Reflecting back on Derek’s lecture last week about social inequality was a real eye opener in so many different ways.

It made me consider my perspective about society and how they have formed opinions about different things that we didn’t even make ourselves – in particular women in sport and racism.  Growing up in the 21st Century and trying to form your own opinions can sometimes seem impossible.  Society has already formed an opinion on just about everything and it can be hard to think differently to this.

For example, women in sport.  From the point of view of a girl who played football from the age of 7 right up to 17, I can say girls definitely get looked at in a different light than boys do.  I played as the only girl in a boys team (school) and also in a full girls squad (club) and both experiences were very different.  Every time I played for my school team, I noticed that boys on the opposing side wouldn’t treat me the same as the boys on my team – no one would tackle me properly. This used to really annoy me because as a defender I was always taught to tackle as hard yet safely as I could and I’m sure that was the same for everyone else – so why would boys on the opposition not tackle me?  It wasn’t just the players who looked at me differently, it was the coaches too.  They used to go up to my dad at the end of matches and say that it was good to see a girl playing amongst boys – why does this seem like a surprise to some people, surely it should be normal? As the years have gone on women in sport still don’t get the same recognition that males do and it is about time that this changed.

Racism has developed a lot over time.  Segregation used to be a massive issue during the 20th Century but as time has moved on and different things have happened it is no where near as bad now as it was then.  Everyone is now seen as equal and having the same human rights yet there is still some socially unequal views that people have.  Racist comments and prejudice are still an issue today and it is about time that this changed.

Teaching in any environment is something that isn’t just a job. No matter how long you are teaching for, whether it’s 5 minutes or 5 hours, you will still have some sort of impact on a person’s life and that is what amazes me.  It could be school related or something completely random but to know that you are individually making an impact on a person’s life is the reason I have always wanted to become a teacher.

As cliche as it sounds, there was one teacher that I remember from primary school and I always thought to myself “I would love to be like you when I am older”.  This teacher was my primary 3 and 4 teacher, at this stage in your life you always go through different phases of what you want to be when you were older.  Before I had this teacher I always wanted to be either a policewomen, hairdresser, pilot and a teacher – all very different and random but I suppose when I was 6 years old I wanted to be random!

I remember we had a visit from a policewoman for our topic of ‘People Who Help Us’, she told us a scary story that put me off wanting to join the police ever again! Now onto hairdressing.  It was school photo day and my fringe had grown so much that you could no longer see my eyes, my mum had no choice but to cut my hair.  The fringe was no longer below my eyes, it was sitting diagonally across my forehead – I was scarred from going to the hairdressers ever again,  so a career in hairdressing was completely out the window for me! As for becoming a pilot, I’m not really sure how I decided that I didn’t want to be one but one day it just completely went out my mind!

I think deep down I always knew that a teacher was something I would always want to be, but to be like my p3 and 4 teacher from primary school was something that I knew I wanted to happen. I formed a great relationship with her and always wanted to help her with things around the classroom – it was almost as if I felt that because she was helping me with my education I wanted to help her too as a way of saying thanks.

It doesn’t matter how old you are when you discover that you want to be a teacher, when you have your heart set on helping children with their education in the future that is the only important thing, and for me, I knew when I was 7 years old!