Jessica Beck-Ciurko

My name is Jessica Beck-Ciurko and I am currently an elementary occasional teacher with Simcoe County District School Board. My interests range from travelling and reading to spending time with family/friends and cooking.

For as long as I can remember my goal in life was to travel – this is what directed me into teaching, as it is a career choice that can carry worldwide. As a result, upon graduation in 2013 from Lakehead University, Orillia and receiving my HBASc and BEd, my (now) husband and I cashed in our savings and bought two one-way tickets to London, England! From 2013-2014 I supplied in the London/Kent regions, which was an eye-opening experience and allowed me to better understand myself as a teacher and gain the confidence I needed. During this time we were able to travel quite a bit, exploring Helsinki, Paris, Amsterdam, Bruges, Scotland, Wales, Istanbul, Germany, Switzerland and the Canary Islands (Istanbul was my favourite!). By far it was an amazing year! The following school year we gained full-time teaching jobs in Welling, London where I taught Year 6 (Grade 5). I was lucky enough to teach at a school that provided a vast amount of technology for students and teachers; allowing me to utilize and teach with Smartboard technology everyday; communicate with students and parents via online and access training to teach coding to the year group. It was an amazing year of learning and quite successful! However, from teaching in the UK I gained a whole new respect and preference to the Canadian Curriculum and teaching practices – they suit my teaching style and I agree more with the inquiry, student-centered approach among other assets and values in comparison with the UK curriculum. So, we returned to Canada and pursued our teaching careers within Simcoe County as well as furthering our education by obtaining our Intermediate Qualifications and Special Education Part 1 Qualifications. You can read the blog I created while teaching and traveling abroad by clicking the button above.

In addition to teaching I am also an independent copy editor in which I proofread, edit, fact-check and re-write various materials including essays, short stories and novels for authors prior to publication submission. Copy-editing is a treat for me – a project I enjoy diving into and getting lost in the grammar, spelling, punctuation, style, format and factual errors!