Claire's Learning Blog

Identity, Values & Strengths

Explain a situation where you have had an ethical decision to make. Discuss how you weighed up the values involved in that decision, the decision you made and the consequences of the action you took.

A parent approached me before school and wanted to discuss her child’s learning with me. She said she wanted to take him to after-school classes at a particular company because she believed that he would accelerate further than what he was doing at school. I replied by saying that I don’t believe it would be the best choice and how teachers don’t think it’s that great to go to after school classes. I instantly regretted responding in such a negative way as I could see the parent was taken aback by what I said.

At the end of the day, I approached the parent and apologised for my response and further expanded what I had said earlier by explaining that sometimes after-school teachers go too far ahead and they miss out on foundational concepts which we teach at school. However, it was still a great idea as her son would be able to get more one on one time and support.

Unfortunately in this situation, I was not compassionate and empathetic towards the parent and I ended up giving a defensive response. I know I responded in such a way beacause my weaknesses include is being a perfectionist and being sensitive to criticism. I always try my best to cater to each child and plan fun learning experiences for them and so to hear that, I responded in negatively. From this experience, I try to remind myself to not respond right away because a lot of times our initial response isn’t always the best response.

Describe how your culture has influenced your values and identity

My experience of growing up here as an immigrant really gave me an insight to how to accept that everyone is different. When I was younger I had struggled with my identity because I was different to the others but I feel that because of this, I’ve learnt to accept people as they are. Everyone has a story to tell and their experiences will be different to mine. In addition of my experience of being a teacher, it solidified my values to be compassionate, considerate and empathic towards others.

My values and identity is also heavily influenced by my mum who has brought me up on her own. She works hard and is always striving to learn new things. She is always kind and caring towards others and tends to put others first. I have a really good role model and she has helped shaped me into the person I am today.

Evaluate your strengths and limitations in terms of your learning and career development

Strengths

• Creative - I love doing things that involves making or designing something, especially things where I can use my hands like pottery and drawing. To me, being creative is really important as it is part of who I am.
• Flexible and a problem solver - In teaching, flexibility was so important and it was something I had really developed along with thinking on my feet. When I planned lessons and students didn’t get it, I’d try to think of another way to teach them a concept on the spot.
• Passionate - when I really get into something and I am enjoying it, I get really passionate and I keep trying to learn as much as I can on it. I’ve had comments about how my face lights up when I talk about things I am passionate about.
• Organised - I try my best to plan out my day during work and love using lists to help me organise things I need to do. Whenever I had feedback from management at work, being organised was often mentioned.
• Taking criticism - I actually like receiving criticism because it helps me see what I need to work on. Sometimes it’s better if someone else tells you because they’re seeing it from a different perspective. However, it can also be a limitation for me (refer to below).

Limitations

• Perfectionism - I have an idea of what I want the outcome to be and when I don’t meet it, it can really affect my motivation. I have a tendency to not attempt something at times because I instantly feel like the outcome I want cannot be achieved.
• Sensitive to criticism - I can be sensitive to criticism depending on the delivery of it. At times in the past I have been defensive and I realised that after it’s happened. It’s something I am still working on.
• Sharing and opening up - Definitely something I still feel quite hard to do. I found this really prevalent in the classroom because I was uncomfortable to share things about myself with my students. I feel awkward sharing things about myself because I’m quite a private person and I also feel like what I share with them would be un-interesting. I also don’t like to be the centre of attention so I prefer to keep things to myself.
• Being assertive - I try not to be a burden or bother others that I end up not getting my point across or I miss out on opportunities. I can think of many instances where I thought afterwards, ‘I wish I had just said it or done that’.

Identify which of your strengths might help you in your learning journey and how they might intersect with learning obstacles.

I feel like all of my strengths will play a role in helping me learn but the most important ones would be passion and problem solving. I can feel myself becoming more and more passionate about web development as I learn more and this will continue to be the driving force on my learning journey. I enjoy a challenge and so if it’s something I’m passionate about (which it is!), I will be even more motivated to problem solve and work out how to get something to work!

Share an example from your experience of where you were trying to work productively with others, but there was resistance or tension. Discuss the strategies you used at that time, how effective they were, and your reflections on what other strategies you would try now, and why.

As a teacher, I was in charge of a core subject and I had to divide work between the colleagues in my team. I had given them a deadline for when I needed them in by. Some were quick to send me their plans but some weren’t.

For those who didn’t meet the deadline, I had emailed all my team members (so it was not towards specific individuals) thanking those who had already handed it in and reminded those who haven’t to submit it to me soon. I ended up having to do this multiple times. I also approached those who had not finished to ask how they were going and to see if they needed help.

I don’t think it was very effective because I had to spend extra time chasing up on those who have yet to hand their plans in. Reflecting back now, I should have set times for us to all met and work on our own parts together because this means if anyone was struggling (and maybe that’s why they put it off and didn’t finish on time) I could help them since I was there and we could even bounce off ideas off each other. It would have been more time efficient in the end not just for myself, but probably for my colleagues too.