First ever teaching job!

Chastin Martel

Lakeside Leader

Oliver Sacutea is the newest teacher at Kinuso School. Fresh from university, he is teaching Grade 7 math, science and a drama class. This is his first teaching job besides his university practicums. He moved to Kinuso from Devon. Sacutea has always been interested in teaching since he was a kid, he says. When younger, he had a negative experience with a teacher.

Sacutea’s father encouraged him to reflect and learn from that interaction. From that point, he started understanding the role of a teacher better.

“I just sort of fell in love with helping my classmates and watching all of the techniques that my teachers were using and critiquing them and seeing which ones I liked and didn’t like,” says Sacutea.

Sacutea attended the University of Alberta and has received his bachelor of education and bachelor of science. “I have the biology major, chem (chemistry) physics minor, and then also education,” he says.

When Sacutea was a kid, he wanted a career in chemistry. After learning more, his decision changed. Instead, he went with being a teacher.

“I’m still interested in it. But, I don’t want to be a chemist anymore,” says Sacutea.

Sacutea has no plans to leave Kinuso School as a teacher. However, “it would depend,” he says. The reason is that anything could happen and plans can change.

What is rewarding about being a teacher? Sacutea enjoys the moment when you can tell a student is thinking when a question is given.

“That’s what I love, is watching. It’s not even the aha moment,” he says.

Some challenges Sacutea has encountered while on the job is the endless learning with technology, paperwork, creating substitute plans, planning lessons.

“There’s a lot of demand on your time,” says Sacutea.

Sacutea is hoping that this school year, he’ll be able to make math and science more interesting to his students.

“I’m hoping to get some people thinking about careers in STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics),” he says.

A key method to keeping students engaged is having “enthusiasm,” he says. If students can tell you’re also interested in a topic, they will pay more attention to the material.

“So you want to be enthusiastic and you want to make sure that they can see how it’s relevant to their lives, right,” says Sacutea.

One last piece of advice that Sacutea wants parents to know is to read with your children.

“It doesn’t have to be science or math related,” he says.

“Just get the kids reading and read with them is a big one. Read with them. Encourage them to read.”