Journal entry #2

During this second part of the term we went through the unit named: “Media, Culture and Society”. In regards to the unit itself, I must be honest and expose that at first I didn’t like the unit because it didn’t make sense at all as we were mainly dealing with Indian movies! I thought: “What’s going on here!” After that, when we covered wars it became interesting. Following this idea, I noticed that visual arts as well as movies they both have a tremendous influence on our society as they both – sometimes – cause strong reactions, shifting people’s point of views. Along with this, through visual arts we can learn a lot about different cultures. For instance, the Indean industry cinema: Bollywood.

What I undoubtedly enjoyed the most was the topic about second world war, specifically The Holocaust.  We had to watch an astonishing film called “The Schinlder’s list”. This movie depicts perfectly that topic and it is very shocking as well. Certainly, it is a movie that people have to see in order to be aware of that event. Moreover, one of the text that I read for the reading seminar is about “The Holocaust”which is called “Man’s search for meaning” by Viktor Frankl. This text is excellent and I really loved it.

Regarding teachers’ methodology, I strongly believe that they made a great contribution to our learning process in terms of methodology. On one hand, they followed a very structured but flexible method which is pre, while and post. On the other hand, they complemented their classes with films, videos and readings which enriched our previous knowledge.

Furthermore, they provided a proper space to discuss in classes about different aspects related to the different topics in a respectful manner. However, I would like to point out that though readings were marvelous in terms of content, in occasions the amount of pages assigned for each class were too long. Therefore, sometimes many of us could not read considering other subjects’ demands. In conclusion, discussions could be even greater and profound if we had the chance to go deeper into the readings more slowly.

In terms of language, I feel satisfied with some of the teachers who were really concerned with modeling and checking student’s language  production. In addition, we had a broad space for discussion as I already mentioned which forced us to use the language. All the visual aids were excellent resources to lead us to a higher level of language. Teachers were completely prepared to work with ITC’s and were efficient when applying them in the classes.

To conclude, I learnt that you may combine different resources respecting the methodology to improve learning environment. We could clearly recognize the different stages of the class, and further, we could realize the transition of the whole unit until its closure.

Movie review: The Schindler’s list.

The Schindler’s list is an American historical drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg in 1993. The film portrays the Oskar Schindler’s life, a German industrialist who saved some Polish-Jewishs during the Holocaust, by employing them in several factories to prevent them from being sent to concentration camps. To the creation of the movie, many people contributed. For instance, Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes, Caroline Goodall, Jonathan Sagall and Embeth Davidtz. Finally, the film was shot in Kraków, Poland.

The film stars by illustrating the Germans placing polish Jews into the Kraków Ghetto. Oskar Schindler, a German businessman, arrives in the city hoping to increase his economical status. For this, Schindler acquires a factory to produce enamelware. To run his project, Schindler approaches a local Jew official who has contacts with the community. Thus, Schindler keeps relations with the Nazis, talking advantage of the wealthy position he has there.

As time passes by, the purpose Schindler’s asignal intention has dramatically shifts when he relocates his workers to a new factory –  when he creates the Schindler’s list in order to save people and send them to a secure place. Nevertheless, in the train people were supposed to go – women and children –  to a safety place is accidentally redirected to Auschwitz.

The Schindler’s list is a long and though movie that must be watched. As we know, a German businessman enlists Jews to work in his factory where at first, the German man seems to be an opportunist as the  Jews were cheap, readily available labour. However, he becomes a gradually aware that his factory signifies the tremendous difference between life and death.

As viewer, I would dare to say this film is a must see because of the following reasons. To begin with, the movie perfectly  depicts the horrors of the Holocaust, war and the tragedy of the Jewish nation. By this I do not mean I like how much people suffered at that times; if not I just want to highlight how the movie makes us feel if we were living that moment. Along with this, the cast undoubtedly did an outstanding job when personifying the character given. Last but not least, the use of colors and environments was astonishing. Both, colors and places acted as if they were one more character as well.

Finally, I definitely recommend this movie since it depicts that no human life can be replaced by another one.  Plus, there is nothing more valuable that human life. Following this idea, the movie presents something that we – as new generations – never lived; however, this is an important issue that happened time ago that we will never forget. Moreover, the film teaches us a lesson of life and to remember those people who died needlessly along with those who attempted to help those same people survive.

To sum up: “Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire”.

Should you wish to look for more information, click here. Besides, this is a memorable scene; my favorite one indeed.

Cities … can serve as characters?

According to what we have previously discussed during classes plus the papers we have read so far, I would dare to say that yes, cities can work as another character. For this, I do believe that, if a director wants the city works as a character, it does not have to be chosen just because; it has to have its own purpose as well as the different characteristics it may have. For instance, cultural and historical background, people’s life style, and so on. Otherwise, if the city chosen does not have the requirements to fullfil as a character, it will just be the setting in which different actions will take place.

An illustration of this is the movie Goodbye Lenin. Since the very beginning until the end of the film the city – Berlin – worked as an active character because of the different historical moments this city went through. For example, an important simbol of change was the truck with the logo Coca-Cola because it showed how political, cultural and social events were changing. That simple, but radical logo signified for people one of their major dreams that came true: the end of the communist period. Along with this, it is possible to observe that Berlin suffers a variety of changes through the movie, not only in the political context; but also in characters’ feelings. Consequently, I point out that Berlin was never a static movie since it had a lot of movements.

Finally, considering the aforementioned, when directors want that movies to be one extra character, they have to bear in mind the objectives that the city should have. Furthermore, the city has to be dynamic, and in a way, the city has to ‘affect’ – in a positive or negative way – characters’ lives.

Journal Entry #Perfection

 

Nowadays, to talk about perfection has become a controversial topic for people from different cultures all over the world. When referring to perfection, my focus resides especially on the occidental culture since the connotation of the concept they have is akin to “success”. Moreover, the pressure that society puts upon people increases every day, making them follow the prototypes of citizens that society – parents, friends, teachers, people that surround you – wants people to become. Besides, when people do not support society’s expectations, society judges them, highlighting mistakes they make, and provoking feelings of failure.

An illustration of the aforementioned is clearly the short-film called “Perfection”. It tells the story of a girl that, little by little, follows what society imposes upon her, which is reflected in a game she plays along the film in which she has to place different pieces in order to complete it. However, what is interesting here is the fact that she has to do it while the clock is running out of time.

Since she was a baby she had to face different issues to become perfect. For instance, at the beginning of the film it is possible to observe that the girl is training to fit in different pieces of the game while her mother tells her to do it time and again. Then, when she becomes a young kid, she attempts to complete the game and put in the pieces again in less time as she knows what she must do. After that, she meets a violin professor that teachers her how to play the violin in order for her, once she manages the technique of the violin, to participate in a variety of competitions. In addition, when she wins some awards, her family feels proud of her because she succeeded.  Finally, when she becomes a professional, her life turns into a complex change: from satisfying society’s expectations regarding perfection to not to be able to take the pressure imposed by people and accepting failure.

Having mentioned that, the importance of perfection that society inflicts on people has tremendous consequences. To begin with, people do not have their own ‘freedom’ to do what they want since to fulfill other’s expectations is an unquestionable matter of fact. Second, as shown in the film, the girl is trained to become perfect in different senses – physical, artistic, and so on so as to have success in life. However, she is not trained to face failure. This is undoubtedly exposed when she was a girl and she triumphed playing the violin. Perfection and success in here are seen through the applause she receives. On the contrary, failure is presented when she was working and her boss arrived to the office and threw some files on the table. There, she did not know what to do, as she felt incapable of achieving what he wanted. Because of this, she was never prepared to fail since that should never have happened in her life.

Lastly, what I would like to point out in here is the role that the game called “perfection” has in the film. I would dare to say that its role explained everything as it is a fundamental. For me, it has a vital connotation since, when the girl terrifically fails in front of society’s eyes and people look bad at her, and the pieces of the game jump and fall out of it, it signifies that she was not able to accomplish what they wanted her to do, neither being perfect, nor being successful. Therefore, she does not even control her own life as the clock represents expectations over her and the game itself is the pressure she has over her shoulders in which she has do achieve everything, in a perfect way, in a range of time. Nonetheless, when that scene disappears, she then appears again but in a different way. In other words, she has the last piece of the game in her hands and she stops the clock. Consequently, she lives her own life, ignoring what society wants.

Journal entry #1 – Teaching Reflection

---

In the first unit of second term, that involved the concepts of accountability, education, sustainability and governess, it was possible to learn about indispensable issues that do not belong in the national curriculum. However, they do have an importance, as well as an impact on us. This is to promote good attitudes towards students in order for them to feel they belong to a community. Considering this, I profoundly believe that this unit was meaningful since it makes me ponder upon the needs that future generations might face.

In regards to Language Teaching, I definitely have to say that what I enjoyed the most was learning vocabulary. It was taught by using key concepts along with a wide range of texts, analyzing, sharing and comparing with our classmates, letting us create our own definition as collaborative workgroup.

Following the aforementioned idea, what functioned as a link in understanding and learning this unit was how classes were organized. To begin with, what I loved was the lesson planning that teachers had, and that it was possible to see while dealing with technology in the form of a power point presentation. I truly consider that a lesson planning is fundamental in order to have a clear view of how classes should work and how much time it will last. Along with this, the teamwork acted as a vital tool, as we could share and comment on our thoughts, concerning in a common conclusion. Finally, the resources that we used – especially TED-talks – worked as they were expected. They helped us to clarify and to gain a better understanding of the unit in general, connecting our reality to texts and cultures.

Video Journal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXrep8rpQhc&list=UU4q8bIIiXdPVXbGxBzn31fQ

Reading Seminar Entry.

To begin with, I truly believe that Reading Socratic Seminars were completely fruitful because they led us to know a wide assortment/range of Educational Policies in different countries. For instance, Chile, Cuba, United States, among others. From this, my reading Socratic seminar tackled the topic of “The Cuban education system: Lessons and Dilemmas”. It was totally fascinating because of the features that Cuban Educational System has.

 

Below you will find some characteristics of the text:

‘The Cuban education system: lessons and dilemmas’ is a work produced by Lavinia Gasperini, included in the LCSHD Paper series of the World Bank’s Department of Human Development.  It is important to emphasize that Ms. Gasperini earned her B.A. degree in Education with her presentation on the Cuban education system, and this reading is a combination of information gathered through both a study tour of Cuba and other documents.

 

High-quality Education in a Poor country

Although Cuba has been widely criticized because of the country’s political decisions, almost no words are dedicated to their schools’ outstanding performance when foreign policy-makers inspect their own realities . Whether some may want to acknowledge it or not, the Cuban education system demonstrates that there is no direct relationship between the national income and the quality and success of education. As a result, this papers cross-checks the available national documents as well as results from international organizations, such as UNESCO and the World Bank, in order to provide us with the main features of a successful education system.

 

The elements perused by Ms.Gasperini are as it follows:

Sustained investments in Education

According to the reading, 10 percent of Cuba’s GDP is devoted to Education, focusing on non-salary items.This sustained investment is correlated to consistent policies due to a political stability, being able to grant universal access to quality basic education.

Preparation for teachers

• 15 higher education pedagogical institutes and the pedagogical faculties provide a 5-year formal preparation of teachers for day care centers, primary school and intermediate schools.
• Training for school directors is provided at the same time as teacher training, thus directors will understand the teacher development process.
• There are pre-service teachers preparation and in-service teachers preparation too and they emphasize basic knowledge, skills, values and attitudes and there is a strong linkage between theory and practice.
• A teacher trainer candidate must complete as a prerequisite 6 or 7 years as a teacher at the level at which he or she intends to prepare teachers.

 

Community of learning teachers

For each subject (ciencias naturales, sociales) there is a colectivo pedagógico. The colectivo pedagógico meets every two weeks, in association with a metodólogo,  with the main purpose of discussing, produce materials, exchange experiences, solve problems.

 

Action research

Every teacher must carry out applied research on ways to improve learning achievement and systematize pedagogical experience. Every 2 years teachers present their researches to a “municipal education conference” and the municipalities select the best research and then the province selects one for a national conference and they provide material incentives for teachers who present the best research.

 

Community

• Teachers interact with community members and parents through mass organizations. Teachers learn about communities in this way.
• Teachers spend 80% of their time with students at school and the rest they go to students’s homes.
• Students meet together from 1 to 3 times per week and teachers visit those study houses to help parents and identify some familiar problems which can affect the learning process.

 

Teachers’ evaluation

• Evaluation is part of the teacher’s professional development, thus they must improve their practice with action research mainly.
• The social status of a teacher is high. Career growth depends on positive evaluations.
• Teachers whose students fail to perform at the norm risk cuts in pay.

 

Low cost materials

 Cuba has a monopoly on materials production (design, publishing and distribution).

 

Labor education

• Students spend time repairing and fixing their schools (furniture and materials)
• National curricula is adapted regularly for the local realities. However, curricula is controlled by the ideology of the government. They check Marx but not Piaget.

 

Participation in school management

• It is mainly guided by the Marxist principle that “Education is everybody’s responsibility”. Here, the text points out that participation is an indispensable means of addressing problems of the school. For instance: students assemblies, parents’ councils, school councils, so on.
• The participation involves children. How? Basically, by giving them appropriate tasks according to their level  (1st, 2nd, 3rd and on) and age. In primary, students discuss the class and school’s problems, clean the school, help fellow students with difficulties, work in the school garden, among other duties.

Linking school and work.

•  Since the revolution, Cuba has placed an indispensable value on relating work and study. Here, education is emphasized in the development of the “new human being” through lifelong education: students in working and workers in study. Here, education continues to form part of the school curricula: technical, vocational and polytechnical.

 

 Compulsory education.

• In terms of curriculum, primary education has 480 hours of “labor education”. It comes from the Marxist principle that is applied to “school gardens”, and the aim of this is “Education rather Production”. The last concept deals with agricultural activities, where students have to show a positive attitude towards working along with workers.

•  Work, according to children’s age, is seen as an instrument or tool of intellectual and social development, and a sharing responsibility as well. Furthermore, since it is compulsory, it may lead to the children exploitation.
•  Early years of revolution, secondary schools in the countryside were considered as an achievement of the Cuban education system. Each school was part of the agricultural development of the region. However, these schools were isolated since they hardly fulfilled the expectations of students and their families.

Technical education

• Students were mainly prepared for a productive working class. In other words, they were able to access to technical education just after having completed the 9th grade at school. This decision reflects the political choice to consolidate the State, based on industrial and agricultural education.
•  The technical education curricula was organized by public employer’s organization, and they were the ones in charge of carrying out a joint final integral evaluation about student achievement. That evaluation measured and selected students in order to be accepted at the university.

 

Outreach to rural children

• Since 1959 Cuba is duty-bound to provide education for all children. To reach this challenge the government has strategies for children who live in isolated areas. This explicit strategy, which is education for all, can be shown in more than 2000 schools which are located in mountains and rural areas with no more than 10 students. These schools offer multilateral instruction, it means from pre-K to 4th grade. Teachers need to be able to teach this multigrade classrooms so they receive special training.
• Nowadays, percentages show that there is not a huge difference between rural and regional schools. Results can show that there is just a 2,3% of difference among those schools; rural schools are provided by the same high levels of urban education.
• The idea of developing rural education is to motivate families, children and environment to stay there, to include their context and culture. In this way rural people do not emigrate to urban areas since the entire cycle is provided in rural areas. 
• As people from rural areas are different from urban people, they receive an adapted curriculum including subjects such as farm or agronomy.

 

Attention to special needs

As we discussed before, Cuba provides education for all children ‘The public role in education is to be there for students who otherwise would not be able to develop their talents in full’; that is to say all children deserve to be educated in order to draw on their skills. Special needs are met in regular schools and special educational centers. In 1959 there were 8 special educational centers, in 2000 there were 425 centers. Depending on physical and motor handicaps, children will attend one school or another.

Cuba had also implemented some itinerant teachers. It means that they are able to teach students who cannot attend to school, children who are hospitalized.

 

 

Finally, as it has been presented before, Cuba’s Educational system covers a wide variety of topics that makes it be one of the best Educational System all over the world. Along with this, in this link you will find a more up-dated information regarding The State of Education in Latin America and the Caribbean: Towards a Quality of Education for ALL 2015.

Second Unit: Human Rights

Human Rights has always been a debatable and questionable topic that some people might be aware of them and some others do not even take them into consideration. The question is why? Why don’t we consider Human Rights as a fundamental part of our lives it the Declaration of it was signed time ago by many countries including Chile? I would dare to say it is because we profoundly believe that we have the freedom to do whatever we want to do, without thinking that our rights could be violated.

However, it is time to open our eyes and realize that Human Rights are violated in every single day, in every place, in every country all over the world; indeed, according to my own beliefs I think  there is no a perfect place that does not violate Human Rights. For that reason, it is time to create an individualized consciousness regarding the every-day-violation of Human Rights that Chilean people suffered years ago. In slight of the aforementioned, as citizens we have to look back at our past, face our future and work on establishing an harmonious and a settle-down society in order not to repeat the same abhorrent, repugnant and rotten moments that happened during the dictatorship.

Along with this, to be able to to face the future with a different perspective and a different angle towards the repulsive massacres that Chile underwent, it is vital to know how to do it. Based on my own experience, I totally agree that we, as future teachers, have to educate for Human Rights. How do we do that? As we might know it is not an easy question to answer, we have to look for the ‘right’ way to give a response to it. I highly acknowledge that the best way to teach is placed in context and not isolated. Stated differently, when talking about Human Rights, we must do it as a fact that occurred decades ago in which there was no justice at all for all those victims that  were affected by the dictatorship. Consequently, when teaching in the classroom, we should do it considering the facts that affected our country since the history is already written and there is nothing to change; and as once I heard: “La historia se supera, nunca se olvida”.

 

Therefore, and to sum up everything stated above, I deeply believe I still have to learn as well as to improve a lot since the training I am currently in is a never-ending process that builds up yourself every day – in this case we, as agents of change – , nourishing with knowledge that needs to be overwhelmed due to it will not change. Furthermore, we need to educate for Human Rights in order to accomplish a great level of social development. In addition, we have to bear in mind that if we attempt to achieve our objective, therefore, there could remain a society that is conscious that we violate our Rights every day, but without causing massacres, resentments or social injustice that affects people’s lives.

Unit 1: The brain and its features: learning styles and metacognition.

The brain is the most powerful organ that we have as human beings. It controls everything; it decides what to do and what not to do. We can talk, laugh, smile and move. We can cry, shout, stay quiet and feel sad. Most important of all, it is basically what pushes us to behave, react, act and interact in a certain way. The question is: “why?” Why does the organ called the brain control everything? Why is it so important?

Throughout the years, many scientists have been researching how the brain works and why much research has been conducted in regards to education, which involves how we learn and acquire languages. For this, I would like to start by clarifying how our brain functions. Then, I aim to relate that idea to how humans learn.
To begin with, there is a ‘box’ in our brain, and that is called memory, which we use to store images, information, knowledge, and more. It is fundamental to know that our memory is finite: all the necessary information contained in it will be kept; and the information that is irrelevant will be deleted. If information is not meaningful or frequently used, it is most likely to be lost.
Following the idea mentioned previously, it is vital to consider the importance that metacognition has in our lives. If we learn something, why has our brain learned it? Is it because it is useful? Metacognition is related to a biological process that requires self-reflection in order to foster the learning process. The main question is: WHAT FOR? Why do we need to know how we learn? Do we all learn in the same way?
To answer the latter question – whether we all learn in the same way – the response is simple: No, individuals typically do not learn in the same way. Since we have been dealing with the word learning, we have to know what it is. Learning may be understood as a complex process in which the learner – the person who learns – takes the knowledge, becoming the owner of the knowledge, and applies that knowledge to different contexts. Even though there are people who may act in similar ways, for instance, couples, brothers, sisters, etc., their brains can function very differently. That means that their reaction to certain stimuli might vary depending on the person as well as the different learning styles or techniques that might help the person to succeed.
Based on the previously stated educational context, it is important to bear in mind that there are different kinds of learners with their own learning styles. Therefore, everyone processes and learns new information in different ways. That is to say that understanding how you learn can help to maximize the time you spend studying by incorporating different techniques to custom fit various subjects, concepts, and learning objectives. Each preferred learning style has methods that fit the different ways an individual may learn best.

There are three main learning styles: visual, auditory and kinesthetic. Visual learners learn by using visual tools such as videos, pictures and graphs. Auditory learners learn best by retaining information through listening to others. Kinesthetic learners learn by total physical response. This means that they learn through movement and interaction. Ultimately, it is important to keep in mind these three learning styles, while also noting that one person might not strictly use one style. It could be possible that a certain person has one predominant learning style, but also incorporates others.
To wrap-up everything that has been mentioned throughout the text, I would like to offer my opinion that teachers, in addition to being a “source of knowledge” in the classroom, should also be a model to follow for incorporating the different learning methods into their curricula. What I want to point out is the fact that at the moment of teaching a class, it is important for teachers to be inclusive of those who learn in different ways.

Last term feedback

The topic I liked most regarding the topics covered last semester is the one called “special needs”. I loved that topic because, since we had just started our ELAB practice at that time, we could “learn” the theory of how to deal with students with different needs inside the classroom as wellas getting closer to them and not treating them different from their classmates. For instance, when I was at Liceo Industrial de Santiago doing my Elab, I noticed there were some students who had Asperger syndrome. At first I didn’t know what to do, but then I had the chance to put into practise all the tips I have learnt during the semester. Fortunately, all the tips worked well and students succeed!

From my point of view, I strongly believe it is vital to keep in mind that students who have different needs are not ill neither special, if not they just have needs that need to be solved by the teachers, students, family and government.

Therefore, it would be astonishing if the inclusion program that the government has proposed really work because the idea is not to exclude or apart students from classroom and schools in order to teach them apart from the “society”. I would say that the idea is to include students in the same classroom, with the same students, so that they can give solutions and not excuses.  

 

 

One the other hand, what I didn’t like so much was the unit that covered linguistics. It is not a thing with linguistics, if not with one special topic: “Phonetics”. 

I believe that we, as students, are asked to give all our effort, disposition and motivation to our learning process, but what about the teachers? I mean, it is not a personal issue with them. Nevertheless, since first year of university, we have been asked to have the right but the perfect pronunciation, and that is great! But if we all, teachers and students, want to work on it, we have to go deeper on it. Thus, I am sure we will really improve and will work on our mistakes. For example, Last year we were evaluated on something we had never had before, which is intonation. Most of us didn’t fail but we did feel disappointed since it was not possible to be graded for that. 

As a result of that, I didn’t feel I accomplish my goals and that I didn’t fulfill my expectations. It is a teamwork, and we all have to work together.

“We are what we eat”

Well, first of all, two classes ago, we did a quick and short test about how well we eat. The test is called “Eat Well, Feel Well?”, and I got 3 well answers out of 5 which is that I know a little bit about healthy food. Secondly, I think that questions were not difficult at all, despite of they were too similar each other. Finally, I believe that those kinds of tests make us realize that we are not eating as well as we think, and they can help us how to eat better.