1.1 Social Justice | My Teacher Training Journey

Today we had our first lecture on the third part of Social Studies ‘People in Society, Economy and Business’ and focussed on the idea of what it is to be a ‘Global Citizen’.

To me, a global citizen is someone who is aware how their actions can impact other people and holds the values of respect and diversity.

As an activity we watched a clip from the Paddington movie where you see Paddington meeting the Brown family for the first time. We were then to pick a theme from this scene and develop an activity you could use in the classroom. Paddington has found himself homeless and is sitting in the train station wondering his next move when the Brown family get off their train. Mr Brown makes assumptions about Paddington straight away and says things such as ‘stranger danger’, ‘keep your eyes down’ ,’ he’s probably selling something’ and is not happy when his wife goes back to approach Paddington. He then continues to be hostile towards Paddington as he explain how he came to be homeless. Therefore I choose to look at the theme of making judgements and ignorance.

I brainstormed the various ways we can make judgements in society. For example about: homeless people, refugees, people of different nationalities and race, criminals, celebrities and politicians. I then began to think about why we may hold these judgements, for example influence from the media and our family. My activity idea involved presenting pupils with a photo of different people in society and get them to write down the words that come to mind. As a class we would then discuss, challenge and begin to explain where these ideas have come from. The main outcome of the lesson would be to encourage pupils to be critcal about what they are told by the media and other people in their lives before making up their own opinion with he values of respect and diversity in mind.

I took this further at home by watching a Ted talk about something called the ‘Ignorance Project’ conducted by GapMinder. The project conducted studies on peoples answers to stereotypical questions and then analysed why people were giving the stereotypical answers. They discussed how all we see on the news is the bad and we forget that the majority of the society/people/the world are not experiencing this ‘bad’. They suggested the way to lessen these judgements is to teach positively, that the ‘bad’ is getting better. For example poverty levels have reduced, defences against natural disasters are increasing and that refugees bring valuable skills.

Ted Talk: https://www.gapminder.org/ignorance/ (Accessed 1/10/18).

Overall I found this lesson extremely motivating and helpful. I feel I have benefitted as learner by taking a minute to challenge the judgements I may personally make which will in-turn positively impact my professional values. While I have also developed an understand of how to teach a Global Citizenship lesson and have gathered some useful resources for this.

This workshop was one of my first therefore I was apprehensive about what to expect. Not long after we had sat down we were back up again and split into groups; I was in group 3. Each group was given an envelope with materials in it and we were told to make a product for a university student. I thought to myself, I’ve done this before, it’s just another team building exercise, nothing new. Oh I was wrong….

Each group was asked to present a brief to the class of what they were going to make and explain the resources they were given. I decided to take the plunge and present my group’s brief to the class; a scary but beneficial move. As my confidence grew throughout the talk I was glad I did it.

After all the groups had presented it came to light that two groups (1&2) had far more resources than the remaining groups (3&4). I did begin to wonder why…Until I realised we only had 15 minutes left to create something exciting out of 3 bits of paper, some blue tac and a pen!

We knew we weren’t doing well, we could feel the disappointment of our lecturer. While other groups received praise we went unnoticed and began to loose motivation. We observed group 1 receive encouragement and positive comments on their wide variety of materials while group 4 were discouraged and told they were limited in what they could achieve. After a frantic 15 minutes the exercise came to an end and it was time to present our masterpieces.

Group 1 & 2 received smiles, attention and positive comments about their projects while 3&4 received the opposite. After my group had presented we were simply told to sit down with no feedback. It then came to group 4 who weren’t even given attention, never mind feedback! Our lecturer was checking her watching and gazing out the window throughout their whole presentation.

Anyways ; Surprise, surprise, group 1 were the winners.

It was obvious by this point it was deliberate the way the groups had been treated and the resources they were given. It was to teach us about inequality in todays society and how it can feel when you are in direct competition with those who have so much more than you. It was also to demonstrate how important and valuable encouragement can be. I found myself thankful I was in one of the disadvantaged groups, I was able to experience and reflect on how this felt first hand. I realised; We’re university students and we still got grumpy and a little upset at the way we are treated for that hour workshop; therefore its hard to imagine how a child who faces that everyday must feel.

This workshop taught me a valuable lesson that I will carry for the rest of my Career. Inequality, in most cases, reduces motivation to achieve yet motivation is key to escaping inequality. Therefore by doing your best to treat everyone equally this motivation could be increased. This rule is extremely important in the class room. No matter the child’s background I will strive to ensure every child has the motivation to achieve; whatever this may mean for them as an individual.