During my traineeship, I need to write HOPS for learning, and the department of education requires that. In addition, that is not all; many other tasks need to be written including a diary of my work. I was thinking what kind of goals I am setting to myself to this traineeship and this is what came out:

1) Learn how the education system works in India and possibly other countries as well. (I am going to talk to other trainees as well..)

-Learn how the British school organizes teaching to support children's learning. Does it differ from other schools remarkably?

2) How the teachers´ education has been conducted, are they happy with the system or does it need improving?

3) Do they think their role as a teacher or an educator? Or both?

4) How do they keep contact with parents, or do they think it is necessary?

5) What are the main conditions in their school they consider to need improvement?

-e.g. do they have time for some subjects enough, would they want to emphasize some very important ones?

6) What kind of teaching or interventions they have to offer to children with special needs?

7) How do they interfere in bullying?

8) How much power or authority does a teacher have concerning the curriculum?

9) Which methods are used often in teaching?

10) How do they concept learning? In what way they consider a child or young people learn at his best.

11) What happen to the misbehaving children? (Or is there any, are those just misunderstood) What kinds of punishment are commonly in use?

List is never ending..

Then I was thinking about my challenges as a teacher and as a foreign person. My motto is "you can't change what you don't acknowledge". (By Dr. Phil. heh..) In my prior knowledge in teaching, my strengths definitely are face-to-face communication and giving feedback to the student of his development. Challenges are, especially with children; find the enough interesting ways to teach and to detect their level of knowledge. It's no use to talk to anyone about substance that is out of reach, but to find the level in which a student has the competence to learn new skills by the help of a supervisor or a peer.

Surprisingly the horror images from years back came to haunt me when I worked with children in England. Kicks and bites, shouting to their parents (not to me, heh) and those awkward moments when the lady in the house had no authority in her family what so ever, besides the parents were untrustworthy and so the children are not to blame. Still it was´t the brightest moments in my life, though I enjoyed my free time greatly.

It's a challenge for me trying to find out what the people and the children are saying and meaning. Well, it takes some time to get used to their accent and them to mine.

The other thing what might help me to adjust in living there is to dye my hair, as it is strikingly blond and will be noticed surely :)