Reflections

As the final component of my research process, I decided that it may be beneficial not only for my fellow student teachers, but for myself, to reflect on my experience and include my takeaways on this website. Below you will find my thoughts on the topics I discussed throughout my research, including some assumptions I had before research and what I learned from my conversations with the teachers I interviewed.

I assumed students would react differently to the conflict depending on their proximity to it.

I realized after my interviews that I had some assumptions about the way students in different countries would react to the conflict. I assumed that because students in Norway are much closer to the ongoing conflict, their interest in the issue would grow and they would have more questions and concerns over time. I assumed that the opposite would be true of Ontario students - that because they are considerably distanced from the conflict, their interest would dwindle over time as the conflict became less immediate and other topics captured their interest. I learned from my interviews that this is not necessarily the case - regardless of proximity to the conflict, students seem to be the most concerned with the issue right when it presents itself, and generally lose interest overtime. 'Lose interest' does have a negative connotation to it, but in this context it should not - perhaps it is just that the students have had the majority of their questions answered, or their initial concerns for personal safety have been diminished.

A loss of student interest could also be due to a change in the media content they are consuming. It is likely that their main source of communication - TikTok - has "moved on" from the conflict, that is, the algorithm has shifted to promote less Ukraine and Russia-related content. While I am by no means an expert on internet algorithms, I do know that trends on TikTok tend to come and go very quickly. Perhaps the algorithm treated the Ukraine-Russia conflict as a "trend", pushing a lot of related information to young viewers at once before moving onto newer trends. As Mark mentioned in our interview, this is not a problem exclusive to TikTok - the news, for instance, tends to treat global issues and events in the same manner, overloading viewers with information at the onset of the problem before moving on and finding new stories. Regardless, if this is the case with TikTok, this speaks to the massive influence media could have on young people's interest in global events.

As a teacher, you will not have all the answers, but you should have some of them.

Another of my takeaways from this project was the importance of doing personal research and coming to classes prepared to take on student questions. Evidently, teachers will not have the answers to all the questions students are asking, but they should be able to answer the factual questions - such as, "Where is Ukraine?" or "Why did the war start?". As Anna told me, it is still okay to say that you do not know the answer to a question, especially considering the immediacy and uncertainty of the conflict; however, we can still turn this uncertainty into learning opportunities for the students. For example, we could ask students to work in groups to find an answer to a question of interest, or give students the task of monitoring reliable news networks to find possible answers to their questions.

A more detailed curriculum may not necessarily be better than a less detailed one.

When I was first reviewing the curriculum documents, I was surprised at the difference in structure and length between the two curricula. This prompted me to consider the advantages of having a more detailed versus a less detailed curriculum. A less extensive curriculum could provide more leeway for teachers in terms of how they teach global issues in the classroom. The Ontario curriculum could be considered rather rigid in comparison to the Norwegian curriculum; on the other hand, it is also full of examples to support the specific learning expectations, so it can provide extra inspiration and guidance to teachers when planning lessons. The Norwegian curriculum being less specific and spread across several years could mean teachers feel less stress to fit in all the required content in a single year, as they may feel with the Ontario curriculum. Unfortunately, I did not ask the teachers interviewed their thoughts on their area's curriculum, so I do not have any insight into whether these ideas are true or not; but this is an area of inquiry that I may look into in the future.