As summer draws closer our semester at the PHTG is sadly coming to an end.
On the Friday evening, we enjoyed a BBQ beside the lake (thanks to the gift from my placement teacher) and our universities campus party. This was a really enjoyable occasion as we said goodbye to all the Swiss students we had come to know, especially Daniel, the PHTG student president, who welcomed us from the beginning of our stay in Kreuzlingen.
The next day, Zoe, Louis (Zoe’s friend who was visiting from home) and I headed to Munich on the Flixbus to enjoy a casual day in the capital city of Germany; Munich. It was nice to see another German city and we got a little carried away with seeing shops once again, deciding to treat ourselves to a little retail therapy.
It was a short but sweet trip to Munich, made extra sweet with a few 50% sales in Holister!
The rest of my week consisted of studying and finishing off my final assignments for the PHTG. It wasn’t a very exciting week, however I still found time to have fun with our two Israeli friends, Ainat and Ronnie who invited us over for chocolate fondue.
I spent the majority of my week preparing for my Global Education presentation. This involved creating three fact sheets about; Economy, Employment market and social justice. The first fact sheet looked specifically at these topics within my own country, the second factsheet was a focus which the group decided upon and the third factsheet was how we can apply this to our teaching in the future.
Initially, I found this topic extremely difficult as I knew very little about it, but as I began to do a little research, I discovered many things about Northern Ireland’s economy and employment market that I never knew. From the three countries represented; Northern Ireland, Switzerland and Israel, we found a common issue to be migrant workers and how this effects the economic and employment market within each country. In all countries, migrant workers are on the rise and this effects both the economy and employment market, as well as workers’ who have families and children who need an education. It was interesting to discover how these all linked.
NI has undergone a rapid demographic change as a result of migration in the last decade. “Since 2004, there have been more than one million EU migrant workers from EU ascension countries entering the UK to work” (Richards, 2011)
In my final factsheet, I discussed how or why it would be important for children to learn about these topics. At the start I thought that this had no relevance to children, but then I realised how important it is for children to be aware of these topics locally and globally. They need to understand where the economic market comes from and how this effects them as day-to-day consumers buying different products and thinking about where these have come from. Overall, I learned a great deal from this assignment and was glad to finish presenting my findings to my class and finishing the course.
Other modules and assignments which I was able to finish off this week included my art portfolio’s and also my reflection on Philosophising with children. This was a 10 page assignment! I have honestly never written so much before about a particular topic before so this proved quite difficult. I was glad to finish this off before heading to Paris this weekend.
Global Education fact sheets ✅
Art portfolios ✅
German revision ✅
Philosophising with children assignment ✅
That’s right.. PARIS! The two boys have left Zoe and I behind over the past two weeks as they have been supporting Northern Ireland in their performance at the Euros. This weekend we are joining them in Paris to catch some of the atmosphere!
REFERENCES:
Richards (2011) cited in Kernaghan, R. (2015)
Click to access feels_like_home_exploring_the_experiences_of_newcomer_pupils_in_northern_ireland.pdf
LIVING IN SWITZERLAND 