Week 21 Personal

I cannot believe that I am in Cullyhanna writing my final Erasmus blog entry and to be honest I am an emotional wreck.  I think this last blog entry has taken the longest time to write because every time I think about the past week I either laugh because of the funny memories or cry because of the emotional goodbyes (how I hate this word).

This week was packed with numerous parties and it all began on Saturday night when we decided to have a pool party, these parties continued until Tuesday night until it hit us that our leaving ceremony was the next day. 

Leaving ceremony

For the leaving ceremony each group had to make a presentation about their time in The Netherlands.  Some groups created videos, others had made up a song and my group showed some “interesting” pictures and told the stories behind these pictures.  I was amazed to see how much we had accomplished during our time here and the memories we had made but at the same time my stomach was turning because these videos meant that goodbyes were coming soon.    Another part of the leaving ceremony was when we were getting our certificates a member of our group had to say a speech about us.  This was a great way of getting to hear how everyone felt about each other and I will never forget my speech said by my Finnish friend Mikael and I don’t think anyone else will. 

Our meal together

After the speeches we had a meal where each country had prepared their own dish.  As I looked around the table my eyes rested on my two Belgium flatmates (Bryan and Deborah) who were leaving that day.  I had done a good job of holding back the tears until they both gave me a hug which set me off.  However I know we will meet again and our adventures together will continue. 

We returned back to Vossenveld and attending a birthday party where we had to say goodbye to a lot of people leaving early the next morning.  One of the hardest goodbyes was leaving the two Irish girls, even

Not wanting to say goodbye

though I know I will see them again I felt like I had lost a limb when they left.  Thursday was a terrible day,
some of our closest friends had gone and we still had to say goodbye to more leaving that day.  We went up to flat 8 where we had to say goodbye to Mikael and Olli.  When it came to my turn to hug them goodbye I couldn’t even speak because I felt the tears coming but I know that I will see them again someday. 

After this my whole evening was spent trying to pack 5 months of my life into a suitcase and talking with the remainder of the group.  One minute we would all be laughing and then the next it would be complete silence.  It got to the stage that the silence was the upsetting that the conversation turned to talking about our friend Arttu’s toes.  Eventually the time came to go to bed and final hugs and goodbyes were said, however there was two people I did not say goodbye to that night, our American friend Beth and our Basque friend Ane because they had planned to get up early the next morning to take us to the bus station and I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to them yet.

Reminiscing about stories 

When I woke on Friday morning I was feeling ok until I heard Beth and Ane and then I knew that this was it. When walking towards the door of Vossenveld I realised I had to turn and say goodbye to two of my closest friends.  The tears began and they did not stop.  However I know that I will see these two girls again because there are plans of them coming to visit within the next year. 

We eventually touched down in Belfast where I experienced something I never thought of, saying goodbye to Sarah and Darren.  When thinking about saying goodbye to everyone I never once thought that I would eventually have to say goodbye to them.  We went over as friends but came home as family and I can’t thank them enough for having this experience with me.

Erasmus was the most amazing experience and it is something that will remain part of me forever.  I will never forget all the wonderful people I have met during my five months and I am so glad that Facebook was invented because it makes staying in touch so much easier.  When you come home from Erasmus you find yourself talking non-stop about it and it is so hard to describe how you feel.  There is a sense of joy because you get to see all your family and friends again but sadness when you think that it might be a long time before you meet your Erasmus friends again.

I know that I am way over the word limit for this week’s blog but there is so much to say and not enough words to say it.   So to finish I will just say Erasmus 2013 you have been an amazing group of people and not only have I made friends but I have made friends and memories that will last a lifetime.  

Erasmus 2013

Week 20 - Professional

This week was our second last week of Erasmus and it was mostly spent finishing up assignments and having our last few classes in PABO (the building where all our classes were held). 

As usual I had left everything to the last minute, other people in our Erasmus group were finishing up their assignments but I was just starting them.  I have never been one for starting assignments a few days or weeks before they have to be handed in and this was still the case on Erasmus. I always find myself procrastinating and telling myself you still have lots of time left to do this work and if I am being honest leaving things to the last minute has always worked out for me (well so far anyway) and as Michael S. Traylor (2013) says “If it weren’t for the last minute, a lot of things wouldn’t get done.”

 This week we had our final classes of our classroom of diversity module, our global citizenship module and our tutoring module.  In each of these modules we had a variety of different assignments and presentations to do both individually and working in groups. 

 For our classroom of diversity module we had to write a narrative about “How to deal with diversity”.  This assignment got us to think about our lives and the different ways we have learnt to deal with diversity while growing up.  This made me think about how important it is to teach children about diversity not only in the world but also in their own lives.  We were giving different aspects of our lives to look at from values passed on by parents, teachers and friends to different influences from the communities we grew up in.  I think that this was a great way of getting us to think about diversity in a personal way.  Not only did we learn about what diversity is but we learnt how diversity has affected us throughout our lives and how it has made us into the people we are today.

In our Global Citizenship module we had to produce five lesson plans using a book called “Windows on the world”.  We had a variety of different themes to choose from and the themes I chose were: diversity, identity, sustainable development, distribution and peace and conflict.  I really enjoyed this assignment as we got to see how to use an unusual resource to create unique and individual lesson plans which we then got to share with the rest of our class.  I will definitely be using this book for future lesson ideas when I am teaching the World around Us and I will be using some of the lessons I have planned.

Windows on the world book 

Finally for our school placement module we had to write an eight page report about our time in our placement schools.  This was very interesting for me as I got to reflect on a variety of different things I had learnt while I was on placement and also what I taught the children during my time there.  This made me think to the other placements I have experienced and the different things I have learnt from each of my placements.  This experience has allowed me to see what it is like to teach in a “foreign” school and I think we cannot learn this by being taught but we have to experience it first-hand. As Benjamin Franklin stated “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” 

References

Franklin, B. available at: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/learning (last accessed 26/06/13)

Traylor, Michael S. (2013) Time management quotes and sayings available at: http://timeman.com/time-management-tips/time-management-quotes-and-sayings (last accessed 26/06/13)

Week 19 - Cultural

Even though there are many different cultures in our Erasmus group there is one event that we all like to celebrate and that brings us together and that is our birthday.  Everybody likes to celebrate their birthday and have people celebrating with them and as Darren was turning the big 21 we decided that we would have a birthday party for him.  The theme was a jungle theme so we decorated our kitchen to look like the jungle and everyone got dressed up as something that you would find in the jungle.  We had people dressed as tigers, monkeys, a snake, a butterfly, lions and a parrot and I can honestly say it was a night to definitely remember. 

The jungle

After a crazy night on Thursday for Darren’s birthday we were all very excited for Saturday because we would be going to Bordeaux to visit our friend Dojo.  On Friday we got up early and set off on our adventure to Bordeaux.  We were so excited to see Dojo and to have a glimpse of her life outside of Erasmus.  We began to think about what we thought her apartment would be like, what Bordeaux would be like and if we would have a “culture shock” when we saw the way the French people lived compared to the Dutch and the Irish. 

Reunited with Dojo

When we got to Bordeaux we were amazed at its beauty and we began to think about the French stereotypes that we had coming over.  The first thing we thought about when we knew we were going to be visiting Bordeaux were vineyards.  Dojo had told us that Bordeaux is famous for its wine and that we would see a lot of vineyards in the countryside.  I really could not believe the amount of vineyards we seen when we were travelling through the French countryside.  It literally was a sea of green so this was one stereotype that the French people definitely lived up to. 

Dojo had told us that during our visit we would be spending time in her beach house just outside Bordeaux.  She told us that most people living in Bordeaux would own a beach house and when we told her that hardly any one back home in Ireland would own a beach house she was in complete shock.  She asked us what we did during the summer to which we replied “what summer?”

The beach in Bordeaux

 We also had the opportunity to meet Dojo’s family.  This was also quite a shock to us because we had to remember that the French greet each other by giving air kisses.  We didn’t know if Dojo had told her family that we don’t greet like that so the first time we seen them there was some awkward handshake and air kisses happening but it did provide us with some laughs.

During our time in Bordeaux we got to see how a different culture lived.  From wine tasting to beach houses this culture seemed a million miles away from my own culture of potatoes and farms but I was so glad that I had the chance to experience it and see Dojo again.  

Week 18 – Personal

This week was filled with different emotions for me.   I was excited because two of my best friends were coming to visit but I was also feeling very sad because this week was my last week in my placement school.  On my last day of placement I got to spend the full day having fun with my class.  I got to take part in their physical education lesson and help them practice for their upcoming musical.  For the last hour of the day Olli and I got to throw a party for our children and just as we were about to leave our class presented us with a pillow case that they had all decorated and signed.  To be honest I was so sad to be leaving my class , I had tears in my eyes but was doing a good job of holding them back until I seen some of the children crying and then I just let it all out.  Even though there was a language barrier at the beginning I think my relationship with the children grew stronger because we did have to try and use different methods to communicate.  Although it was my “last day” I am planning to go and return to see my class again when they are doing their musical so I will get to see them for one last time before I go home.

After an emotional beginning to the week it eventually came to the day for me to travel to Eindhoven to collect Rukaya and Shonagh from the airport.   I cannot explain to you how excited I was to see them again.  On the train every minute felt like an hour and I couldn’t even sit still because I was filled with so much excitement.  I eventually got to Eindhoven and waited very impatiently for them to arrive.  I then received the long awaited phone call to tell me that they had arrived in the train station and I set off to find them.  When I first seen them I couldn’t do anything else but laugh because it was so weird to see them two of them here in The Netherlands after not seeing them for four months.  During the week Darren, Sarah and I had started to plan some activities for the girls to do while they were here and I don’t think they even got time to speak

Rukaya and Shonagh hanging with Bob

before I was filling them in on all the plans.  When we returned back to Vossenveld the rest of the evening was spent introducing them to our new friends and translating Shonagh’s Derry accent into understandable English (I never realised it but that girl can talk so fast) Rukaya on the other hand had taken on our advice of speaking slowly and everyone could understand her. On Saturday we brought them to Amsterdam where we visited Madame Tussauds, The Ice bar, The Heineken Experience, The Flower Market and Anne Frank’s house.  It was a busy day but filled with fun and laughter. 

In the Rainforest

The day I was looking forward to the most was Sunday.  For my birthday one of the girl’s here on Erasmus bought me a ticket to go to Burger’s zoo in Arnhem and Sunday was the day that I would eventually get to go.  I could not believe how amazing the zoo was, it was like no other zoo I had ever been to.  The zoo was split into many different areas including the rainforest, the bush, the desert, the ocean and the safari.  We all were literally like a group of kids running from one animal to the next in compete awe of what we were seeing.  it was an experience I will never forget and it was spent with the best type of company, my friends. 

After our fun filled weekend we went to the lake on Monday to sit and relax. I couldn’t believe that on Tuesday that the girls would be returning back home to Ireland and I wish they could have stayed for a few more days because they fitted right in with all our Erasmus gang.  It really was a weekend to remember and I am so thankful for Rukaya and Shonagh for coming over and visiting us.  As Chares Swindon (2013) states “I cannot even imagine where I would be today were it not for those friends who have given me a heart full of joy. Let's face it; friends make life a lot more fun”

At the Shark tank

References

Charles Swindon (2013) Charles Swindon Quotes Available at : http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/5139.Charles_R_Swindoll

Week 17 – Professional

During our university classes this week we dealt with some very interesting topics.  They were the topics of diversity and distribution.

In our classroom of diversity module we were following on from the previous week where we had looked at the topic of diversity and began to watch the movie “Freedom Writers”.  This movie is about a newly qualified teacher who enters a class of teenagers that are completely segregated due to diversity because of gang violence.  The teacher tries a variety of different techniques to try and get her class to become “a family” but then realises that the only way she encourage her class to get along is to show them that even though they may have many differences they are similar in more ways than they think.  Our class was based around the discussion of how we thought the teacher was doing and if we were in her shoes would we tackle the situation in a different way.  It was through this discussion that I began to think about the different ways I could teach about diversity through a PDMU lesson.  The Northern Ireland Curriculum (2007, p. 40) states that children at foundation stage should “be enabled to explore similarities and differences between groups of people” and that children at Key Stage 2 (p.97) should explore “valuing and celebrating difference and diversity”.   This movie highlighted to me the importance of educating children about the different types of people and about informing children that diversity does exist in the world.  Through this lesson I also got to see how an appropriate movie can be so effective when it directly relates to the topic that you are teaching.  Previously we had only watched 15 minutes of the movie but then during the weekend we had sat watched the rest of the movie because the lecturer had helped us develop a keen interest on the subject of diversity.

 

Freedom Writers 

 

             Marcus: No, that don't fly Ma.

             Erin Gruwell: First of all I'm not anybody's

             mother.

             Andre: No, that's not what it means.

             Eva: It's a sign of respect... for you

 (a scene in the movie which shows that the teenagers are now beginning to respect not only each other but also the teacher) 

               

Wealth distribution in America 

In our Global citizen class we looked at the topic of distribution.  We began the lesson by looking at the Millennium Development Goals and we had an in depth discussion about if we thought that these goals were achievable or not.  This then lead into having a conversation about the distribution of wealth in a variety of different countries.  We watched a very interesting clip about Wealth Inequality in America and found out http://padlet.com/wall/h83r54bo9o ) This class was very interesting and as a group we began a discussion about if we could teach this to an upper Key Stage 2 class.  We then looked at the Northern Ireland Curriculum (2007, p.88) and saw that it stated that children at key stage 2 should be enabled to explore “features of, and variations in places, including physical, human, climatic and vegetation”.   We thought that we could teach this type of lesson to a primary seven class but that we would have to be sure of what we wanted our learning goals to be. 

that the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of the global assets in the year 2000.  We were then divided into three groups in which we had to prepare a presentation about either  combating poverty, child mortality or food shortage/ rising prices using a website called Padlet which allowed us to create a wall of information to show the rest of the class (our presentation available at

All in all we had an interesting week of class this week and it really made us think about different ways and ideas of teaching lessons when we get back home to Ireland. 

Week 16 – Cultural

This week I mainly focused on trying to complete my assignment for our Dutch culture and society module.  For this assignment we have to find 15 pictures of things that we ourselves would consider typically Dutch after living here for 4 months.  Once we have our pictures we then have to provide an explanation of 200-300 words on why we have chosen this picture and our own personal story as to why we think it is typically Dutch.  It the beginning it was hard to think of things that I would consider typically Dutch without becoming too stereotypical.  In reality when I first sat down to complete the work I immediately thought of windmills and clogs.  However after thinking about my first experiences in Nijmegen and comparing them to my daily routine now I was able to come up with a mixture of individual pictures to write about.  This assignment really got me thinking about how stereotypes can make you think you know a country but in actual fact you don’t know a country until you have lived in it or visited it.   It also got me thinking of the stereotypes that people may have of me and my country and if I have lived up to any of these stereotypes during my time on Erasmus. 

One of the items that I choose to write about when I was completing my work was rose beer.  I choose this as one of my pictures as I had never seen rose beer before until coming to Nijmegen. To me beer was always this disgusting drink that I never liked which caused quite a problem when I came over here as everyone drank beer and I mean everyone.  The problem arose when we would be out for drinks with our Erasmus group and everyone would be buying each other beer and because I didn’t want to be rude and say I didn’t like it I would just have to sit there and slowly sip away at my horrible drink.  This all changed when one of my friends here introduced me to rose beer.  Ever since that day if I go out I will order a glass of rose beer and have a drink that I enjoy.  Rose beer will now always remind me of the amazing times with my friends in Nijmegen and that is why I consider it typically Dutch. 

The different flags at the European Parliament

After spending all week working on my assignment I had a day off when we went to visit the European Parliament in Brussels.  This was a brilliant experience and one that I thought I never would have had the opportunity to do.  From role play games to visiting a museum I learnt a lot about the European parliament and even got to test out my skills as a politician during a role pay exercise. 

As I worked hard all week I was ready for the weekend and for celebrating my flatmate Fabio’s birthday party.  He had decided on a beach theme so we all dressed up in our summer clothes and threw him a party that he would never forget.  It was a great end to a week full of work and a night definitely to remember. 

At Fabio's birthday party

Week 15 – Professional

After having two weeks off I knew that getting up at 6.00am on Monday morning to go to placement was going to be tough but I was glad to be getting back into a routine and being able to see my class again.  When I arrived into my school I was greeted with numerous “goedemorgens” (good morning) and “welkom terugs” (welcome back).  When I entered my classroom all the kids were excited to tell me what they had got up to during their two week vacation and to find out if I had done any travelling.  With the help of Google translate and my mentor I was able to find out what all the children had got up to over the holidays and they were able to ask me questions about what I did during mine. 

When I went into school on Tuesday I was presented with a situation that got me very excited.  The P.E teacher was sick and the principal was giving me the opportunity to deliver the P.E lesson to my class.  This was very exciting for me as P.E is the subject that I have been doing extra work with during my time in Stranmillis.  Although I did not have anything planned for the lesson I was able to come up with a lesson that lasted for 1 hour and 15 minutes.  During the lesson I got to teach the children more about the skills involved in Gaelic football and even got them to take part in a mini game that got them practising all their new found skills. 

After my surprise lesson I then had to get ready for teaching my English lesson.  In the lesson I was going to be using a system called Groove.me to teach my children English.  

Groove.me is a method of teaching English in primary schools using music.  A song is chosen and the theme of the song is used to teach the children the different language associated with the theme.  There are 15 songs available for each year group and 30 lessons associated with the variety of different songs.  The song that I had chosen was “Drive by” by Train.  Firstly the children listen to the song and if they wish they can sing along to it, this means that even those children that have very little English can take part in the lesson by just singing.  It then goes onto asking the children what they think the song is about and it breaks the chorus down into sentences that the children can listen to and discuss the different words that they can see and understand.  The children are then provided with English words that they have to translate into Dutch and Dutch words that they have to

Part of the lesson

translate into English.  After this the children are then shown actions that they have to complete when they hear specific words.  This gets the children listening to the words of the song and helps them with their word recognition.  The benefit of this method of teaching is that it is all completed using the interactive whiteboard which is important as the GTCNI (2008) competence number 11 states that “Teachers will have developed a knowledge and understanding of how to use technology effectively both to aid pupil learning and support their professional role”.   Once the interactive session is completed there are worksheets available that the children have to complete. When evaluating my lesson I thought that using well known songs to help the children learn English was a great idea however I know that some of the children in my class found it difficult when they had to keep switching between Dutch and English on some of the activities.  I also found it difficult when some of the instructions on the worksheet were in Dutch but with the help of Google translates and effective planning I was able to translate the instructions and know what the children had to do. 

Part of the worksheet

I believe that this was a great experience for me as I got to see a different method for teaching English.  I also got to see how effective music can be when promoting learning and I will be using music in more of my future lessons. 

References

GTCNI Competences (2008). Professional Competences. Available at : http://www.gtcni.org.uk//index.cfm/area/information/page/ProfStandard (accessed 18/05/13)