastic ground moves here in North America, they all think I was pretty good but unfortunately the gymnastic standards in Belgium were very high and I did fail gymnastics every year even though I worked hard at it. There comes the ultimate debate between effort and performance or a combination. My mark was solely based on performance and therefore I failed. However, that did not hold me back. I may have not been able to do a perfect cartwheel of the high beam but I did know how to teach it! My love for teaching was not inhibited by the pressure I endures at school.
After three years, I graduated with distinction which is like 70 %. Again, the bar is much higher in Belgium as it is extremely difficult to get 80's or 90's. Receiving a 60 or 70 was like "YES!, I don't have to take this class again!" If we did not have so many classes I guess we would have more time to study. But we did go to school just like a high school student. In class from 8:30 until 5pm! We also received both theory and practical sessions plus teaching practicum each year. I can write a lot about my three years there and maybe one day I will but overall, it was intense yet worthwhile and it provided me with a solid base for teaching PE.
Not that that stopped me from pursuing different dreams after graduation. You would think I'd go straight into teaching school but no, I wanted to chase a few dreams before embarking on teaching first. Experiencing the world, traveling and meeting people was something I always dreamed about and so I decided to go on a cruise. Well, that is if I had money! But I did not, so I decided to work on one. Which I did, I ended up working for 6 months at Disney Cruise lines. I worked as a youth counselor with 3-6 year olds and babysitting 0-3 year olds. It was fun for the first 4 months, than i got tired and after 6 months I was done. Returned home to begin chasing a new dream: becoming a paid ski instructor!
I found several jobs on the Internet and applied. I received jobs from Vermont and Aspen and choose to go to Aspen. I taught skiing for two full seasons there. Mainly at a group call powder pandas, 3-5 year olds. Elementary children seemed to be my passion.
Maybe later I will fill you in on more about these two positions but this is suppose to be just an outline of what I have done before returning to education.
After Aspen, I went out to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada where I started at the university of Manitoba. In Manitoba, the government expects teachers to have at least 4 to 5 years of education so I went back to school and received a BPE. All in all I now have two BPE's I guess. A bit strange but I did what I had to do.
What did I learn at the U of M? English! Well, still learning each day... I also learned terminology in PE in English, which was extremely valuable. And it is there that I became really interested in teacher education. I mean that while I went to school there, I learned the subjects but started to critically evaluate the education system, especially in terms of PE and health.
After my two years, I decided I wanted to still this thirst for knowledge by attending the graduate program but I later changed my mind as I thought I would be a hypocrite if I would study teacher education without ever really being a school PE teacher. Yes, I have taught many PE lessons, but mainly in summer camps and private so public schools are different.
I decided to teach and ended up teaching every subject in the book. I taught Math, English, Science, Social Studies, French, leadership, PE (K-10), Outdoor education,...
I taught in 4 different schools and 2 different school divisions as I thought it would be good to have a diverse experience. No two schools are alike and the same goes for school divisions!
I really started to think about the differences between schools, school divisions and the education systems as they apply to different countries. The main focus point of my interest was the need to know why there is such a big difference between PETE (physical education teacher education) programs in Belgium and in Canada. And not just why but who prepares teachers for what? And in general, are we really preparing teachers how to teach PE? If so, great, why is that not internationally known or if not, what can we do to create a better preparation program?

Many questions which started the need to begin a masters program at the University of Manitoba.