Discussion 1: Examine the picture of the school principal, Ms. Trunchbull. Compare to what you are being taught about being a caring, responsible, critically reflective and accountable teacher who should support learning in diverse educational contexts to the aggressive displays by Ms. Trunchbull.

Core business of the school is to provide learners with a rich learning environment that is open, respectful, caring and safe. This type of learning environment optimizes the well-being of leaners. School should be exciting, stimulating and welcoming place. Teachers need to be more welcoming and approachable, learners need not to be afraid of their teachers. Learners should not be afraid of their teachers or principal but they have to respect them as their elders for the culture of teaching and learning to be conducive. All the above mentioned did not apply within Ms. Trunchbull’s school.

Examining the picture Ms. Trunchbull is unfairly disciplining one of her learners, the reason I say she is unfairly disciplining her, she lifted the learner with her pigtails and swung the learner several times in the air before throwing her. No civilized parent could do that to his or her children no matter how angry they are unless they are cruel and not thinking straight. Worse thing a principal doing that to one of her learners.  Ms. Trunchbull is not a caring, responsible, critically reflective and accountable teacher. She does not care with the well-being of the learners.  The way she punishes her learners is very unacceptable shows no signs of caring and accountability.

A caring, responsible, critically and accountable teacher is the one that bring out the best in her learners through encouragement and affirmation above all she must have love and care for her learners. She or he needs to have a good relationship with her so that her learners could feel safe around her. Ms. Trunchbull is a big, terrifying and fierce monster, she uses her power as a headmistress, both the learners and the teachers are afraid of her because she is rude and bossy. Ms. Trunchbull has the totally opposite characteristics of a caring teacher.

Ms. Trunchbull need to be accountable and critical reflective. What she is putting the learners through is unacceptable. Children need to be loved and they need to feel loved and cared for. Ms. Trunchbull should be the one protecting the learners not the other way around.

The unmentioned might of a woman.

THE UNMENTIONED MIGHT OF A WOMAN.


"Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade since it consists principally dealings with men." Joseph Conrad.The article is written from a man point of view,he does not include himself but he address woman as YOU ARE A WOMAN meaning that he isn't a woman. I personally think that if he was a woman he was also going to include himself too.
actually the man is giving praises to his woman,  he is honoring and showing appreciation to his woman for always being the backbone he needs."Every king needs or deserves a queen,"the man on the article understands that very well.


Values and attitudes reflected in the article about gender relationships most men do not truly express their feelings yet women has the ability to express their emotions without any fear. The ability to be able to express your feelings shows how strong and fearless one is. Most men do not express their feelings because they can not handle rejection all this shows how weak man can be when it comes to the matters of the heart. For any gender relationship to prosper both partners have roles to play within the relationship, both partners should offer support, love and care to their partners. The little things we do for our loved ones that seem to have no effect are the ones with the great effect. The simplest choices like what items your significant should wear on a certain day will not only please your partner but it will also cultivate one's courage and confidence,giving him strength to take on the world with every compliment you send my way.


I disagree with the writer's portrayal of men in the article, as this article is based on one man points
 of view, They are all views of one person, people differ from one person to other. Some men do celebrate their women , do show love and care to their significant. Men hate being controlled and they do not want to express their feelings to women. Man alone are weak they need women as their pillar of strength not all of them but some. Man are not celebrated as much as women are. The women of this country are very celebrated and very appreciated- the writer feels as if men do not celebrate women as they deserve. Not all men wait for the women's month to celebrate their women. Some men honor and praise their women every day. There is 16 days of activism where the focus is mainly on women and children, Women's month, take a girl to work, and some many more campaigns to empower women.

Yes the writer's style of writing is very persuasive. The use of small in length paragraphs usage makes the reader not to be lazy to read the blog to the end.

WEBLOGS AS AN EMERGING GENRE IN HIGHER EDUCATION.

                              Weblogs as an emerging genre in higher education.



Blogging in general involves the development of  a  singular , sustained voice, one that is often explicitly linked in its emergency to specific real-world activities and development. Weblogs or blogs were inverted in the past decades as an internet application genre. Weblogs are more like personal diaries where one is free to express and reflect on any matters with different themes. In higher education weblogs are used for different reasons they can be used as a platform of communication between lectures and students. Blogs promote an on-going interaction between bloggers(lectures~students, students~students) where they discuss each other's ideas critically and cognitively so. The weblogs  makes the  internet more approachable and comprehensible. As a student in higher education you are expected to make research on certain topics, you need the internet and some sources to do research , blogging do assist in that as the love of reading and writing would be evoked because one is used and enjoys blogging. Weblogs assist lectures in conveying insights about identifying and hypertext.


I was introduced to blogging last year, as a form of assessment. I did not see any need of blogging before because I was not aware of the good things that blogging bring about especially to a student. Because of its format similar to that of a personal diary, weblogs encourage informal communication, creativity and self -expression. For non computer science students including us teachers in training, weblogs provide the chance of learning about web, page creation and hyper linking. Weblogs can serve as another way of introducing technology into classrooms.

 Weblogs have the ability to reach a large audience meaning whatever information I will be trying to convey to the world will be accessible to many people out there. One can promote his/her own weblog through the social networks one is using(Facebook/Twitter) without losing information quality and allowing different levels of detail. Weblogs also create connections between students with diverse interests and opinions.This can encourage critical thinking and teaches the value of respects towards students, where students will have to respects each others points of views.

Discussions in weblogs promote higher levels of thinking and reading  because people need to first read the whole post and think critically so before answering back. The weblogs information can be accessed anytime and anywhere. Blogging promote reading and writing, it also improves the use of language and vocabulary.

The effective use of blogs can be improved by introducing personal diaries to learners in high school, for the format of a blog is the same to that of a personal diary. In that way learners will be used to writing they will not have to start using blogs in tertiary.  Students can be given chance or tasks to write their own stories and publish them in their blogs. Frequent blogging should be implemented as early as in first year.  We not all into blogging and reading if students could be allowed to choose their own topics that they find interest in , and let them reflect and express their feelings based on those topics that will generate the love of writing and reading and language and writing skills will be developed.
" The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one "~Malcolm Forbes. Let make blogging to be interesting by allowing students to write about what they find interest in.






Sergio Luján-Mora, Susana de Juana-Espinosa. The Use of Weblogs in Higher Education: Benefits and Barriers. Proceedings of the International Technology, Education and Development Conference (INTED 2007), p. 1-7: IATED, Valencia (Spain), March 7-9 2007. ISBN: 978-84-611-4517-1.














  

unit 1.2    11

My final schooling year.

My final school year at Lilanga High School, Mpumalanga Province.

me and my friends at school during lunchtime.

My name is Sthembile Phumzile Shabalala, I am 18 years old I live at Diepdale which is situated in the Mpumalanga Province. I am the last child in my family but the first one to be in University, which is a very good thing. I am doing my first year at University of Mpumalanga doing Bed Foundation phase teaching. Children are very close to my heart I love children more than anything.

Sthembile Shabalala
2015 Matriculate.

I matriculated at Lilanga High School, located at Diepdale (Mpumalanga Province). Diepdale is more of a rural area, but it is developing as the primary basic needs needed by a person to survive are available (sanitation, electricity, clinics, schools). There are less job opportunities, young people tend to leave the place after completing their matric to the city, for a better and interesting life.My class teacher was my Physical Sciences teacher Mr Magasa who originated from Zimbabwe. He was a very good teacher, he treated us all equally, treated us as his children. My principal was Mr Mkhatshwa Z.L, a very humble, caring, loving person he cared about the well-being of every learner that went into our school. He was the person that inspired me to do good every time, he inspired me in lot of things. He used to say that “success is not inherited but generated” and that kept me going. He was my favourite in the whole school.

I was doing the Science stream, my subjects were Life Sciences, Geography, Physical Sciences, Mathematics, Siswati Home Language, Life Orientation and English First Additional Language. My favourite subject was Geography I loved and enjoyed Geography more than any other subject. Wanted to be a Geography teacher when I finished high school but that life brought me to Foundation phase teaching which I still find interesting to be in too.

Knowledge is Light

My final school year was not that good, have bad memories. A very tragic scenario happened, I could still remember the day and time as if it was yesterday. It was on the 21 August 2014 we were attending afternoon classes as the grade 12 learners. The classes went on just like any other days, we were attending Physical sciences we were attended by the subject teacher, Mr Magasa but he had to leave the class before it adjourned due to some emergency that needed his attention. So we were left with some guy who was helping us with Science subjects, Thabiso. Ten minutes after Mr Magasa’s departure, a Consumer Studies learner, being careless and childish sprayed our class windows using some spray that was much like of Teargas, (Teargas it a spray used by police to manage or control people during violent uprisings/strikes) but the spray he used was not teargas because it had side effects. The spray affected all those who were inside the classroom we all started to cough some started to cough up blood, it was real bad. We all could not breathe properly, we suffered from chest pains.

We called Mr Magasa and the principal they took us to the local clinic, when we arrive at the clinic they called ambulances to transport the learners to hospital. It was very hurting to see our classmates lying there helpless and in pain. They gave us some pills to drink they were five of them and we had to drink them at the same time with lot of water.

We went back homes (us) the learners that seemed to be less affected by the poison and those who were highly affected went to the hospital, not knowing what will happen during the night. I got home was feeling okay, I ate and took a bath went to bed. In the middle of the night I was so feeling cold yet I was covered with three big blankets you can even think of, went to the bathroom to pee and I could feel that something was real wrong, I could not walk properly on my way back from bathroom to my room I mistakenly hit the door. Early in the morning my mother took me to the school for principal to transport us to the nearest clinic, when I arrived there I found lot of the other learners having the same problem as mine. Principal with the help of the other teachers they rushed us to the local clinic, when we arrived there they told us that there is nothing they could do to help us they referred us to the nearby clinic at Mayflower. When we arrived they called Ambulances to rush us to the Hospital so we were admitted to Embhuleni Hospital were some got treated and they were released on that very same day, pity I had to stay behind with some other learners for the doctors said we were too weak to be released he still wanted to keep us under his eye to monitor our state. We were released after a week and we were still weak but we were managing.

Lilanga High School

There was no much of educational technology used in my school, the school had no computers we did not do computer as a subject only the administrators used computers neither the teachers did not use any form of technology when conducting their classes. The teachers did own some laptops but they were not using their laptops when conducting their lessons since the school had no projectors.

The link of a google map showing the location of my previous school where I matriculated.

https://www.google.co.za/maps/place/Lilanga+Secondary+School/@-26.4561224,30.7904939,1441m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x1ee92c11f6ed0595:0x1c95ef7525b2eb40!6m1!1e1