How do you as teachers support children who are confused or frightened by events going on in their world?
I believe that there are similarities to teaching regardless of where you live in the world.
I believe that there are similarities to teaching regardless of where you live in the world.
On the
other hand, I believe that there are differences unique to each country.
Having just moved over 13 000 km to settle in
a different country I have gained first-hand
what this means.
For the last number of years, I have been teaching at a
privileged school in an affluent
neighbourhood in South Africa. This has changed radically and I am now
teaching in an underprivileged community school.
Watching the world news over the weekend, I realised that we
are living in a time
were we can expect to see many changes, fundamentally in
things that we have
always taken for granted.
The inevitability of change and the outcome is worrying
for many parents
and teachers.
My school has a diverse and multicultural community which
includes students
speaking twenty-eight different first languages. Many of whom struggle with the
language in
which they are being taught in. The
school embraces these students
and I believe creates a unique space for
them.
Each class has a tutor (teacher) of 28 children who is
responsible for the nurturing
of the children.
The tutor sees the class every morning and this is a time for the
tutor
to get to know the children, help with non-academic and school things, like
how
the students are doing emotionally, concerns that they have, etc. This is a
safe environment for them to come
and speak to the teachers. I have
personally
found this rewarding for myself, but also emotionally draining,
especially when
there is a language barrier.
I have not realized how effective google translate can be.
One of the things that I really enjoy is for my students to
create videos about things
that are affecting them. When I do these types of projects, there is
no topic, but a
carte blanche for them to look at real world issues that are
important to them.
I was privileged enough to create a project, Project courage,
with teachers from
Canada, China, Croatia and Singapore about fear. Once we completed the project,
we did Skype
sessions between the different countries and shared our fears.
Regardless of race, gender, children have the
same fears throughout the world.
There will always be change in the world, I believe it is up
to us as teachers to
create that environment where we can talk to our students
about their concerns
and walk with them through the process until it is
resolved.
