Category Archives: edushare

The most powerful message all children need to hear!

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Children do not need to hear  “yes your pretty, yes your thin, you are beautiful”!

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I understand by replying with this positive response as a teacher, parent or older sibling you believe such a positive response will generate a positive response from the child. These replies are fear based replies its the opposing view of the child who claims they are Ugly or fat.

We as teachers, parents or any other adults need to provide children with an abundance based response. Children need to be told to accept who they are. YOU are more that your prettiness, you are more than your ugliness, more than fatness.

YOU ARE MORE THAN THE FORM and this is the message we should be providing our children with, that they are more than the form. This is so important as if we link the child with a quality of a form and then that form does not manifest. E.g if we tell a child “your hair is so pretty,” and one day all there hair gets cut off or falls out; that Childs whole perception of themselves dies. Everything that child thought was important about themselves is ruined.

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The self is eternal it is more than the form.

A lot of adults are so worried and try to wrap there children in cotton wool claiming that they are pretty or thin; adults want to protect their children from the struggles of life and they believe that by saying these things to children they are protecting them from such struggles and making life easier for them, But there is no escaping life struggles, but we can teach children to embrace that within the struggle there is strength and that strength is true beauty.

 

*All views are my own and my opinions can be backed up by Dr S. Tsabary; her book can be found here hyperlink .

 

It’s a problem free, Philosophy, Hakuna matata!

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My name is Abbie Kelly and I am currently at the University of Dundee. Where I study an MA Hons in Primary Education. I was able to gain my place on the course through determination, hard work and a drive to succeed. I understand I need all these skills in order to be an undergraduate.

Primarily, I first realized that I wanted to become a Primary teacher and work with children; when it came to my year ten work experience. I chose to work at St Johns C of E Primary School, in Watford England. Where my Auntie was in fact head Teacher. Whilst I already knew I had the passion and the drive to work with children, this experience reinforced that. I understand that in order to be an undergraduate this experience was important as it will help me during my placements.

I knew that in order to succeed in going on to become an undergraduate, I had to achieve excellent grades. This was because as I knew primary teaching is an extremely competitive course to get onto. In fifth year at St Paul’s Academy, Dundee I managed to gain great higher results. This meant that in sixth year I only needed to achieve a B in my higher RMPS, and a B in my intermediate mathematics. This was the conditional offer that the University of Dundee presented me with.

However, I realized that In order to give myself the best possible chance to be accepted and offered a place at university and be an undergraduate I not only needed good grades, but the practical knowledge, skills and experience in my chosen field of study. With this in mind I dedicated four hours every week to volunteering with children. This volunteer work meant I was working with children age ranged from four to thirteen. For two hours on a Thursday afternoon I would spend time working at St Luke’s and St Matthews Primary School, Dundee. Where I would rotate and work with a different year group each week, this included building up experiencing in working with composite classes. I also dedicated my further two hours to working in a high school with first and second years in order to see what level a child should be at by the time the reach secondary school. On reflection, I believe that my time spent at both the high School and the Primary School really helped me develop the skills and gain the knowledge I needed to decide that Teaching was something that I really, truly wanted to do.

Moreover, these experiences helped me write my personal statement, which is vital when applying to University. For Primary teaching you really have to make sure that in your personal statement you are a reflective person. Meaning that you are able to take your experiences and portray to others what you have learnt from them. From my personal statement I was then given an interview and the University of Dundee.

Prior to the interview I was sent an emailing explaining that when we got to the interview we would have to deliver a three to five minute presentation on Malia Yuesfus speech “One pencil, one promise” ; and from this we would need to explain our thoughts and opinions of this statement and what we had learnt from this. So at the interview, first we were split into groups and taken to different rooms, this is where we were given a group ice breaker and discussion task; after this we said our presentations. Then finally it was a group discussion. The interview seemed to go well, and six days after the interview as mentioned before I was given my conditional offer of a B in int 2 mathematics and higher RMPS. I understood that in order to be a successful undergraduate I would need to maintain this high level of hard work.

I work extremely hard and focused the rest of the year and then when results day came and I had found out I had exceeded my condition by getting two A’s I was extremely happy. I had officially gained my place at Dundee University.

My goal whilst I am here is to take every experience on offer, gain valuable experience that I can use after I graduate. Then finally I would love to become a fully qualified teacher, who inspires young people to make a difference.

 

MY EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY

This is my Educational Philosophy in the attached document. However, my educational philosophy my change, adapt and develop.  My Educational Philosophy.docx

Writing this has helped me decide that I previously had a very limited educational Philosophy. Yet due to the workshop able to adapt my philosophy on education and debate with other people about what I believed was right and wrong in terms of behaviour management. I know see that it is important to try and positively praise children in terms of trying to manage there behaviour. In addition, prior to this I did not feel that I had really ever thought about the ethos of a school. My educational philosophy would have been very anecdotal. But as you can see from the attached document; I do have many thoughts of education and what it means for the people in my care. I feel like this will greatly improve throughout  my years as I gain more and more experience as a class room teacher.