Week+7

Week 7: Who are your students & how do you know? “It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognise each other, to learn to see the other & honour him/her for what he/she is.” -Hermann Hesse The brilliance of this quote goes to show how great the lecture was on Monday. The topic this week was obviously very essential and relevant for us soon-to-be teachers: the importance of not assuming, but actually getting to know your students. Just as Greg does, Tanya Fitzgerald’s lecture was especially useful for us all because of the many personal anecdotes and real-life examples she gave for her important points. She provided tips and strategies for getting to know and thus earning the respect of students, even by doing something as simple but imperative as ensuring you pronounce a student’s name correctly. This is connected with a large focus of the lecture, the importance of dealing appropriately with the mixed backgrounds and cultures of students in a classroom and school, an aim also advocated by the Inclusive & Effective school programs that were part of this week’s reading. Tanya emphasised the need to encourage openness among the students about their backgrounds in order to decrease any degree of novelty, difference or potential exclusion among the students themselves. In relation to the reading this week, locating, identifying and naturalising difference can also be related to other types of diversity among students, such as giftedness. One website ([]) emphasised the need for students to explore and celebrate their differences and similarities with each other, because “[t]hrough finding an affiliation with others, gifted students learn to accept themselves as individuals rather than hide their giftedness to gain acceptance”. This fits in well with Tanya’s contention to openly express individualities in the classroom, to see different cultures and belief systems as part of the student body as a positive and enriching thing so students don't feel alienated. However, an important issue tied to this in the lecture was this the equal importance of maintaining and respecting the privacy of the student and their family at all times.

Still, while keeping this in mind, ultimately a good teacher strives to get to know their students, with the aim to better understand them and thereby provide adequate learning opportunities. As well as actively meeting the students’ families, some other most basic examples mentioned in the lecture were letting the children introduce themselves to you, for example via a personal slideshow made at the beginning of the year, or simply asking your students what they think makes a good teacher. Hopefully by keeping these valuable issues and tactics in mind, we will become the best kinds of teachers ourselves in the future and earn the respect of our students. It seems it is the little things that make all the difference, such as not assuming you know everything about a student just by looking at them, but instead really getting to know them properly, even down to their locker numbers! Author: Bianca Alvarez Harris