Reflections on Community Engagement at Step Ahead Childcare

This journal entry reflects on the experiences of a pre-service teacher during community engagement at Step Ahead Childcare, where they worked with disabled students and challenged their beliefs and values about teaching. The entry discusses the importance of teacher identity, the challenges of preparing to teach disabled students, and the impact of effective pedagogy on student development.

Journal Entry 1.
In this week at Step ahead childcare, my community engagement begins. This childcare
comprised of 50 students, looks after the educational career of the children by providing the
best educational and services to the children, which leads towards the bright career of the
children. This childcare provides the educational care along with the stress-free and anxiety
free educational training and looks after reducing ADHD in children. During these
experiences, teacher identity is essential, and Walkington (2005) stated that being a teacher,
teacher identity is the central belief of teaching. However, these beliefs can be formed and
reformed based on the experiences. According to Walkington (2005), this helps to become
the preservice teacher and skilled practitioner that is by being flexible and an all-time learner.
I will be changing my beliefs and values and extending my knowledge by involving in the
learning process with the students, observing the nature of the classroom and the interactions
between the teacher and students.
This is my belief that my values will be changing by extending my learning process through
such experiences. I think I will be able to expose myself to a different aspect of teaching,
which I have not experience until now. According to Eccles and Wigfield (2002), when the
individual tends to expand the competition for himself by challenging the more and more
difficult task, then only the experience flow can be possible. Thus, the experience flow needs
to underline the behaviour of development.
Journal entry 2.
The community engagement has been beginning with the visit to the Step ahead childcare.
There the children face attention difficulty, and they cannot communicate as they suffer from
anxiety separation and have severe ADHD, which made me more involved with the student.

During my university time, as the pre-service teacher, we were used to facing challenges
regarding the education view in different ways. Walkington further describes the experiences
of the pre-service teachers like us that are in the professional ground the professionals need to
interrogate the practice of the education system by immersing in the school for developing
ourselves as the teacher. My views and beliefs regarding the minority group were challenged
by this experience; this is so because I have not understood these support required by the
student. My beliefs like the ADHD students and other students have some independence, but
this has been altered. During my placement, I use to feed students in their lunchtime, help
them in their paintings and writings, use to help them in gripping and holding their markers,
dress them up and interpret about their choices in doing something. I also use to engage them
in various activities like riding a bicycle, reading and another task.
All these experiences allowed me to understand the value and the impact of teachings on the
disable students and how to know the details of that student. This is possible by incorporating
the interests of those disable students and helping them to grow up, developing the learning
process and by allowing them to gain the confidence for maximising their development.
Journal entry 3.
There is the need of preparation for the teachers who teach the disable or other students and
this preparation had been challenged by the values and beliefs about the work that has been
continued outside the childcare context. There comes the most frequent realisation regarding
the amount of work done by the teachers and the management.
The manipulatives made by the mentoring teacher gives evidence, and this includes the
likings, disliking of the student, the activity cards that allow the students to express
themselves and pedagogy. The efficient pedagogy depends upon the student’s acquisition
knowledge, skills, attitudes and disposition of the children.

The experience has challenged my values of the importance of the teacher and the efforts for
increasing the potentials. I experienced a child who was able to understand and express his
choice that is by communicating what he likes to do. The child was also able to understand
what the teacher was trying to say through the images. I also experienced another student
who was able to learn how to hold the water marker and not only this; she was also able to
complete her with the teacher assistance. Then the final example I saw when the teacher had
set the program on the computer, which involves the singing stories for the student along with
the teacher for developing their communication skills and there was another student who was
even able to pronounce the word duck after being involved in the program. All these
examples have challenged my values and beliefs, which allow me to develop myself as a
future teacher.

References:
BOMA, M. (1997). THE ATTITUDES OF PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS TOWARDS
INCLUSIVE EDUCATION. Rand Afrikaans University.
Churchill, R., Godinho, S., Johnson, N., Keddie, A., Letts, W., & Lowe, K. et al. (2015).
Teaching: Making a Difference, 3rd Edition (3rd ed.). Brisbane: John Wiley & Sons.
Eccles, J., & Wigfield, A. (2002). Motivational Beliefs, Values, and Goals. Annual Review
Of Psychology, 53(1), 109-132. doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135153
Walkington, J. (2005). Becoming a teacher: encouraging development of teacher identity
through reflective practice. Asia-Pacific Journal Of Teacher Education, 33(1), 53-64. doi:
10.1080/1359866052000341124