For this week, we have a shorter reflection. Which I think is honestly indicative of the strained pushing through of these weeks. Weeks 3 & 4 required a lot more planning, but more-so adapting, than anticipated. The main struggle here was , a common theme, there were a lot of unknowns.
Doubts lingered from Weeks 1 & 2, questions of whether or not this project was having a real impact. Were the students truly taking information in? Could they see how it is useful to them? Were they truly understanding these concepts? It’s difficult to measure understanding sometimes, especially knowing how secondary school students are. You can explain a concept to them, checking in if they’re understanding and receiving responses in the affirmative. You ask them again, ‘are you sure you understand, do you have any questions?’ And they nod looking up at you and you can’t help but wonder if they are being truthful or just are afraid of the ‘shame’ of asking any questions. What quelled a lot of these worries was asking follow up questions. And, though these weeks were ones that tested perseverance, these were also the weeks that I started to see the students started to really grasp and understand these concepts. Students were more easily able to answer follow up questions- remembering the fundamentals established in the first two weeks of what an argument and a claim are, and, what makes a good argument. They started becoming more familiar with recognising logical fallacies, even being able to point them out in videos of debates (such as the Mehdi Hassan vs 20 Far-Right Conservatives video they enjoyed analyzing), whilst further being more able to recognise the real-life benefits and implications of what I was teaching. With this new-found excitement, I really started to see some of these returns on the effort that was going into planning these sessions.
As I started to become more familiar with the school & the kids started becoming more familiar with argumentative concepts, what was most helpful during these times was, community. Adapting these lesson plans was only made possible through the teachers that helped me, the Social Studies teacher (whose classes I was covering) especially. By taking in feedback and adjusting my plans to fit what would be best for the students, in Week 4 I started to introduce the students to the Youth Assembly Style Model UN they would be participating in in the following weeks, Year 7 & 8 to focus on topics to do with plastic pollution & Year 9 focusing on the more topical issue of immigration and refugee rights. Week 4 consisted of going over what makes a good speech and how to structure texts to be used for public speaking/speaking skills. As these weeks continued, I did too- continuously working and adapting lessons & projects going forward and started to build the foundations of community in this new place I’ve had the opportunity of being in. All in all, the lessons of these weeks were ultimately-trust the process. Doubts will persist, it’s only human, but things take time to come to fruition and things make an impact whether it’s immediately obvious or not. And so I left these weeks repeating to myself, ‘everything has worked up until this point, what makes you think they won’t work out in the future?’.
Over & Out- Fatima, LiA KL Summer 2026