1.2 Integrity – Emily Alexander's ePortfolio

After our session on health and wellbeing we were asked to watch and reflect on two videos.

The first being a documentary on hidden sugars and the detrimental effects it can have on your health. I think this is something really important for practitioners to understand as it can be easy to encourage children to eat or drink the wrong things if we don’t know where these hidden sugars are. I think that as teachers we also have a responsibility to offer a conflicting argument to what the food industry is brainwashing children. Especially since it is not all about obesity, a child can appar to be of perfect health whilst sugar is slowly having a devastating effect on them. As a nation we tend to be quite ignorant of this. A comment was made in the documentary about sugar being the tobacco of today. I personally found this extremely frightening. to think that in half a century we could look back at our sugar habits in the same way we view smoking habits now. Something needs to change.

We were also asked to watch Suzanne Zeedyk’s video. Which explores the lasting effects children’s relationships and experiences can have on their brains. She considered the idea that if a child is used to living in an abusive home their brain will always be looking for the next threat. This has a lasting effect because when they are in school for example, their brains still continue to constantly look out for the next threat. Which leaves little thinking space for actually learning and concentrating. As practitioners we need to be extremely aware of how much home relationships influence the behaviours of young children. We must be able to adapt to each child’s needs and consider every child’s circumstances. Children must have a wide range of experiences, this will depend on how they react to the environment they’re in. As teachers we must be aware that each child’s attention span will be different and for a multitude of reasons so we must be able to differentiate our lessons appropriately. perhaps the most important message I took from this video was purely to be mindful of the fact that as a teacher, I could be the first friendly face a child sees each day.

Sipping away at a cup of coffee is an action that seems fairly irrelevant in our daily lives, however I was led to believe that this couldn’t be further from the truth when I attended a lecture last week about exercising our sociological imagination. Doing so encourages us to read between the lines and think more deeply about seemingly meaningless events.

I very quickly realised that a lot of my life revolves around coffee! There is not much I enjoy more than sitting in a quiet coffee shop enjoying a flat white either with friends or just watching the world go by. Also the fact that I work in a speciality coffee shop that has been recognised in the ‘Scottish Independant Coffee Guide’. It is extremely interesting to observe the ‘art’, if you like, of coffee drinking. People come to us to start their day, or to catch up with friends or family, or to simply “wake them up!”. The point I am trying to make here is that everything we do has much deeper meaning than meets the eye, our actions start a chain reaction of events. I think this is something important to remember when discussing the issues of racism and patriarchy.

Whilst sometimes we may joke about these issues and believe that it means no harm I think it is important to understand the lasting effect this type of behaviour can have.

I personally found the lecture on Tuesday extremely interesting and thought provoking. I suppose that’s because the idea that one person could discriminate against another purely because they are different to themselves is something I find truly fascinating, yet completely baffling.

Aspects of racism and patriarchy are unfortunately embedded deep in the foundations of society, making them exceedingly difficult to eradicate. However, I believe that education is key to breaking down the walls of both racism and patriarchy that have been built by generations past.

In my future career as a primary school teacher I understand that I hold a huge responsibility to display a positive attitude that is accepting of all and treats individuals equally. Especially as children’s young minds are extremely impressionable and are in the process of forming opinions that can last a lifetime.

It is my hope that with the right education we can change how people think in terms of racism and patriarchy, maybe in doing so we will one day see a world without such discrimination.