Last Tuesday marked our first workshop of the Values: Self, society and professions module. To say I was anxious about what would be involved was an understatement. When we arrived to the class we were randomly split into four different groups. I was in group four (if only I knew the implications of this beforehand).
Each group was given a large brown envelope. The task was to create a tool to help a new student joining the University of Dundee. This all seemed very exciting until we opened our envelope and seen how little we had to work with. We were given a post-it note, three paper clips and a pencil. To begin with we were completely shocked – we had no idea what we could possibly make out of this with such little resources. After discussing what we first struggled with we decided to make a campus map out of the envelope with the sticky note pointing out key places to know. Although our idea was not the most creative we felt fairly proud as we made the most of what we were given. It was however, disheartening when Carrie made her way around the groups and didn’t seem to like ours at all. We had no clue what more we could possibly have done.
When the presentations begun it became apparent that the other groups had a lot more to work with than we did. Carrie was extremely impressed with group one’s design constantly praising them throughout the presentation. However, as the presentation went on Carrie seemed more and more disinterested with out group being last. We were given no eye contact and no praise. This was a humiliating thing to experience as we really had tried our best to be resourceful.
We were then made aware that it was all an act (which my group were very pleased about!). This was to increase our awareness of inequalities n society; in both large and small scale scenarios. There is inequality everywhere – between countries, genders, cultures, race etc. However, inequality is also massively present in the classroom. This could be concerning many different issues such as academic skills or something so little as who has the nicest school uniform.
This workshop highlighted to me just how important it is to ensure that each child is treated with equal opportunities in an educational setting. Whether they’re in group one or group four each child should be given the same attention to prevent embarrassment and lack of confidence. I feel very strongly about this aspect of teaching and feel that the workshop has deepened my understanding of how it feels to be in ‘group four’ in the classroom which emphasises how important it is to have no hierarchy in the classroom.
