First Year Madness

As someone who is fairly comfortable with social media in my personal life it has been interesting to see how in teaching I tend to avoid anything to do with social media. Experiencing pile-ons and other not so positive side effects of this 21st Century aspect of life has made me cautious within the classroom as to how social media is used. The students in our MLE class are 1:1 with devices, however social media is not something we use within the class apart from them being able to respond to one another on Google Classroom. There are the obvious benefits of this online interaction in terms of students being able to interact with one another, and collaborate in an easy way however I have also been concerned about the potential issues in terms of students wasting time, and potentially interacting with others in a disrespectful way (as adults often do on social media). This concern was also shared by participants who were surveyed by Seaman and Tinti-Kane (2013) and who were critical ...

As teachers the code of ethics we are bound by can seem over the top by others, and yet in our role we hold so much power and responsibility that it is key we consider the ethics of situations we are faced with. One scenario that I have been faced with recently is that of students being able to email me directly outside of school hours. Generally this is fine with emails relating to confirming information for the next day, or asking for feedback on a piece of writing however I am very aware that this form of communication can easily progress to something that might be more of an ethical dilemma (e.g. students contacting me about personal issues). I will look at this using Hall’s (2001) questions that he has proposed to help guide the ethical decision making process. Which stakeholders should be given priority? Why? I think a key aspect of being a teacher is creating relationships with students where they feel safe and comfortable. Email contact can be a great way for students...

My 2 half brothers and half sister were born in the same hospital as me, Palmerston North, and aside for a few years where we were living in different countries, we grew up together. However their cultural identity was strongly linked to their Fijian father. The schools we went to were very Eurocentric, and our experiences at school in terms of achievement and relationships with teachers were polar opposites. Where I found myself at home in the learning environment, loving the academic focus and the grading system that made me feel like I could prove myself, for them they didn’t feel a sense of belonging at all. They were alienated by others who didn’t want to try and understand what made them different. Assumptions were made throughout the years about their level of ability or skills. They had a negative attitude towards school by the time we were in intermediate, and so it carried on to the point where both of my brothers were expelled from various high schools. This whole experi...