Educators demonstrate a broad knowledge base and an understanding of areas they teach.
Over the past year, during my Educ 390 and Educ 391 practicums, I have gotten places in a grade 4/5 split and a grade 6 class. While the content of these grades can be different at times, they are also similar, and just a continuation of building knowledge from one grade to the next.
In my first practicum I was in the grade 6 class and went into this class completely terrified that I would not know the curriculum or have enough knowledge to teach the students what they were required to learn from me, especially when it came to math since that was never a strong suit for me. (It is obvious when I majored in English and History and have not had to take a math class since my first year of university, thank goodness for that!) After the amazing support from my coaching teacher, and multiple hours prepping for math and re-teaching it to myself in new ways that I was never taught myself, I realized that being vulnerable to my students would show them that it is okay to make mistakes and not always know when I was still learning myself. This helped me prepare for Educ 391 practicum where I got to teach them math again, and in the same unit that I had taught the gr. 6 class.
I went into teaching the grade 4/5 math unit with more confidence due to the broad knowledge that I had obtained from my first practicum. This taught me that having this extra bit of information and experience allowed for me to teach and assess in new ways with confidence and comfort. My coaching teacher for my second practicum was also very supportive of all the ways that I wanted to experiment in teaching this math unit and even with the little math manipulatives that the school had as a whole, I found new skills to be able to teach.
Having a broad knowledge of the subject matter made me more comfortable with teaching the subject and it makes me excited to keep gathering more knowledge and information to teach any class that I come across.