Lake Babine Nation Students Embark on Global Teaching Placements

Three student teachers from the Lake Babine Nation have secured competitive international teaching placements through the University of British Columbia (UBC). Jordan Williams, Clarence Williams, and Nick Erickson will gain valuable global experience as they complete their education in northern British Columbia. This opportunity is part of UBC’s Indigenous Teacher Education Program (NITEP), which prepares Indigenous educators to teach within their communities.

The trio, based at the program’s field centre in Burns Lake, received the exciting news during a morning class, which prompted enthusiastic reactions from their classmates. They were selected from approximately 350 eligible candidates across UBC’s Faculty of Education, with only 41 placements awarded province-wide.

Clarence Williams will travel to Shanghai, while both Jordan Williams and Nick Erickson will head to New Zealand. The students had ranked these destinations among various international options during the application process. Williams expressed his interest in how technology is integrated into education in China. He aims to bridge gaps between modern and traditional communities, including using technology to support Indigenous language preservation.

Erickson’s ambitions focus on physical education and fostering greater participation in sports among Indigenous youth. “I want to incorporate athletics into my teaching and bring Indigenous kids back to sports,” he stated, emphasizing the role of athletics in health and personal development.

Jordan Williams is particularly looking forward to immersing himself in Māori culture near Auckland. He hopes this experience will inform his efforts in language revitalization at home. “They brought their language back much more than a lot of Indigenous cultures in Canada,” he noted. “I want to learn how they did that and how we can apply those lessons here.”

The three placements are scheduled to last three weeks, beginning in June 2024. According to NITEP manager Natalie Simkin, the Community Field Experience (CFE) is designed to expose teacher candidates to educational settings beyond the traditional classroom. “The primary purpose of the CFE is to allow teacher candidates to experience teaching and learning in a new context that enhances their formal teaching experience,” Simkin explained. This program also offers insights into a variety of education-related career paths.

Beatrice Michell, education director for Lake Babine Nation, highlighted the importance of these placements. She remarked that they provide hands-on learning opportunities that cannot be replicated in lectures or textbooks. “They’ll be interacting with new educators and engaging with different cultures and languages in ways they haven’t experienced before,” Michell said, stressing that while the moment of receiving the news was memorable, the true beneficiaries will be their future students.

As the students prepare for their international placements, their journeys symbolize a commitment to education and cultural exchange, promising to enrich both their lives and the lives of those they will teach.