SWATCA 2025 - South Western Alberta Teachers' Convention

Brian Dawydiuk has been teaching for the better part of two decades. In that time he has learned, usually through his own mistakes, valuable lessons about how to be a better educator. Aside from teaching, Brian is a headlining stand up comedian who has entertained crowds throughout western Canada. In this session Brian will engage the audience with embarrassing, hilarious, inspiring and sometimes bizarre stories from his teaching career and personal life designed to reinforce the idea of taking risks, embracing mistakes and growing through failure. Brian will also outline how he incorporates comedy into his lessons and how effective humour is in a classroom. Brian will tell stories of his time teaching in the third lowest ranked school in England, working as a substitute teacher and stories as a teacher in various schools in Southern Alberta. At the end of the session, Brian will field questions from the audience about how to incorporate comedy into the classroom or any other inquiry that may be inspired during the presentation. The goal of this session for the audience to leave the session with a new perspective on their own practice, ideas to bring into the classroom on Monday and inspiration to take some risks and try new things. Even if that goal isn't met, Brian wants the audience leaving with a smile.