February 2019

Following the dance workshop, I feel my understanding of dance within schools has been deepened. I had very little of knowledge of how dance links into the curriculum as in my experience dance was always outside of school, the workshop has made me realise how I can use dance to aid my teaching.

The workshop helped me realise how helpful non-verbal communication can be for pupils within a class, getting to move with the class and be in a non-traditional classroom setting allows you to become more comfortable with those in your class, just like we did in the workshop.

Dance helps the children to get rid of the awkwardness they may feel in a new class or if they don’t know many others in the class, but in a fun and subtle way. After doing some reading on dance activities I was also surprised to find how easy it was to use dance across the curriculum to aid other subjects. Such as using dance to help the children understand other cultures traditions.

I also found that dance can be the best way for children to express themselves if they aren’t comfortable using words. Doing exercises that allow children to display different emotions can be a great way for many of the children to blow off steam or even help deepen their understanding of how they are feeling.

Expressive arts within the curriculum is something that I think is commonly overlooked which in my opinion is a big mistake as we are moving into a new less traditional way of teaching and the expressive arts will be a huge aid in bridging the gap to these new methods.

I had never heard the term ‘Mathsphobia’ before coming to university. Now that I have, I’ve realised that I have it, or at least used to. In high school math’s was the subject that caused me the most anxiety and upset and I never really knew why. I had never been terrible at math’s or found it to be hindering my learning but always had an overwhelmingly negative attitude towards it. This attitude carried all through high school where in my Nat 5 I had teachers telling me they couldn’t figure out why I thought of it so negatively to my higher where I fully decided maths was the worst subject in the curriculum.

However, until now I had never thought about where my negativity of maths may have come from. As we are spoken to about how heavily influenced a child’s attitude towards a subject is by their primary school teacher and family, I thought about my relationship with maths during my childhood. When doing this I realised where the hatred comes from. Growing up I not only had teachers who frequented the phrase ‘oh maths was never my thing’ but also had an older sister struggling with her higher with my parents not understanding it either. Being surrounded by maths in the setting made me automatically give maths negative connotations even though none of the situations have anything to do with maths itself rather than the individuals relationship with it.

After thinking about this it has made me rethink my attitude towards maths. During the maths workshop I have found myself to be enjoying revisiting and remembering old maths formulas, tips and tricks that I had previously forgotten which to me shows that my negativity truly was because of the setting I was in rather than myself. Reflecting on this has made me realised that in my teaching career I want to always ensure that my personal biases do not shine through my teaching but also push to try and dispel prejudices around subjects that children gain from those around them.