Teacher's Assistant
Theme: Rural Education
Location: Rural BC
Age Group: Elementary, Middle Years, and Secondary
Expected Hours: Monday to Friday 8:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Number of Placements: 2
Associated Costs: We will have accommodations for the student(s) but they will be responsible for their own meals. The housing will have dishes etc. for the stay.
Position Description
The student(s) will be working in the Grade K/1 classroom in the mornings and will be working throughout the school which goes up to Grade 12. We are part of the Tahltan Nation in Northern BC. Most of our students are of First People nationality. We work closely with the Tahltan Outreach program. It is a beautiful part of British Columbia.
Organization Information
Dease Lake School is a K-12 school in the remote north of BC 237 km south of the Yukon boarder in highway 37. Our student population is a majority of First Nations students (>90%) from the Tahltan Nation which is the last First Nation to make first contact with Europeans (July 1837). Our climate is sub-arctic so we have snow on the ground for 8 months of the year and temperatures are typically >-20 and for some stretches of each winter drop to -55 Celsius. Clearly the climate hear affects everything from how we live to how we provide education to our students. Our classroom sizes are typically >15 students and sometimes are as low as 5 students. We offer a full curriculum which include “On the Land” acticvities for the Elementary students weekly. We work closely with the Tahltan Guardians who often take students out to participate in animal counts or in controlling populations through various humane methods. We often have animals like wolves that have been harvested which are brought into the school so that the students can participate in the traditional activities of skinning and preparing the hides. We often have moose or cariboo in the school which the students are taught how to butcher and store. Often this is them presented to elders. A good portion of the student population have been on hunts and have harvested moose, bear, cariboo, wolves, mountain goats and mountain sheep by the time they start highschool. We have a lot of field trips on the land to places like Tahltan to harvest fish (salmon), to Dease Crossing to harvest traditional herbs, to blueberry camp for blueberry harvest, or to Alan Lake to harvest cranberries, Saskatoon berries and Soap Berries. Our elementary students go to The Haven (a cultural community center for the Tahltan Nation) weekly to participate in learning various crafts, and cultural legacy activities with elders. If you want a practicum that gives you hands on experience shadowing a teacher in class, helping to work with students and then preparing and teaching some classes yourself (with the classroom teacher there for guidance) this is a good opportunity for you. Of note: our district is the highest paying in British Columbia with signing bonuses, isolation bonuses, excellent subsidized housing and the highest professional development money available to teachers in BC. Student Candidate who have served a practicum here are always more likely to be offered a position here that candidates who have not.
Location: Dease Lake, BC
School District 87 – Dease Lake School Website