Reflection Day 21 31/10/16

Today was Halloween which is a celebration that is based in America but is

becoming increasingly popular in Australia. My personal beliefs are that I
havent celebrated Halloween and dont consider it as a holiday that I
would like to celebrate. However, as a teacher I need to ensure I am not
placing my values, attitudes and beliefs on the students around me. As
teachers we are to help shape individual students not create or mould
students into one type of learner or individual. I found that some students
said they participate in Halloween at home and others that dont, some
came in costume and others didnt. Each student in different and will
continuously show differences in their beliefs about any topic.
According to the AISTL standards standard 1 is Know students and how
they learn within this standard there is a substandard 1.3 that states
students with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic
backgrounds. Every classroom is going to have a diverse range of
cultural background, family traditions, religious beliefs that will all effect if
and how students celebrate Halloween. However, this does not mean we
do not recognise a particular day or teach about this celebration.
As a teacher in order to achieve substandard 1.3 teachers must have
strategies and knowledge of how to teach a diverse range of individuals. If
we decided not to acknowledge a particular day then we would not be
teaching students all different celebrations and beliefs. However a teacher
needs to also consider how much of this celebration they focus the day
on. In my classroom we also discussed another celebration in India that is
similar to Halloween. This celebration comes from the religion Hindu and
was discussed about as we have a student in the class who has this
background and family beliefs. By doing this it gave the students the
understanding that they are a lot of religions and celebrations some
people acknowledge, some that dont and some that do a different
celebration.

As a pre-service teacher I will ensure I do not push my personal beliefs on

the students. I will ensure I create students and a classroom that critically
thinks and can make inferences and decisions based on a diverse range of
knowledge and experiences that have come from a wide range of
perspectives.