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Reading the story of Finn McCool to my class. |
My time in school this week has allowed me to gain further insight into the school’s ethos of enabling all children to become risk takers. I found this to strongly echo the Northern Ireland Primary Curriculum (CCEA, 2007:9), which states that ‘Children should be given worthwhile experiences across the curriculum which allow them to develop skills in taking risks for learning.’ While this is stated as a requirement by CCEA, I have not observed this as being a priority in many schools in Northern Ireland as much as it is in ISOP. Worzbyt (2004:156) notes that, ‘Risk taking encourages children to move out of their comfort zone and experience life as it was meant to be experienced.’ Over the past two months I have been able to see how these young children are becoming more and more independent and self-confident as they are encouraged to be risk takers.
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| Teaching Strategies class with our 3D representations of Poland. |
University class this week has led me to believe that we have a very good education system in Northern Ireland, something which I may have previously taken for granted. During ‘Teaching Strategies in Early Childhood Education’, we often compare the education systems of the various countries represented within the class. These discussions often conclude with the education systems in the United Kingdom and America being viewed more positively than those in other countries such as Spain, Turkey, Georgia and Taiwan, for example. This week we focused on Jerome Bruner’s constructivist model of teaching and while I was not overly familiar with this theory, I was able to see how many of the ideas within it are strongly evident in the majority of schools in Northern Ireland. For example, the use of KWL boards to give structure to a topic, as well as helping pupils to have a sense of ownership over their work and a valued voice within the classroom. My peers explained that in their countries, the majority of teachers do not take an interest in the prior knowledge of the students, nor what they want to learn. Rather, the teachers focus on simply delivering the materials they need to, often in teacher led ways, with the students taking a passive role. Legge and Harari (2000:3) suggest that teachers need ‘...to give enough guidance to enable the student to have the means to learn’, something many of my peers feel does not happen in their countries.
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| Grade 2's trip to the dentist. |
This concept of allowing the students to have an opinion on what they want to learn is something I have been able to see in my placement school, albeit on a smaller scale. After the children completed their morning spellings test, the teacher began to write their new spellings on the board, but rather than simply write them from a prepared list, she asked the children to suggest the words they wanted. They mostly chose words based around a film they had been to see on a class trip to the cinema the previous day. This was something which I had never seen before and I found myself really liking this idea, as I could see how the children were choosing words which were relevant to them and ones that they wanted to use. While I understand that this might not be suitable to use on a daily basis, I feel that this is something I would like to use myself as a teacher, particularly after an event such as a class trip. Again, this idea helps the children to feel ownership over their work, which Evans and Philpott (2009:61) suggest causes them to be more motivated.
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| Outdoor arts and crafts. |
As well as being given some lessons to plan in advance, my teacher has given me several lessons to teach on the spot. While this can sometimes result in me feeling a little stressed as I have no chance to check through the material before hand, I do feel that it will benefit me greatly and help me become better at thinking on my feet, something which wouldn’t be one of my strong points. I have also found myself more willing to take risks than I have previously been while on School-Based Work at home. This is mainly due to the fact that my work is not being scrutinised as much as it would be, and the placement is more relaxed with no tutor visits.
References:
CCEA (2007) The Northern Ireland Primary School Curriculum, Belfast: CCEA Publications.
Evans, J. and Philpott, C. (2009) A Practical Guide to Teaching Music in Secondary School, Oxon: Routledge.
Legge, K. and Harari, P. (2000) Psychology and Education, Oxford: Heinemann Educational Publishers.
Worzbyt, J., (2004) Teaching kids to care and be careful: A practical guide for teachers, Oxford: Scarecrow Education.
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