Rebecca Smith UWS ITE ePDP – Page 2 – Just another blogs.glowscotland.org.uk

The Holmes-Rahe Stress Inventory

I scored 50 when taking this test and this suggests that my levels of stress are relatively low as I have had a relatively low level of life change over the past year. I was surpried by this result as I have felt quite high levels of stress throughout this year at different points and for different reasons which were not mentioned as part of this test. For example, the stress which is caused by exams and work load at university and the stress of trying to maintain a work/life balance. These things cause me to worry and to sometimes work too hard, getting caught up n the idea that I must feel in control of my work. Also, personal issues such as problems with family and friends can cause me to worry and can prevent me from relaxing as my mind is always spinning. These types of problems can also prevent me from going out and soicalising with my friends or from enjoyign myself when I do, meaning that I am essentially stressed about being stressed and struggle to relieve it.

However, there are many things that I can actively do in attempt to relieve stress and I am surrounded by supportive people so this also helps me to releive stress. By making a conscious effort to stop studying or doing university work at a certain time in the day to fit in some form of exercise, I can allow my mind to have a break from hard work and I can allow my body to release some of its energy. Exercise also helps to release some of the tension that I feel and makes me feel happier and more relaxed. Furthermore, my outlook on life can imact my stress levels. If I have a positive outlook and I am optimistic about things, I am more likely to be able to make an effort to do things that make me happy. I am alot more likely to take opportunities and to view potentially bad situations as experiences which have happened for a reason and will, in the long term, get better. This hope will allow me to cope with stress more easily as I believe that things are going to get better and that hard times do not last forever. In addition, by planning ahead I am able to reduce my stress levels as I feel more in control of my life. This also helps me to control my work/life balance as I have planned days and times to get my work done as well as fitting in exercise, family, and friends. Finally, I like to talk to people about my problems to the people I trust and who care about me. This helps me to relieve my stress as people can give me different ways to look at my problems and provide different opinions on how best to deal with them. I am very lucky as I have a large social support network and without this I would defineitly be much more susceptible to high levels of stress.

Is Scotland Healthy?

unhealthy-scotland It would be impossible for me to determine Scotland as a ‘healthy’ or ‘unhealthy’ country without making some generalisations. For that matter, I am not talking about every Scottish person when I answer the main question of ‘Is Scotland healthy?’ with no.

We are provided with statistics, such as those from the Scottish Health survey, which claim that from a sample of 4,894 adults, 74% of them describe their health as being ‘good’ or ‘very good’, with only 8% describing their health as bad or very bad. From the sample of 1,839 children, 95% of them described their health as ‘good’ or ‘very good’, while 1% described their health as ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’. I personally believe that if this was the case, there is no way that Scotland’s mortality rate would be so high. There are many people in the samples taken who truly will live healthy lifestyles, but it could be argued that there will also be many who either do not understand the meaning of a healthy lifestyle, or who cannot admit to themselves or others that the way they are living their lives cannot be classed as healthy.

Looking firstly at diet, only 22% of adults in 2013 said that they ate the recommended 5 portions of fruit and veg a day, with children eating on average 2.7 portions per day. Also, around 34% of children admitted to eating cakes at least twice a week. An unhealthy diet can vastly impact a persons wellbeing as it can lead to heart disease, vitamin deficiencies, and obesity, which can itself lead to various further health problems. Over 25% of adults in Scotland were obese in 2013. Today we live in a time in which nobody has time! So ready meals, jars of sauce and fast food are always the easy option. However, many of these contain hidden ingredients such as sodium, which, when eaten excessively, can lead to kidney problems, high blood pressure, heart problem, and weak bones.

Another cause of obesity is lack of exercise. 64% of adults in the sample claimed to meet the recommended weekly exercise guidelines. We could say that with more than half of the country reaching these guidelines, Scotland is a generally active country. However, with this in mind, we also must consider the other 46% of adults who are not meeting these guidelines, maybe just by a little bit, or maybe by doing no exercise at all. From personal experience, I believe that with the evolution of social media through the years, people are beginning to promote more healthy and active lifestyles through this. As fitness gurus become role models for many and as people post photographs of the transformations they have undergone through healthy diet and exercise, the generations of internet users are being inspired. However, depending on the attitudes to exercise that we grow up around, we are often exposed to a lack of motivation to exercise, or to the attitude that it is not really necessary. Therefore, there is definitely room for improvement when it comes to Scotland’s physical activity.

As well as these causes of poor health, I feel it is vital to mention alcohol consumption and smoking. With new legislation people are less likely to be harmed by second hand smoke. Although, it is clear that despite the known dangers of lung cancer, smoking still exists in Scotland and until this is not the case, it will contribute to our high mortality rates and poor general health. In addition, our culture has widely accepted that the people of today drink to get drunk. Drinking excessive amounts of alcohol not only has the potential to damage the liver but can also effect people mentally.

Mental health plays a huge part in determining the general health of Scotland. With around one in ten adults having had two or more symptoms of depression, 5% saying that they had attempted to take their lives at least once, as well as 5% saying that they had harmed themselves on purpose without the intent of killing themselves, Scotland may not be the least, but it is not the most, mentally healthy country it could be. However, support for this is on the rise and I would claim that within my life-time I have noticed an increase in help available as well as a decrease in stigma against mental health issues such as depression and anxiety.

The report also covers other areas of health such as dental health, childhood obesity, Asthma, Cardiovascular Disease, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, and Hypertension. The results of these aspects were varied but all of which displayed Scottish people as being relatively susceptive to having these diseases and health problems.

Therefore, it is fair to conclude that despite the high claims of good health in Scotland, the mortality rate is far too high and the NHS is far too stretched for these claims to be valid. So many diets consist of too much sugar and salt and not enough vitamins and minerals. Although many people claim to meet the guidelines of weekly exercise, there are still a group which remains not doing enough exercise. Obesity, smoking and alcohol abuse remain as huge problems, putting increasing pressure on the NHS to provide adequate health care. While mental health problems may be being more widely supported, they are often triggered by the stress that our society places on people. Meaning that Scotland, clearly, has quite a long way to go to becoming ‘healthy’.

The Glasgow Effect

glasgow-effect The Glasgow Effect is a term used to describe the apparent relationship between Glasgow and poor health, beyond the levels of poor health which are to be expected due to levels of socioeconomic deprivation. The document discussing an investigation by David Walsh, Neil Bendel, Richard Jones and Phil Hanlon into this effect looks at the relationship between Glasgow’s socio-economic state and mortality rates. However, by investigating this relationship, the need for a different investigation was highlighted and this is currently underway, looking to understand why Glasgow has a higher mortality rate than other cities with similar levels of deprivation. The cities used for comparison to Glasgow were Liverpool and Manchester. Alongside Glasgow, these are the most deprive cities in the UK and have the highest mortality rates.

Firstly, researchers looked to define the three cities in question by the different local authorities within them. They then worked out a way to equally measure the income deprivation of each of the three cities, which were all at similar levels. After splitting each of the cities into smaller areas to make the results more accurate, researchers studied the mortality data for each small area, within 5 year age groups, taking genders and different causes, such as all malignant neoplasts, diseases of the circulatory system, external causes, and suicide and self inflicted injury, into account. They finally looked at historical data and other English cities to give them scope for comparison.

The results showed that with almost a quarter of each of the populations of Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester being classed as income deprived, the deprivation is similarly distributed. However, mortality rates in Glasgow for people aged under 65 years old were almost 30% higher than those in Liverpool and Manchester, suggesting that there are causes of this high mortality rate beyond deprivation. The ‘Excess’ mortality of Glasgow refers to deaths which, if Glasgow was the exact same as Liverpool and Manchester in terms of age, gender and mortality rates, would not be expected. This ‘excess’ mortality is at around 45% in the age group of 15-44 and around 30% in the age group of 45-64 year olds. Although, it was found that the mortality rate of children aged 0-15 in Glasgow is lower than in Manchester and Liverpool.

In addition, mortality was displayed as being at its highest in Glasgow, compared to Liverpool and Manchester in the most and least deprived deciles of the city. This clearly poses the question of why are death rates so high for people who are wealthy? Displaying the possibility that higher income may be detrimental to health, just as lower income is, possibly due to poor health decisions made because of stress, lack of time to be active, or money which is at their disposal to be spent on unhealthy habits.

Furthermore, a break down of the death rates in Glasgow due to different causes of death was shown. With deaths in Glasgow due to suicide being around 70% higher than those in Manchester and Liverpool. Also, deaths in Glasgow due to lung cancer are around 27% more common than those in Liverpool and Manchester. With external causes being 32% higher in Glasgow and alcohol and drug related deaths being almost 50% higher in Glasgow than in the other two cities mentioned.

Many different factors were considered and clearly, further research is required when thinking about why Scotland’s mortality rate is higher than that of two cities which have almost identical socioeconomic backgrounds to it. The possibility that it could be linked to an ‘anomie’, as discussed by Emile Durkeheim as a lack of control of society over people’s behaviour, is mentioned in this report. As well as this, it is considered that cultural differences, genetic factors, and family life, to name a few, could possibly be impacting Glasgow’s mortality rates. Clearly, many if not all of these factors, as well a the others mentioned, could be impacting Glasgow’s death rates. Poor health choices and generally poor health can be passed on through generations by genetics or simply by influence.

Glasgow was also compared to 4 less deprived English cities, namely: Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds and Sheffield. These results indicate that deprivation is definitely related to higher mortality. When comparing Glasgow with the rest of Scotland, it is made clear that Glasgow City has the highest rates of mortality in Scotland.

Inclusion and Equality – Focus on Disability

The most recent focus on in Society and Lifestyles on inclusion and equality has been disability. We used this as an example to allow us to specifically think about certain types of inequality and exclusion in society. Disability is just one of the many named characteristics which are protected against discrimination by the Equality Act, 2010. However, this allowed us to think in depth about Allport’s Scale of Prejudice and Discrimination using clear examples. Upon reflection of my own experiences witnessing and learning about real-life examples of antilocution, avoidance, discrimination, physical abuse and extermination, I considered that as a person of privilege, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to truly understand how people of the characteristics stated in the Equality Act, 2010 feel and deal with day to day tasks which I often take for granted as being easy.

I was then lead to consider the question: Does disability come from the impairments themselves or from the physical and social environment? I would have to argue the latter. It is very often not the impairment which prevents people from going about every day activities, but it is the restrictions caused by the environment which has been physically and socially built up to suit the majority. If we take example from John Rawls’ belief that in order to achieve equality as fairness, we must look to the least advantaged people first and consider that which would suit them. It is only by doing this that we will begin to see a shift towards a world which accommodates for everyone equally and as integrated.

In a TED talk filmed in October 2009, Aimee Mullens discussed her beliefs about adversity. She believes that adversity itself is not the problem – it is a challenge but it is one which must be looked at from a positive and pro-active point of view. Diversity is everywhere! It always has been and we are developing new ways in which people who are disabled can function most freely. However, it is the attitudes of society and the old fashioned building methods which are behind in the times. It is these two factors which are preventing many people with disabilities from seeing whatever impairment they may have as a part of them which makes them different – not less valuable. It is these which are segregating the advantaged from the disadvantaged.

As I make that statement it brings me to wonder, how can we distinguish between someone who is advantaged and someone who is not? My personal definition of advantage would be something which makes a person a step ahead of someone else. In this day and age should we really be considering people who are different as people who are disadvantaged? The mind-set of society must change as we cannot continue to impose this kind of negativity towards people who may look, act or feel differently to the majority. Aimee Mullens also discusses the idea of normality. It is society which creates this vision of a normal person and it is society which puts pressure on people to be no different to normal. Whether that be a child who is particularly clever at school; someone who chooses to die their hair purple; someone who doesn’t have much money; someone who lives in a different place to you; someone who plays a certain sport; or someone who hates sport and loves to read! The list could go on forvever until the characteristics one must have to be normal create a completely unrealistic view of a person who could not exist! We all have our qualities and our flaws, our likes and our dislikes, our circumstances and our lifestyles. We are all different and there is no true “normal”. Since normal can never exist, we are all competing in an endless cycle against those who are particularly different from us.

In our world of today, we must prevent people who have disabilities from being disadvantaged in any way. It is this line between advantage and disadvantage which creates two groups of majority and minority and which prevents either group from truly understanding the intentions or feelings of the other. As Nancy Fraser believes, it is our advantages which blind us from appreciating the contribution of minority groups. Therefore, the idea of Universal Design, if put in to practice from now on when designing new buildings, we should be able to see a more equal society. Not only allowing for equality as fairness but by influencing attitudes about disabilities. We are all so heavily influenced by society that if it was physically built with disabled and able bodied people considered as one, the line between the two would hopefully fade. This would hopefully lead to less discrimination and a more modern outlook on the possibilities disabled people have.

It is therefore fair to conclude that as a teacher I shall always consider those who are least advantaged in the class room before making sure that the classroom environment suits every child. I also see the great importance in educating children, as emphasised by Nancy Fraser, about minority groups and ensuring that every child’s needs are catered for in an equal, fair and inclusive way.

From learning about this today I found myself faced with many questions which I previously had not considered. Some of which I have discussed above and some of which I shall take away with me and look into further before I conclude my answers. One thing which really stuck with me from watching the Aimee Mullens TED talk was her quote “The exact meaning of the word ‘educate’ comes from the root word ‘educe’. It means to bring forth what is within, to bring out potential.” We must, as educators, students and members of the community, do our very best to bring out the very best in every person and provide them with the support to strive.

Inclusion and Equality

What is inclusion? Is it laws and policies which state that all types of people must have a voice? Or is it more than that? Are these laws and policies really any more than a steeping stone towards true fairness of treatment and opportunity?

I believe not. I would agree with Nelson and Prilleltensky (2010) that in order to achieve true inclusion, we need to connect and to legitimise. That is, as a society we must respect each others differences and we must act against those who say or do discriminatory things. Inclusion can be discussed in many different levels, namely personal, relational and societal. At each of these levels inclusion has different concerns. At a personal level, inclusion is concerned with giving people control over their own lives and allowing them to have a say. At a relational level, inclusion is concerned with providing people with comfortable and supportive relationships, while at a societal level, inclusion looks to provide people with the material help that they may require and is related to creating a more equal society.

Inclusion within politics and education are both extremely significant when discussing the affects and importance of inclusion. Lani Florian looked into inclusive pedagogy and found that in order for teachers to become more inclusive, they must focus on the learning of all pupils, not just that of those who require more support. Reading about this, I was able to relate as during my years spent at school, I did not often require as much support as some of my peers. However, despite the fact that I did not have additional needs, I sometimes felt as though my work and ideas were sidelined. Upon reflection I can see that this was clearly because my teachers required to spend more time with those who needed extra help, but for pupils who were of a similar ability to myself, it must be considered that some of them may not have reached their full potential as they were not included or challenged enough by the teacher. I found myself looking at this finding of Florian’s and wondering: sometimes, in an educational setting, is it those who do not have additional needs that are in the minority? And so is it this group that we must make sure not to forget?

Lack of inclusion can lead to negative relationships between minorities and large communities and this can very easily lead to tensions between them as all different groups begin to build up negative perspectives of those they have poor relationships with. Tensions and disagreement of beliefs, as well as poor treatment can lead to the formation of radical groups and a lack of peace in the world. It can also cause poor mental and emotional health of those who are not being included as they may be made to feel as though their characteristic of minority makes them less valuable. With poor mental and emotional health, the loved ones of these people will also be negatively affected as they are worrying about and consoling this person who they wish to see happy. Inclusion is therefore extremely important and must always be considered in society.

Peggy McIntosh discusses “privilege” as an advantage which all people who do not fall into the category of every single minority has. She believes that this means that those of us who do not have a certain characteristic which would make us a part of a minority, are privileged as we have the required belongings which allow us to be included and to be free in all walks of life. To McIntosh, this means that those of us who fall in to this category, can never truly understand the feelings of the disadvantaged.

Closely related to inclusion is equality. There are various different approaches towards the meaning of equality, including equality of opportunity. This refers to providing all people with the same opportunities and the same starting point. I would not consider this as always being equal. Clearly, providing different people with the same chances in the beginning, it not going to provde them with equal chances of success. Another approach when looking at equality is that of outcome. This approach demonstrates the need for more than the same opportunities as it goes further. It looks at rewards and praise, often encouraging the view that no matter what happens throughout, different people’s outcomes should always be the same. However, as both of these approaches are clearly flawed, equality as fairness and equality of condition ensure that different types of people are provided with the require support and are never prevented from reaching their full potential due to their differences.

These conditions are discussed by Lynch and Baker (2005) as equality of resources such as health care, education, income and family; equality of respect and recognition such as opportunities to make a contribution and to be accepted; equality of love, care and solidarity, meaning that all people should have equal access to these through organisations like care facilities and transportation; equal access to power which refers to the ability to hold control over your life and to help make decisions and; equal access to working and learning.

However, it is clear that not all of these conditions of equality are understood and practiced by all people. Therefore, sadly, discrimination remains as a widespread problem. People can display prejudice in various different ways and I found it interesting to see that Allport (1954) wrote a book called ‘The Nature of Prejudice’ and discussed this in terms of its least to most extreme forms. He began with Antilocution, which refers to discrimination in the form of words. Often, those who say offensive things about people who belong to a minority group are not being intentionally hurtful to them, but their preconceptions and assumptions about that specific type of person makes their words uneducated and unkind. Verbal abuse can range across a huge scale and can become equally as offensive as physical abuse. The next on the list discusses avoidance, whereby a person may avoid, exclude and isolate another due to their differences. After this is discrimination, this refers to preventing certain types of people from using services or getting to do something because of their differences. Then there is physical attack, followed by extermination.

Allport (1954) said “Although most barking foes not lead to biting […] there is never a bite without previos barking.” (p. 57). I would interpret this to mean that although most talk does not lead to physical action, there is never physical action without previous talk. Therefore, although verbal abuse of the smallest form may seem harmless to some, it may eventually lead to physical action, may that be from the person who is being discriminated against or the person who is discriminating. No matter who begins the physical action, there is potential for conflict within spoken words, so we must always be aware of the words we use and the way in which we express our opinions, making sure they are not offensive. We must also ensure that we are well educated about different types of people because with a clearer understanding we can develop a fuller acceptance, meaning that our words are less likely to be based on preconceptions and assumptions.

The Equality Act 2010 named nine characteristics which are not to be discriminated against and made it clear that people in positions of authority within communitues must work to get rid of discrimination and to encourage equality and inclusion for all.

From learning about this topic today I have become intrigued to discover more and to look further into the idea of advantage and at the different theorists of Mel Ainscow, Nancy Fraser and John Rawis. As a teacher I believe that inclusion and equality are two vastly important and influential aspects of classroom life that I will require to be conscious of and to understand how best to encourage these throughout my career.

References

Allport, G.W. (1954) The Nature of Prejudice. Reading (Mass): Addison-Wesley.

Lynch, K. and Baker, J. (2005) Equality in education: An equality of condition perspective. Theory and Research in Education. 3(2), pp. 131-164.

Religion, Culture, Unchurched Spirituality and Social Issues

Before this weeks lecture and tutorial, I was unaware of the vast impact that religion has on culture and I was especially interested to discover some specific cases of this controversial relationship. Max Weber’s belief that Christian Protestantism was a large contributing factor towards the rise of Capitalism in the West, suggested religion to encourage hard work as people wanted to earn their place in Heaven. This work ethic was implied by Weber to have built up our developed western world society of today.

However, Carl Marx believed the opposite to this. He believed that religion was used by the rich to control the poor. He believed that hard work did not earn ones place in Heaven as religion itself was an illusion which deluded people into blindness from the unfairness of their situations and made them accept their fate as a poor state of life while the rich and powerful remained so without being challenged.

Bruce Lincoln supports many of Marx’s views such as the idea that religion impacts control within society as it has a power within it, similar to the pwoers within all areas of society, although he believes that people must not accept all religious claims as the truth but they should be cautious of it. In contrast to this, Matt Waggoner believes that religion is not simply a myth which controls power in society, but it is just as powerful as culture itself. He argues to those who oppose the power of religion that our world was developed by a culture which was based on religion.

Therefore, despite these views being very different from each other, they all have one thing in common and that is the undeniable belief that religion has, even in today’s more secular world, a very large impact on culture and therefore society. I have came to the conclusion that although these beliefs are different, they all provide examples of religion as a factor of social change. Weber’s belief that religion provided a work ethic which allowed for our well developed society of today and Marx’s ideas that religion acted as a means of social control – keeping a hierarchy without challenge, may be completely different beliefs, however they both represent ways in which religion has an impact on culture.

Furthermore, by learning about Unchurched Spirituality, I learned that people search for spiritual guidance even if they do not belong to a particular religious group. This type of spirituality may struggle to provide moral order and it often goes against any beliefs of science or politics. It can also be very dangerous if it goes wrong as it can lead to brainwashing and mind control of people who are searching for more extreme spiritual guidance than that which they are finding in a church. As part of the tutorial, my group and I concluded that the main reason for the rise of this type of spirituality has been secularisation. Therefore in looking to find the main reasons for secularisation we suggested that modern education teaches science, for example Darwin’s Theory of Evolution as truth and teaches about different religions as beliefs. It also may be connected to the fact that todays society is generally richer than it once was, with material objects becoming more readily available to most, meaning that, as Ronald Inglehart (2004) said “When material conditions improve, need for religious solace depreciates.” However, those who are poor are looking to super natural powers rather than religion.

Finally, religion clearly has a huge impact on society as a whole, whether that be on people personally, on diversity or on culture. Religion can provide solutions to social problems but it has also been said to cause social problems. As a solution to social problems, religion has been known to provide material resources to people in need as it can be said to encourage kindness and generosity. It also provides people with a spiritual community, influencing how meaningfully people live their lives and providing a community in which people discuss their problems with others who may be experiencing similar issues. Furthermore, many religions provide charitable organisations which step in when the state fails to help certain types of people. In addition, religion can encourage high self-esteem and can lower how stressed people feel as it provides them with support when they are dealing with various social and emotional problems.

However, religion can be argued to cause social problems as many people who claim to be religious and to be following the wishes of their God are really people who are misusing the name of a religion to create conflict. Also, many religious groups will use their acts of generosity and kindness to promote their religion and to discourage belief in anything else. Furthermore, religion can impact on health in a negative way as certain people believe that to accept some medical treatments would be to go against their religion.

From what I have learned throughout the lecture, tutorial and individual task, I have found many ways in which religion impacts on society and vice versa. This has been the case since religion came about and despite the continuing secularisation of the world around us, religion will always have an impact on society as it can be said to have been the base of the development of modern society.

In reflection of my learning of these topics I am looking to read more widely on them and to develop a true and deep understanding of the ways in which religion impacts on culture and societies problems, as well as the impacts of unchurched spirituality.

Religion, Society and Diversity

As a result of today’s lecture, independent task and tutorial, I have learned that religion can be sectioned in to three types – established religion, sects and cults. Each of these share certain characteristics, allowing them to fall into the same category, although they also display differing levels of extremity and different ways of organisation. I have also learned that there are many different definitions of religion, depending on which angle one looks at it from. However, there are commonalities between all religions and Bourdillion believes that they are composed of the way people see things and symbols. As I am viewing religion from a sociologists point of view, it would have been recommended by Ninian Smart that I should adopt the scholary approach.

Furthermore, I have learned that religion has many purposes and through discussion of the opportunities and challenges of religious diversity in the tutorial, I have found that this is a very powerful part of today’s society. Potentially creating a more accepting and peaceful culture as by allowing our children to grow up in a religiously diverse society, we are allowing them exposure to, and possibly experience of, different religious practices and lifestyles, therefore helping to eradicate the fear of the unkown. In addition, in many cases it may lead to people finding their own sense of identity within a different religion to that which they were originally brought up to be. As well as this, I learned that religion provides order within society. This provides a clear example of how lifestyle impacts on society as it is ultimately our beliefs which guide us towards the decisions we make. Meaning that those who follow a religion, should follow the teachings of that religion and this will impact their actions. It can also be said that through these teachings there are requirements, sometimes in the form of rituals. These rituals can have an impact on our society as those who go through with them, or do not go through with them, will either fit in to the society within their religion or not and this will affect them phsycologically.

I mostly understand the main concepts and issues of the topics and areas I have learnt today as I am now able to see the vast complexity of the definition of religion and its purposes within society. I can also see that religion and society have been connected since the creation of whichever one came first, and affect each other in both positive and negative ways. Many Marxists could be argued to believe that religion has always been used to control people and to deceive them into a false sense of contentment and safety as all will be solved by God, hiding them from political unfairness.

However, I am struggling to understand Bruce Lincoln’s belief about culture and religion providing a site for negotiations for power and privilege in society and the ‘hegemonic struggle’. To develop my understanding of this, I will find his book ‘Discourse and the Construction of Society’ and I will read more about this particular term and topic and will hopefully find further explaination. I also need to read more on the theorists that we looked at today, I have began to read about Bourdillion. I will continue to do this before next weeks class as well as reading about Bronislaw Malinowski and Emile Durkheim.

Personal Response to ‘Room’

Reading for pleasure is something which I can only do if I have become extremely engaged in a novel within the first few chapters. Luckily, I was gripped to ‘Room’ from the very beginning. When read for pleasure, I have always read fiction books; usually those which have a thrilling or particularly emotional story-line. I would always tend to read fictional books as I like the idea of escaping reality to read something purely for entertainment. However, I also enjoy fictional books which focus on realistic story-lines such as ‘Room’.
I enjoyed reading this novel as I could tell from the first few pages that Jack’s life was very different from my own, so I was interested to find out more about it. I also enjoyed piecing parts of the story together as Jack’s language means that the reader is not always told exactly what is happening in clear terms and every situation is discussed from his perspective. In addition, I found that Jack’s language had many hidden meanings and suggestions about his thoughts and feelings, and I was given access to his perception of the world. I was able to engage with Jack and to empathise with his ‘Ma’ in a way which his environment and knowledge would not let him do.
It is for these reasons that I would recommend ‘Room’ to anyone. As I have a view of what the world is like it allowed me to connect with Ma’s character and as I read the story from Jack’s perspective, I formed a connection with him. I built up hope that Ma and Jack were going to escape but I could not see how it would be possible and became lost in reading about their daily lives and routines, just as they got lost in doing them. When the characters do escape, Ma is not returning to the same life she left as the world has moved on without her. Also, for Jack to adapt to his new environment will take a long time and at first, he wants to go back to the room. I think that these aspects of the story outline the life-changing effects that this kind of situation would have on both types of people.
I feel that reading ‘Room’ challenged me as a reader as I have never read an adult book written in a child’s perspective before. At the beginning of the novel Jack’s language meant that I was not able to read as naturally as usual as I was noticing missing or mispronounced words and words which are used by him to describe events or things that only someone who could see them would understand. I felt that this improved my grammatical knowledge as I often found myself correcting Jack in my head. Also, as the book went on, I found myself being able to read Jack’s language more naturally and I had picked up on the meaning of the specific words and phrases he used, meaning my contextual understanding was improved.
Reading ‘Room’ has encouraged me to get back in to reading novels as it reminded me how gripping they can be. I had never previously considered the use of fictional novels in academic study, however, ‘Room’ allowed me to relate the different parts of language acquisition to a character and to see how environment can affect the development of speech. It also helped me to consolidate my knowledge on the different aspects of oral language as I could analyse Jack’s language throughout, reading his thoughts as well as his speech.

Reflections on Placement

During the week beginning the 31st of October I worked with seven class teachers, a Principle Teacher, a Head Teacher, class room assistants, cleaning staff, and a janitor, as well as pupils from primary one to primary seven of a primary school.

I completed eight placement tasks which were based on mathematics and literacy. These tasks allowed me to observe and analyse the effect of different teaching strategies and to see the things that I had been taught about these subjects in practice. While paying close attention to the structure of lessons, I noticed that in spite of the vast amounts of planning carried out by teachers, it is impossible to plan exactly how the day is going to go. I found this to be the case especially in classes where the behaviour of some pupils was particularly challenging or in classes which had pupils with additional support needs. This provided challenges for me as when I was trying to support the whole class, I felt myself spending most time with pupils who required the most attention and not getting a chance to spend time with the rest of the class. I also felt that, in one case, while I was in a class which had a pupil with Autism in it, I was constantly having to remind the pupil to stay on task. This was due to her particularly high academic ability, meaning that she was often not being challenged enough by the work that the rest of the class was doing. I found that these types of things proved as challenges to my ability to always communicate effectively with the whole class and to provide support for all learners.

However, the willingness of the staff in the school to help me, whenever possible, to experience different learning environments and to teach small groups as well as lead whole class activities, gave me numerous opportunities complete my self-assessment forms and to assess myself constantly. Through use of these, along with my peer-assessment and feedback from staff, I have been able to learn a lot about my own communication skills, picking up on my strengths and development needs.

Strength – Throughout the week, I found through my self evaluations, as well as my peer evaluation, that showing expression in my voice through para-language is my communication strength. This means that I am a clear speaker and I show expression through my voice by use of tone, pitch, pace, and volume. I find that to speak with expression comes naturally to me.

I adapted my verbal communication when I was speaking to different age groups. For example, when I was speaking to lower primary classes, I had to speak in a very concise, slow and clear manner, making sure to make my tone of voice easy to interpret. When speaking to pupils further up the school I had to focus on making my voice easy to understand but there were times that I could speak in a more relaxed manner with these more independent pupils. When speaking to staff I made sure to speak in a formal manner at first, before having been in the company of each individual enough to adapt and speak in a more relatable and relaxed way with them. I found that I was able to identify the para-language which was appropriate for each age range and I was always conscious of the way in which I spoke when talking about a pupil to a teacher and when discussing challenging behaviour and mental and social issues faced by pupils.

After reading a story to a Primary 3 class, the teacher told me that my tone of voice and change of volume to suit different parts of the story was very effective. I felt that this, as well as stopping reading to ask the pupils questions about what they thought might happen next, helped to keep them engaged and made the process active rather than passive, so more interesting for the pupils. Through my self evaluation, I found that in all of the activities I carried out with pupils, my change in tone of voice and appropriate volume and pace showed my enthusiasm and helped to make sure that what I was saying had the desired effect on the learners.

Area of most progress – Before going on placement, I would have said that I was confident in my ability to use the academic language appropriate for different ages of pupils. However, I quickly found this to be a communication development need, as I often spoke without considering whether or not the pupils would have been introduced to a term that I was using.

At the beginning of the week, I worked with a Primary 3 class on their mental maths quiz by reading out the questions to them. The questions were focussed on addition up to twenty. When I first began to read out the questions, I used the word ‘plus’, for example “What is fourteen plus three?”. However, it was when a pupil raised his hand and asked me if ‘plus’ meant to take-away, I became aware that I had been using language that some of the pupils in the class were not familiar with. This meant that I had to go back to the beginning and read out the questions using the word ‘add’. This made me extremely conscious of the language that I used when I was working with the pupils as I did not want to cause confusion.

After this instance I made sure to always listen very carefully to the language used by the class teacher and to ask the teacher or to use aids such as wall displays to allow me to get an idea of what the class had already covered and what they may be have been unfamiliar with. As the week progressed, I completed another self-evaluation and a peer-assessment which showed me that I had improved on using language which was friendly to the pupil’s level of understanding.

Area Requiring Progress – Over my time spent in the school, when doing whole class activities, I found it very difficult to make sure that every pupil was involved and that nobody was dominating. While I did not want to discourage pupils who were happy to take part and to share their ideas, I also wanted to try to make sure that non-participating pupils were encouraged. I found that this was a challenge which was limited by my communication skills as when the teacher had instructed me to get the whole class to answer together, it was difficult to see who did not really understand what they were doing, making it difficult to pick them out and so, difficult to communicate in a way which suited them. I also did not want to pick certain pupils out in front of the class as I did not want to embarrass or upset them.

When I was in the Primary 4 class, I was asked to teach the pupils their seven times-tables by writing them up on the board and gradually rubbing off the answers, while getting the pupils to chant the calculations. I found this a particularly difficult activity to make sure that everyone was involved and that nobody was dominating and although I attempted to solve the problem by splitting the class in to groups to chant it and by saying things such as “This time you need to be much louder because not everyone was participating last time! It doesn’t matter if you’re wrong, just have a try. The loudest group wins!”, there were still pupils who did not try and pupils who just shouted even louder than they had been before.

I identified this as a development need through my self and peer evaluations as both highlight this as an issue in my communication which I need to work on. This may be because I did not know the pupils well enough to use all of their names and be able to pick out people who I knew were struggling to understand it, meaning that I could not individually target questions at them. However, it may be because I do not know how to communicate effectively with all types of children in a way which will challenge, yet encourage them and I felt intimidated and nervous at the thought of possibly doing the opposite.

Action Plan – In order to develop the skill of encouraging all pupils to participate and none to dominate, by promotion resilience to failure, through effective verbal and non-verbal communication, I will make sure that after some time of pupil discussion and participation, that I take back control of the activity in hand, to try to help all pupils to stay engaged and none to get too carried away. In order to encourage non-participating children to take part, if they appear to be struggling with an open question that I have asked, I will go back and ask them some closed questions which relate to the open question and which will help them to build confidence and at least try to find the wider answer. If the answer given by a pupil is incorrect I will use probes such as ‘Accuracy Probes’ and ‘Restatement Probes’ as discussed by Hargie (2010), to encourage them not to give up trying to find the correct answer and to teach them to be able to accept being wrong and to move on from it.

I discussed my lack in confidence in this area of communication with a teacher and she suggested that I work on using eye-contact and facial expressions as a means of showing pupils that I am aware of their lack of participation and to make sure that every pupil is engaged and feels included. I found that this method only worked when pupils were looking at me.

A strategy to ensure the involvement of every pupil is to promote critical thinking through inquiry and collaboration (Lange, 2014). Stacey Lange believes that as educators we should encourage pupils to ask questions about what they are being told and that they should be given time to do this. This would involve using spoken language and body language to promote a comfortable environment in which pupils feel comfortable enough to ask questions and to inquire further in to what I am saying. For pupils to link their knowledge to something else, they must understand it, so by asking them to come up with questions or links to other knowledge, it could be argued that each pupil would be forced to learn and to try to take part. She also discusses collaboration as a strategy. She talks about how collaboration allows for pupils to share ideas and to build an understanding of a topic, leading to the development of critical thinking skills and in turn, involvement in a task. This would also help me to prevent certain pupils from dominating as it would encourage them to share their knowledge and to explain their understanding to their peers, helping all pupils to become more equal with their involvement. For myself, as a communicator, it would involve the use of clearly stated instructions with language which all learners will understand and constantly bringing the pupils back to my control as, especially with younger learners, the independence of working with a group may be too much for them to handle and cause for them to go off task.

In conclusion, through working within a school community and being welcomed by staff and pupils, I was able to learn a lot about different communication strategies and about myself; how I communicate with both proffessionals and school pupils. This evaluation of my own practice has allowed me to see that I am a competent user of para-language and should play to my strengths, using this as effectively as possible. It has also allowed me to pick up on things which I communicated in an ineffective way and in some cases, to make progress on these over the course of the week. Although, I require to continue to work on my ability to use language and non-verbal communication to take more control over the learning of pupils and to make sure that they are all equally involved. I will attempt to improve on this communication skill through the range of strategies mentioned above.

References

Hargie, O. (2010) Skilled interpersonal communication: Research, theory and practice, 5th edition. 5th ed. New York: Taylor & Francis.

Lange, S. (2014) Strategies to promote critical thinking in the elementary classroom. P21Blogazine. [Online]. Available: http://www.p21.org/news-events/p21blog/1435-strategies-to-promote-critical-thinking-in-the-elementary-classroom [Accessed 7 Nov].