students first series by Hilary Thomson
Alyson Reid-Larade — A passion for education lyson Reid-Larade never thought A she would become a teacher. In fact, if someone would have told
teaching. On a whim she decided to apply to all three programs. “I made a little deal with fate that I needed to go where I was meant to be,” she says “I said I will accept the first one and if I don’t get into any of them I am creating a backpacking trip to Europe.”
her when she was a teenager that she would end up dedicating her life to teaching, she wouldn’t have believed them. “If anybody told me back then that I would become [a teacher] I just would have laughed,” she says, even (Alyson Reid-Larade) wants though teaching has now been her passion for 21 years. to help educators and parents see Reid-Larade began her professional career as a kinesiologist in Toronto. She was always fascinated by the brain and body and therefore kinesiology seemed like the perfect fit. However, teaching slowly began to trickle into her life without her even realizing it. As part of her job she used to educate adults with sports or motor vehicle accident injuries about the healing process and how the pain cycle worked. “They were always telling me about how I was really good at explaining how their body functioned and healed,” she says. After a couple of years working as a kinesiologist, Reid-Larade reached a crossroads. She was either going to continue in the healthcare field and become a chiropractor or a physiotherapist or try her hand at
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a different side of teenage behaviour so they can respond effectively and aid with the learning process. Within a few weeks she received her acceptance into teacher’s college in Ottawa. She accepted on the spot and never looked back. lyson Reid-Larade did her practicums in Ottawa and loved the city so much that she never left. Over her career she has taught science, biology and physical education at St Peter and St Francis Xavier High Schools and currently teaches outdoor education and health for life. For the past three years she has also been working in special education.“I wanted to be able to work more closely with
ABOVE: Alyson Reid-Larade is passionate about promoting both the physical and mental health of students.
the students who struggle with school and struggle with the learning process,” she says. “[I want to] help them to find their strengths.” Reid-Larade is very passionate about promoting both mental and physical health for her students. She loves nature and has taken many students on overnight camping trips. She has even taken school groups to Costa Rica three times. “I think negative stress is an indoor illness and when kids are given the opportunity to challenge themselves outside, they grow in all sorts of wonderful ways,” she says. Reid-Larade has continued her early passion for physiology and the human brain. She worked with a neurosurgeon from CHEO to help coaches and PE teachers make sense of new research into concussions when‘Return-to-Play’ protocols were being introduced. She has also been studying the neuroscience and psychology of the developing brain with the Neufeld Institute for many years. She is passionate about getting students, parents and other teachers to
