Hello,

As I am writing this blog post I am currently in Week 1 of Semester 2 and beginning to prepare for my placement starting in March. The idea of placement for me is both equally exciting and nerve-wracking however I am aiming to work hard and get the most out of placement. In this post, I will be discussing my aims and goals for placement and hopefully, during/after placement I can reflect on this post to check if I have met my goals.

Firstly, I am looking forward to learning off of my mentor and gaining a leadership role within the classroom as I believe it will allow me to develop confidence. To do this, I aim to build a good relationship with all learners in the classroom to gain respect and make the children look forward to each lesson. I hope to further develop my organisation skills by creating lesson plans and stepping out of my comfort zone when asked to prepare and teach a class.

I also aim to build a good relationship with all members of staff within the school and take in any advice and expertise that they have to offer. I believe this is important as I learned the importance that collaborative working can have when it comes to self-development in the Working Together module. I hope to learn from all of the teachers as they will all be in different stages of their career and will have a large variety of experience and knowledge.

Throughout my placement, I aim to keep track of my own development by writing down what I thought I did well and what I think I need to work on. To do this I will use Brookfield’s Lenses to reflect back on how I think I am doing using my Autobiographical Lens but also using the Peer Lens to listen to the advice and constructive criticism given by my mentor.

As the weeks go on, I hope I can notice an improvement in my teaching and take on advice given by my tutor or mentor to show them that I can develop my skills and abilities. I also aim to become more critical and analytic when it comes to my work to question if the strategies I am using are the most effective.

Overall, I am really looking forward to my placement and I hope that I manage to achieve my own goals and learn a lot along the way.

Looking back on Tuesdays Values lesson, it is clear to say that it was thought-provoking and eye-opening. For me, Racism has always been thought of something that happened many years ago and has been always been unacceptable for as long as I have known. However, I also knew that this was not the case for everyone as racist behaviour and words are still common in the present day.

By looking at racist incidents in the past such as the brutal murder of Emmet Till, we could all strongly agree this was unnecessary and inhumane. However, despite the shocking case of Till, racism continues in the present day and we can see things haven’t completely moved on. A present day example of racism could be as relevant as this year, 2018. This would be through the rise of Islamophobia due to misinformation in the news and media. However, this is no excuse for the racist behaviour.

In the future when working as a professional I hope to teach children that inclusion in everyday life is one of the most valuable attributes to have. Whether this inclusion is for people of different races, gender, sexuality or anything else, I want to teach acceptance for everyone. I believe that the best way to do this is to teach children at a young age that it is ok to be different, in fact, it should be celebrated as we are all unique.

Therefore, this values lecture not only opened my eyes to the wider picture of discrimination but has also motivated me to make a difference. I hope to challenge discriminative thoughts of anyone who holds them and to stand up for equal rights to everyone.

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