2005 scholarship winner

Gillian Lamoureux, currently in her final year of a concurrent Bachelor of Education program at Queen's in Kingston, is the third recipient of the Joseph W. Atkinson Scholarship for Excellence in Teacher Education.

"I feel so honoured to get this scholarship, particularly because it's from the Ontario College of Teachers. The people on the selection committee are all dedicated to education."

The oldest of four children, Lamoureux grew up in Orleans, just east of Ottawa, in a supportive, loving family and close-knit community. But when she was sixteen, her eyes were opened to a different world.

Her first real job – as a YMCA-YWCA summer day-camp counsellor – totally changed her perspective.

"I'd had so many advantages," Lamoureux says. "I saw that a lot of kids, for whatever reasons, didn't get the support and encouragement they needed." From that moment she wanted to have a positive impact.

Gillian Lamoureux, now in her final BEd year at Queen's

Lamoureux always looked up to teachers and never saw herself doing anything else. "I just couldn't imagine sitting in an office all day," she says.

"At university I majored in English language and literature, subjects I hadn't been very good at in high school.

"It ended up being just the right thing for me. I learned so much about people and to see connections where I might not have imagined them. All of that is incredibly helpful when you start teaching."

Lamoureux is anything but a bookworm. Edward Lobb, her English professor at Queen's, says that she has "a great rapport with other people, augmented by an irreverent sense of humour. Her academic goals show the same sort of idealism that has motivated her work in the community."

Lamoureux has been a volunteer literacy tutor to elementary students and through the Children's Aid Society of Kingston she became a mentor to a teenage girl under their care. "We still talk on the phone at least once a week," she says. "It's harder now that I'm back and forth between Kingston – working on my courses in teaching theory and practice – and my practicum at Metcalfe PS in the Ottawa area. But I still see her whenever I can and she knows she can always contact me."

In the summers during university Lamoureux was a camp counsellor to children age nine to 12 at the Tim Horton Children's Foundation Camp in Campbellsville, KY. "All of them were from disadvantaged, even desperate situations and needed extra care. But they were kids with a lot of potential.

"Those are make-or-break years for kids and it's rewarding to know that you can play a part, however small, in possibly changing their lives. That's also why I want to teach in the Primary grades. The earlier kids have a positive influence, the better. Success for me would be seeing a child grow into adolescence and knowing I had played a part in his or her success."

As a concurrent education student, 23-year-old Lamoureux has already completed over 240 hours of practice teaching in various Primary-Junior grades. She says she is learning an enormous amount about classroom management, lesson planning and implementation and building rapport with students. "It's a lot harder than I thought it would be," she laughs.

"For me, the number-one quality of a teacher is caring, so students can see there is someone who believes in them. I may not be able to accomplish all I might want to, but working with kids has taught me that you can have a big impact when you are seeing that person day after day."

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