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REFLECTION

First of all, my experience in Bursa Disaster Training Center was way more interesting
than I thought. As some of may have mentioned during the trip, our knowledge about
disasters and how to react in urgent situations are too limited and the worst part is that we all
think that we are capable of handling those kind of situations. This thought may be coming
from the fact that we all at some point received education regarding the subject but it turns out
that the knowledge we acquired from that education was quite vague and it could not have
been efficient at all. Personally, I have never had an experience of disasters of any kind but I
have lived with the fear all my life because our house was damaged from the start. This is
why I can say I was lucky that I was aware of the precautions in the case of an earthquake but
still, the simulation made me realize it was scarier and way more real than I could imagine.
All the people in denial of the danger or the ones who keep delaying taking the necessary
measures will not even have the time for regrets when the occasion actually happens. Other
than earthquakes, I have realized that fire is the disaster we tend to overlook or not put too
much emphasis on. Acting on instincts, many of us would try to open the windows, run to the
upper floors or try to put out the fire in a pan full of oil with water. These mistakes might be
instincts but deadly ones, so what we should be focusing on is to come to terms with our
instincts and combine them with our knowledge in order to be able to handle the situation
instead of running around and making the situation more complicated. Just as we were told,
the firefighters might not be able to arrive just in time to save the day because the fire spreads
way too fast and at that point it is up to the person experiencing the disaster to minimize the
damage. Following the disasters, first aid training plays the greater role. Our thirty-minute
training will probably not be enough for a complicated occasion of injury or unconsciousness
but I believe that this concept should be general knowledge, which unfortunately does not
seem to be one right now.
While learning about disaster management is important, it is also our job as future
teachers to transfer this knowledge even if it is not our actual field. This information should
be repeated at all grades in or out of the context of the curriculum, rather than being a just a
chapter in our books at fourth or fifth grade. What I mean is that learning about disasters
cannot be considered as academic knowledge but a vital one. That is why I am glad we took
the trip to Bursa and I would want my future students to have an experience like we did with
our class. But then comes the fact that our country does not have enough facilities like the one
in Bursa and even though we are lucky to have that one, the presence of it is mainly caused by
the supports of the Japanese. It is true that in our country no precaution is taken until the
actual damage is done. It holds more of an importance to reduce vulnerability instead of
fixing the wreckage after the fact. Of course that will not happen in the blink of an eye but the
least we can do is to make the younger people aware and continue accordingly. Because if this
condition is to change, it will be from their hands.
We are not actual teachers yet but I still really hope that we will be able to transfer
useful information to our students in the upcoming weeks so that the experience will be more
than just a regular school lesson.