characteristics of a teacher (discussion 1)

According to Jessica Bohn being a good leader isn't about having power over others, but about instilling power in others. A leader is define by oxford advanced learner's dictionary as a person who leads group of people, especially the head of a country, an organisation, etc.

In the book Matilda by Roald Dahl  it is quite the opposite of what Jessica Bohn is saying because the headmistress ( Miss runchbull) of the school Crunchem hall primary school is doing the opposite of what is expected from her as a leader in the school. Miss Trunchbull was suppose to lead by example, become a pillar of strength of the school and instill characteristics of good leadership in her student, but instead she is harsh, arrogant, extremely cruel and dictator who hates and terrorize children.
In one of the scene in the book Miss Trunchbull shows an aggressive behaviour by holding Amanda Thripp with her ponytail hair which is an inappropriate behaviour of an educator to do especially Miss Trunchbull since she is a headmistress, In the South African constitution and the government gazette it is stated that any misbehaving learner the teacher has a right to discipline that learner but that does not give educators the right to punish learners with violent and learners should not be punished because of their parents faults but Miss Trunchbull punish Matilda because her dad sold her a faulty car and the only way Mrs Trunchbull deals with bad behaviour is by hurting student both physically and emotionally. miss Trunchbull also abuse learners

According to Lev Vygotsky (1978) educators and parents(tutors) plays an important role in the development of a child as social contributors in the process of the child's development, much important learning by the child  occur through interaction with a skillful tutor ( educators and parents) that is why as training teachers we are taught to be caring, accountable and critically reflective teachers who support and nurture learning in diverse education context. we are taught to be a caring teacher  by respecting student and make sure that each student's opinion is valued in the classroom, a caring teacher does not like to take power like Miss Trunchbull, allowing difference in the classroom just like Miss Honey did by making sure that she brought books from the higher grade for Matilda and told the others not to worry they will know what Matilda already knows. A caring teacher also respect his/ her colleagues, unlike miss Trunchbull who does not respect her colleague miss honey, beside from being taught to be a caring teacher I have gone an extra mile in to reading an article about characteristics of a good teacher by Patricia Miller (http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ971241.pdf) this article has taught me a lot about being a caring teacher. we are also taught to be an accountable teacher, accountability is an inheritance of teaching, we teachers are accountable of making sure our learners succeed in their education unlike Mrs Trunchbull who wish the were no kids in the school because she hates them, we teachers are accountable of our learners progress just like miss Honey who felt she needs to see Matilda's parent about their child's great performance. we  have to support and nurture learning in a diverse educational context this means we have to see ourselves from our students perspectives because students are interpreting and learning in just the way we anticipated.

Teacher and principals like Misss Trunchbull are the main reason the level of education in our country is declining and the is high rate of school dropout students because behind every great school is a caring principal, if  the school principal is strong, motivated and a good manager who clearly outlines expectations for staff and students then the school tend to make progress. Below is Guide I recommend to leaders like Miss Trunchbull, maybe if they could read this guide the education system in south Africa could change,pass rate will increase and the will be less dropout of student from school. here is the guide

• THE SCHOOL PRINCIPAL AS LEADER: GUIDING SCHOOLS TO BETTER TEACHING AND LEARNING by the Wallace foundation or go to http://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/Documents/The-School-Principal-as-Leader-Guiding-Schools-to-Better-Teaching-and-Learning-2nd-Ed.pdf

Always remember that you can have a great teacher,but if you don't have a good principal you won't have a good school.

REFERENCES

Bohn J.,(2013). educational leadership. first years hurdles

 Dahl R.,(1998). Matilda. Jonathan Cape in London

 HORBY, A. S., (2010). Oxford advanced learner's dictionary of current English. London, Oxford University Press.

Vygotsky,L. (1978). mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

The unmentioned might of a woman

a woman is define by oxford advanced learner's dictionary as an adult female human. The unmentioned might of a woman simply means the unrecognized power of a woman or female human being.

The article unmentioned might of a woman written by Zoeloe, is written from a man appreciating his women point of view because the man in the article feels that women are strong, powerful and they are important in a man's life, the man feels that even though his woman sometimes irritates him with his endless questions and meaningless conversation but she is still important to his life because a woman is a skeleton and man is a a body that means a man would not survive without a women and a woman would not survive either because a body cannot do anything without a skeleton. The man also feel that the woman is in his life to fulfill a certain purpose, she does things to make him happy not that she is not capable of doing them on her own that means she respect her man and understand the meaning of a partnership, that in a strong partnership a man has a power and a strong woman is silence, she does things silently but they become a great influence to the person she touches. the man appreciates the chores that the woman does such as  preparing clothes for him everyday so that he could look great and his woman build his courage, confidence and give him strength to take on the world with every compliment she give him.

The article reflect values and attitude of sexism. in this article the author state that women should be celebrated enough that is everyday but does not take men into consideration because in this era we are living in women and men are equal they should be treated equal. if women should be celebrated everyday so does men and besides women are celebrated enough, the are days such as women day, mothers day, 16 days of activism against women and children yet in the article they say that woman do not need a month to be celebrated they need to be celebrated everyday whilst men only are celebrated once a year on fathers days.

No i  don't agree with the way the writer portrayed a man in this article. a man in this article is portrayed as being superior than woman, the writer thinks that men are better than women but we live in the century where the is no gender better than the other, all genders are equal. According to the author man don't cry they hide their feelings but the are women who are also strong they don't cry whatever the situation is, they also hide how they feel.

The writer's style of writing was effective, he used a descriptive writing style, the author in the article describe woman in a great details of what woman are and what they do and how woman are helpful to man. the way the writer has written the article it is poetic its arouses interest to want to read more.

" freedom cannot be achieved unless women have been amancipated from all form of oppression... our endeavors must be about the liberation of the woman, the amancipation of a man and the liberty of a child- Nelson Mandela

Weblogs in Higher Education

Weblog ( also called online journal or diary) is a website where a person writes regularly about recent events or topics that interest them usually with photos and links to other website that they find interesting.

Weblog in higher education plays an important role and have got lots of  values. The following  are some values of weblog in higher education. Weblog  provide educators with an assortment of new strategies for using hyperlinks, it helps student to be able to voice out what they think and be able to engage in some sort of dialogue with other individuals producing comparable stream of critiques, it  helps improve their intellectual when critiquing web materials, it helps to teach about specific genres( social, political), weblogs provide a useful antinode to classroom problems concerning plagiarism or to stimulate discussion on these matters, and when student access and use weblogs they gain distorted senses of the timeframe of academic production and of the nature of intellectual discourse.

Blog is a creative and a fun thing to do, since I have started blogging I love reading and I  have come to realise the importance of reading for at least 30 minute a day everyday. having a blog has encourage me to read a lots of interesting and educational blogs this include the blog of Johan Fourie about a-guide-to-your-first-year-at-university."(https://johanfourie.wordpress.com/2014/01/.../a-guide-to-your-first-year-at-university) this blog can be helpful to students especially those who are doing grade 12 and have decide to go to university the following year. blogging have improved my reading and writing skill. one of my experience  that I have learned with weblog is that you would not always get comment on your post other post would get comment and others would not but you must not be discouraged by that, you have to continuing writing and posting in your blog. I have also learn that in order to have lots of people reading and commenting on your block you need to link your social media pages ( Facebook, twitter, google+ etc) with your  blog in that way people would be able to access your blog.

Blogs can be improved by making sure that URLs(uniform resources locations) does not changes often because weblog that are not  maintained often have dead links and thus be less useful to readers  and makes it hard for student to have access to them, and they must make sure that they send notification to the blog owner before changing it URLs because other student have reason why there are gaps in the blogs and why they will no longer produce entries, one of  the reason would be day to day event that intervene to interrupt their blogging .They should introduce a blog where student can be able to engaged in a group discussion and every person be able to write  his/her own views.

weblogs is useful tool in higher education, they have good values and taught a lots of skills to students.

REFERENCE

Oravec, J.A. (2003). Weblog as an Emerging Genre in Higher Education. Journal of Computer in Higher Education, 14, (2), 21-24

 HORNBY, A. S., (2010). Oxford advanced learner's dictionary of current English. London, Oxford University Press.

 

 

unit 1.2- 11/08/2016

SERVICE LEARNING AND REFLECTION

In units 1 I have learn what exactly is service learning, service learning can be define as a course-based credit bearing educational experience in which students participate in an organised service activity that meet identified community needs and then reflect on the service in such a way that they gain further understanding of the content. in this unit I have acquired the knowledge that service learning is an engagement of students to participate in the community as part of their studies or programme and then after they have rendered their service in the community they do an introspection of the service they offered, this is called reflection. reflection is the ability to stand back from an experience, in our instance as students from the experience of providing a service to a community, to discover the connection between actions and their effect. I have learning that reflection is cognitive where you think about what did you learned in the service you were providing. reflection is affective where emotion are evoked and also conative. I have learned that when you do reflection you have to find out mistakes and errors and reflect upon them by asking yourself  questions such as what went wrong? how are you going to improve next time? and also reflect on the good things that happened when you were doing service learning, for example what positive things did the service provide in the community, and what changes did it brought in people's life. service learning is a positive thing in our studies, it helps us gain a better understanding of what is expected of us in the community as future teachers