I have now reached the
end of my teaching practice placement and it has been a very interesting
experience although challenging at times. I have experienced an entirely
different school system to what I am used to but it has opened my eyes and definitely
been rewarding. I feel that my Professional Competences have developed through
this experience in particular ‘Competence 7 – an understanding of the
significance of pupil voice’ and ‘Competence 10 – strategies for communicating
effectively with all pupils.’ Danish
teachers really do value the voice of their students and in turn the students
are not worried or scared about voicing their opinion or even questioning the
teacher. As the classroom is so relaxed
students often speak without raising their hand first or waiting to be spoken
to and therefore are all confident in communicating their ideas. This is something I would like to be more
open to in Northern Ireland as it is difficult to get all students to speak out
in class and many students lack the confidence to do so. As I don’t speak Danish I have had to find
many other ways of communicating with the students through using my voice, body
language, gestures and pictures and I feel this will be extremely useful when
working with children who have SEN or EAL.
I have also struggled on previous teaching practices to slow my speech
when in the classroom and studying and teaching here has definitely helped me
to achieve that.
This week I spent time
with a variety of classes and age groups from 1st Grade to 9th
Grade. After my first visit I am
surprised by how comfortable I now am in a class filled with 16 year old students
as this is not something I ever wanted to do but I think that the confidence
and trust shown to us by the class teacher even though we were Primary Teachers
made us feel a lot more comfortable and at ease. The older students had a project week where
they could take different classes each day in graffiti, poetry, rap and
breakdancing. I thought this was a great
idea and you could see that the students really appreciated the fact that the
teachers had organised this creative project for them and valued their
interests. Creative appreciation is
something I have noticed whilst in my practice school and because of this the
children really do flourish.
As well as attending teaching
practice, we have had to write a 10 page assignment for our Comparative
Education Module and it has made me reflect a lot on my experiences. After initially
seeing more negatives than positives in the Danish school system my opinion has
completely changed and not only have do I appreciate it and see the real benefits,
I have begun to further question the school system in Northern Ireland.
 |
| A typical laid-back classroom. |
The children here are all
happy and content in school and it is obvious they are relaxed and at ease with
the lack of structure or routine. There is
no pressure in the classrooms due to very little testing, the teachers aren’t
inspected and they have very little paperwork or assessment so they can focus
on forging relationships and teaching what they want to. I have talked
informally with the teachers frequently and they have explained that the
emphasis isn’t so much on the academic side of school but on making it a fun,
happy and positive experience for children so they want to be there. This struck me as a stark contrast to home as
although we work hard to try and make learning fun and enjoyable ultimately a
lot of the children dislike school and don’t view it as a positive
experience. I think the informal Danish
system, with its lack of rules, discipline or structure may initially come
across as chaotic but their system works and not only that the students are
confident, independent and creative individuals.
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