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Insight into my Identity and lived Experiences

Playlist of my Life

This playlist made me reflect on who I am and the different experiences that form my identity. I won’t be able to see the experiences and intersectionality of my students, but I want to find ways for students to share their multiple identities with me to better understand my students.
To support me in this task, I believe good parent-teacher collaboration is of the essence.
I know, I will never know every aspect of who my students are and all the experiences and cultures that lead to what they know, their abilities and especially their behaviour. It is important to me to constantly challenge myself to not judge a child based on their behaviour but instead question, why the child has acted that way. This will help me to better support my students, change the way I teach based on their needs and not categorise my students and blame them for their behaviour.

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Mountain Painting

This painting represents my love for nature, Art and the nationality I identify most with – Austrian. Painting mountains makes me feel closer to home and reminds me of hikes and ski trips with my family. My grandparents have a house in the mountains where I would spend almost every winter and summer together with my family including my 14 cousins.

"The Rose" song

This is a song I used to always sing with my sisters accompanied by my mother. Music has always been a big part of my life. Growing up I learned to play the cello, guitar, recorder, ukulele and starting last year piano. I would play and sing together with my family at events in front of family and friends. The song “The Rose” reminds me of all the afternoons singing with my sisters accompanied by my mother on the piano and dad on the clarinet. The song became more meaningful to me when we sang it at my grandmother’s funeral and although I oftentimes feel emotional listening to and singing the song, I still think of the great memories I share with my family.

Sign – Home away from home

At Age 16 I did an exchange year in Arizona. This was the first time I realised that I can be on my own, I can create new connections and experience a new culture away from home. This experience has contributed to who I am now, trusting in my own judgment and being willing to step out of my comfort zone.  After the exchange year, I knew I wanted to go and travel by myself after graduation and study abroad. After 7 months of work and travel in Canada, Peru and Ecuador, I realised that a place is only as good as the people surrounding me, which led me to build beautiful relationships with co-workers and other travelers. I also learned to appreciate the place I grew up in and the family and friends, I knew would wait for me when I come back. Each place I lived in became my new home away from home. This leads to now, living and studying abroad in the Netherlands - a place I call home because this is where I am surrounded by people I love. I don’t have one home, I am at home in Arizona, Canada, Peru, Ecuador, the Netherlands and Austria.

Quote - Education

This quote describes the teacher I want to become.
I grew up with an education system that blames the child for their failure but doesn’t recognise the changes the teacher needs to make in order to enable the child to succeed. This caused me to constantly doubt my own abilities and I felt, and to be honest sometimes still feel, pressured to get good grades or I would view it as failure and lack of intelligence.

This is what I believed education looked like everywhere. Only after attending my current study, I realised the barriers my schools had put up. ITEPS helped me grow as a teacher and made me change the way I look at others and myself. My lecturers taught us that we shouldn’t try to change students, but to change the teaching strategies to meet the needs and abilities of all students. I now feel equipped to apply this, for me, new, inclusive way of teaching.

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