THE COMPARISON BETWEEN UJ CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND CHARACTERISTICS OF MISS TRUNCHBULL FROM THE BOOK Matilda BY Roald Dahl

This blog is focused on an analysis of the character Miss Trunchbull from the novel Matilda by Roald Dahl. I will be specifically comparing the qualities UJ Conceptual framework with that of hers and I will draw out the contradiction between these qualities.

As a student teacher, I am being prepared to be a caring, responsible, critically reflective and accountable teacher who should support learning in diverse educational contexts. I believe that if you care about something, you feel it is important or interesting and you become more concerned about it. When you care, you actively listen to learners and then check in with them to make sure they’ve understood properly. This affirms learners’ dignity and helps develop a trusting relationship between teachers and learners. Getting to know your learners’ lives meaning and figuring out the personalities and interest of each student and incorporate components that connect with each individual is one of the good characteristics of a caring teacher. This makes a teacher to be is regarded as an agent of transforming meaning teacher is responsible for change that takes place in learners.

This is in contrast to the qualities displayed by the headmistress of Crunchem Hall Primary School, Miss Trunchbull. Who conducts herself as “aggressive monster, a gigantic holy terror’’ who inspire fear in teachers and learners. Clearly there is no characteristics of care she is showing to learners, she shows no interest in any of the learner’s live. She is insensitive, irresponsible and harsh to learners. She threw a learner named Amanda out of the window by her pigtails without any worry of harm she might cause the learner. She seems to have a hatred of ‘little girls’ and believes she was never a little girl – to suggest her irrational hatred of girls. She lacks the empathy and gentleness that is expected of a headmistress who has a genuine interest in the education of young children. I believe that she is taking teaching as just a job. Her hatred of children is a discouragement to their learning.

A good responsible educator is cooperative with other teachers, and parents for the good of your students. Judging from a chapter titled “THE TRUCHBULL” Miss Trunchbull failed to listen and acknowledge the extraordinary qualities of brilliance of Matilda when Miss Honey told her. It is said parents are also afraid of her. That clearly indicates none of this quality of cooperative between her and other teachers.

A responsible teacher is sensitive to the diverse needs of his or her learners, have a concern for the care and welfare of learners and must be seen as a role model at school and the surrounding community. Being effective responsible teacher means responding to learners with respect and positive manner, even in difficult situations. Indeed it is true that most head teachers are chosen because they possess a number of fine qualities. Effective teacher addresses learners by name and understand learners and have the children's best interests at heart and is sympathetic. He or she is fair and deeply interested in education but Miss Trunchbull possessed none of these qualities.

Miss Trunchbull is portrayed as a barking, shouting or bellowing person whenever she is addressing parents, learners and teachers. She uses inappropriate language most of the time when talking to learners. This clearly show that she set disrespectfully manner towards learners and that is not expected of her especial as a headmistress of the school. Being a critically reflective teacher means the ability to look back and reflect on their mistakes done during a particular lesson and the mighty Miss Trunchbull who is described as a ‘boss’ clearly possess none of this qualities. Miss Trunchbull believes she is never wrong. She lacks patience to deal with learners' unique learning needs and she is described by learners as “monster”

Holding yourself to the same expectations and standards as you hold your learners is what an accountable teacher does. This is in opposite to the way Miss Trunchbull is conducting herself. She makes up rules and consequences or punishment according to mood- suggest she is unpredictable. Teachers who uses the wrong ways to maintain discipline and degrading learners instead of encouraging like Miss Trunchbull are dangerous to learners and should be in no position of teaching profession.  

SERVICE LEARNING

unit 1.2 11/08/2016

service learning is participation in an organised service activity that meets to the needs of the community. Reflection on service learning  is the ability to stand back from an experience and discover the connections between actions and their effect. In this instance i stood back from the experience of providing a service to community. from service learning i came to realize that service learning  needs to be planned and pre-organized before the event is eventually executed. I believe that service learning has helped students develop the habit of critical reflection, deepen their their understanding of course content, enable them to integrate with practice, sharpen their ideas creatively, enhance their skills in working collaboratively and learn.

As i reflect on action, i can tell that my group did accordingly as planned, the only challenge we were facing is that the group of children we had were not willing to play games we brainstormed for them. i believe we need should have planned thoroughly me and my group so that the service could be successful.

THE UNMENTIONED MIGHT OF A WOMAN

The article titled ''The Unmentioned Might of a Woman '' by Zoeloe is written from a man's point of view or from a narrator's perspective of praising a woman. The narrator consider or perceives a woman as a powerful person towards a man's life. Although, it is was seeming really but not necessary that there times where the man can be annoyed by some of the typical female characteristics.

This article indicates gender imbalances, according to the article that women have more power than men, women are men's pillar of strength, and they can influence a man as much as possible because men's powers are swallowed by their pride. The author also feels that women are special beings than men are. and therefore women should be praised and honored every day for their presence.

I agree, the article clearly portrayed men as patriarch, men are the one who are capable to make a decision for the family often and I also support the author's claim that men hide their feelings behind well-built barriers made of emotionless expressions, which are then mistakenly identified as power despite the fact that by not facing their emotions, they are then unable handle them when push actually comes to shove – leaving them filled with emotions which clouds their judgement. However not all men are sexist as claimed by the writer.

The style of writing of the writer is effective, word choice of the writer is outstanding as when I read the article I became able to visualize the sentences and because it is written in figurative form that had evoke my emotions. The format style of article is unique-making the article drawing more attention from targeted audience. The writer in order to express or describe his feelings he chose narrative style making the entire article readable and understable.

WEBLOGS AS AN EMERGING GENRE IN HIGHER EDUCATION

According to the Jo Ann Oravec , weblogs or bloggers are valuable in higher education as they can help students place the various emerging hypertext variations with older media in wider context of ''media ecology''. Experimentation with and discourse on weblogs can also stimulate student interest in lager notions of the social construction of information as well as presentation  of self(and perhaps also make plagiarism less attractive), as students explicitly link to each other's works in a format that fosters currency,individuality,and critical commentary. Weblogs students  to develop literacy skills, critical thinking skills, knowledge construction ability, cooperative learning, and academic development. The weblogs does not only benefit students,it also enhance educators as it give them opportunities to familiarize themselves with various online material.

I barely have enough experience about blogs. i just do not see its uniqueness from other technological applications such as Facebook. Apart from that it is not easy to access. Well from the little experience i have about blogs, i am enjoying reading others point of views based on the certain topic,reading my peers past experience and the fact that weblogs can be used as a learning tool in higher education especial for distance education. i have come to realized since bloggers were introduced to me i am motivated to write in format of my choice and do research ans also read other person researches. It interest me to share with others and to draw them into a conversation about what the blogger has written. In essence they are inviting feedback on their thoughts, ideas and reflections. what i also love about blogging is that it is reducing the risk of plagiarism.

Just to say i am looking forward to explore in this world of bloggers.

In order to improve blogs to make them a meaningful learning tool for students, i would recommend that using weblogs in university to be mandatory in university to motivate student.Weblogs should be easily accessible and access control should be set to private. student should use weblogs as learning journal, where students reflect about what they learning. Teachers should encourage students to participate in weblog and discussion groups and to draw information from sources other than the textbook, this can help students increase the thinking skill. In so doing this weblogs can be one of the most important tools for learning.