A Reflective Mind

by Maha Rathborne

•My journey throughout EDFD459 has been very transformative for me. I never thought I would be creating a PLN, or a movie nor thinking so deeply about people who are in challenging environments around the globe. I found all the Spaces made me rethink, and relearn and are an asset to developing enquiring mind. The e-Space and the Personal Learning Space are my favourite spaces. The Liminal Space I feel I am always in until the end of the semester. Never sure whether I am in the pit or out of it. It is a challenge but one that our students I am sure experience when we give them challenging tasks too.  In the future, I will certainly be aware of my students' liminality when setting tasks. 

•I have enjoyed being a part of a learning eCoP and being able to see how others think and be able to express my own thinking too.

•My favourite quote is that we are part of the "largest professionally trained group" in the world, 60 million strong. That's very powerful and if we were all members of the TWB, how effective would we be? Wow. We have hope to make a difference to the state of the world if we rallied together and said enough is enough. No more wars. We are all humans. It does not matter where you are from. It does not matter what colour your skin is. It does not matter what religion you follow. This earth home to all living things great and small. Nationalism is man-made. Lets cut it out of our vocabulary and let the children and animals live in harmony and peace. 

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•My favourite quote is that we are part of the "largest professionally trained group" in the world, 60 or 70million strong (not sure which now). That's very powerful and if we were all members of the TWB, how effective would we be? Wow. We have hope to make a difference to the state of the world if we rallied together and said enough is enough. No more wars. We are all humans. It does not matter where you are from. It does not matter what colour your skin is. The earth belongs to all of us humans. Nationalism is man-made. Lets cut it out of our vocabulary and let the children live in harmony and peace. 

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•Teachers and students need time to reflect on “what was and where to next” in order to progress forward and make changes that benefit themselves and society as a whole. We can all be catalysts or agents of change through reflection no matter how small our change is. It takes one person with one idea or passion to make an impact on society. Malala Yousafzai is an excellent example of mindset change on girls education. Her simple but powerful idea of "one child, one teacher, one book, one pen, can change the world. Education is the only solution. Education first" (Malala Yousafsai, 2013).

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•The social media e-Space is a very powerful tool in the 21st Century. The e-Space can be and is information overload but it can also be used as a vehicle for positive or negative global change as was seen by the “Arab Spring” which has brought misery to millions of people in Egypt and Syria, when they revolted against their dictatorship governments.

•The displacement and ethnic cleansing of people is another shameful humanitarian disaster we all need to deal with such as the Rohingya in Myanmar and the Palestinians in Palestine.

•Natural disasters are also prominent around the globe, in the 21st Century.

•Our students are witness to this misery via their Smart TVs, computers, tablets, mobiles etc. We can not shelter them from it, but we can steer them in the right direction.

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•As teachers we can provide students with the knowledge and tools to navigate this e-Space safely and wisely as well as enlightening them about world affairs through BTN or YouTube that highlight the illiterate world population and child refugee crisis as well as the negative or positive future impact on the world.

•This sensitive guidance in a safe learning space or environment allows students to be appreciative and grateful for what they have as well as reflect upon and come up with  positive solutions to such world crisis; where they can make a contribution, small or big, that makes a difference to someone's life or many lives.

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•Schools and teachers have a responsibility to encourage or allow students to initiate fund raising projects to benefit Refugee Children’s Education who are less fortunate than themselves. The SRC and the senior student body of the school can be utilized here to lobby the local community as well as the national and international leaders for funds and mindset change about welcoming refugees, stopping the bloodshed and stopping ethnic cleansing.. They can select a world crisis or natural disasters initiative to support. They can create PLNs specifically for community awareness and fund raising.

•Therefore I repeat: "one child, one teacher, one book, one pen, can change the world. Education is the only solution. Education first" (Malala Yousafzai, 2013) is a very powerful simple message of hope and change.