Meanwhile I was reading the article, on my mind was appearing all the pictures and images of my life during elementary school and highschool. Since, some of the situations and factors mentioned in the text were exactly the same things that I passed through during that part of my life. In fact, there were classes that I was very intrerested in and sometimes was not about others (for instance, I quite liked Physical Education and English Language classes, but I certainly did not in the case of Biology, Chemistry and Spanish Language classes). Although, what amazed me the most was the explanation that was given in the article for this type of behavior in children and for my feelings of likes and dislikes related to some subjects in school. In other words, motivation depends on the ability to develop some activities in some subjects, therefore, motivation depends on the level of accomplishment during classes, which is demonstrated on the feedbacks that teachers give to students and on the marks that students get, which, finally, affects the the self-steem of children or teenagers developing some activities in especific subjects. Furthermore, it was absolutely the main reason of why I did and I not like some subjects. Because, I was good at in some subjects and I was not good at in others.
On the other hand, I think that the sources of motivation mentioned in the article could explain almost all the learning problems in Chile and in any part of the world, but there are other factors that may affect the learning process. For example, psychological problems, familiar troubles, personal problems, physical conditions, cultural or religious background, etc. Despite, the strategies stated to fix or to solve those problems possibly might be helpful, if there were ideal conditions to develop the learning process in students. But, pityfully there are not the ideal conditions to introduce this strategies, since teachers do not have enough time to do a reflective analysis of their daily situations, which significates that they just have time to do an objective and cold analysis of their daily classes without considering the those sources of motivation. Thus, it would not be appopiate to implement those solution strategies in the chilean public education system, since there are not the ideal conditions to introduce these.
Littlejohn, Andrew. "Motivation: Where does it come from? Where does it go?". English Teaching Professional, April 2001: 5-8.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Notice it or not, you are intrinsically intelligent!!
In a very interesting website (www.ted.com), I watched several videos which showed talks about education and other subjects. Anyhow, one of these videos caught my attention, due to the fact that it was about creativity and intelligence related to our education.
Ken Robinson, the host of the conference, pointed that the world wide education system is focused on teaching to the students that there are centain and few ways to be successful in life. Robinson supported this point stating that around the world, the most worth subjects in every education system are the same ones. In fact, at the top of the most worth subjects is Mathematics, second Languages and third The Humanities. On the other hand, the less worth subject is The Arts which is at the bottom of this type of list that classify the school subjects from the most to the less worth of these subjects. This is proved in the daily life of every school student, when he/she is having a talk with his/her father o parents about their future and wath they would like to be or to study. It is common that parents tell their children that being a musician or something ralted to The Arts is not a safe way to be successful in life. But being a lawyer, an engineer, an architect or a doctor is a safe one.
Robinson stated related to the previously mentioned that 'very crative and brilliant people think they are not intelligent, because they were stigmatized at elementary and highschool, since they were not good enough in some subjects. So, we were born as creative people, but we grow as no creative people, because of tendency to educate people to study those validated successful carrers'. Furthermore, he mentioned that,' human beings has focused just on their heads, on their brains, on their minds, forgetting that they have got a body which needs movement to live. This is the case of some people that need more than their minds to think, in fact, they need to move to think which is the case of dancers, sportsmen/women, artists or musicians. In the end, if we want to get an original idea we have to be prepared to be wrong in some moment of our lives, since we can learn, because commit mistakes. Thus, nowadays, the children are growing frightened to make mistakes, which means no original ideas, no creativity, no learning process and waste of their intelligence'.
Afterward, he mentioned that what he was stated previously proves that there are many type of intelligence, and that intelligence has three main characteristics: Diverse, which means we can think, because we receive differente stimulus, from the enviroment where we live in, that we perceive through our senses; Dynamic, we can get ideas from different sources of information and mix them to build a new concept; Distinct, which significates that there are different and several type of intelligence and knowledge, and every type of intelligence is valid to be considered as a souce of success.
Finally, Ken Robinson told that 'we should think about how to improve our learning process and how we could better use the intelligence human capacity to try to find out the way to improve our life quality without damaging the ecosystem, because if we keep living in this way the entire human race would probably disappear from the Earth'.
In conclusion, I fiercely believe, this video shows what we should try to do as teachers to-be. Due to the fact that in our society we can daily see many children and teenagers wasting their lives in dishonest activities (for instance, commiting crimes) or doing some activities that do not make them happy at all (for example, when they must work, because they have not found out what really fulfill themselves or when they have to study something that they do not like completely or at all, since they got no more choices). In other words, we should help children to find out their own path, and also letting them to be creative, respecting their thinking, their tastes, their learning processes, their original ideas and their skills. This should be the real purpose of a teacher, to let flow the creativity of students, to guide the students, helping them to find out their essence and to take advantage of their essence, helping them to be successful and happy.
Robinson, Ken. "Schools kill creativity". TED(2006). Online. 23 May 2009.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
Ken Robinson, the host of the conference, pointed that the world wide education system is focused on teaching to the students that there are centain and few ways to be successful in life. Robinson supported this point stating that around the world, the most worth subjects in every education system are the same ones. In fact, at the top of the most worth subjects is Mathematics, second Languages and third The Humanities. On the other hand, the less worth subject is The Arts which is at the bottom of this type of list that classify the school subjects from the most to the less worth of these subjects. This is proved in the daily life of every school student, when he/she is having a talk with his/her father o parents about their future and wath they would like to be or to study. It is common that parents tell their children that being a musician or something ralted to The Arts is not a safe way to be successful in life. But being a lawyer, an engineer, an architect or a doctor is a safe one.
Robinson stated related to the previously mentioned that 'very crative and brilliant people think they are not intelligent, because they were stigmatized at elementary and highschool, since they were not good enough in some subjects. So, we were born as creative people, but we grow as no creative people, because of tendency to educate people to study those validated successful carrers'. Furthermore, he mentioned that,' human beings has focused just on their heads, on their brains, on their minds, forgetting that they have got a body which needs movement to live. This is the case of some people that need more than their minds to think, in fact, they need to move to think which is the case of dancers, sportsmen/women, artists or musicians. In the end, if we want to get an original idea we have to be prepared to be wrong in some moment of our lives, since we can learn, because commit mistakes. Thus, nowadays, the children are growing frightened to make mistakes, which means no original ideas, no creativity, no learning process and waste of their intelligence'.
Afterward, he mentioned that what he was stated previously proves that there are many type of intelligence, and that intelligence has three main characteristics: Diverse, which means we can think, because we receive differente stimulus, from the enviroment where we live in, that we perceive through our senses; Dynamic, we can get ideas from different sources of information and mix them to build a new concept; Distinct, which significates that there are different and several type of intelligence and knowledge, and every type of intelligence is valid to be considered as a souce of success.
Finally, Ken Robinson told that 'we should think about how to improve our learning process and how we could better use the intelligence human capacity to try to find out the way to improve our life quality without damaging the ecosystem, because if we keep living in this way the entire human race would probably disappear from the Earth'.
In conclusion, I fiercely believe, this video shows what we should try to do as teachers to-be. Due to the fact that in our society we can daily see many children and teenagers wasting their lives in dishonest activities (for instance, commiting crimes) or doing some activities that do not make them happy at all (for example, when they must work, because they have not found out what really fulfill themselves or when they have to study something that they do not like completely or at all, since they got no more choices). In other words, we should help children to find out their own path, and also letting them to be creative, respecting their thinking, their tastes, their learning processes, their original ideas and their skills. This should be the real purpose of a teacher, to let flow the creativity of students, to guide the students, helping them to find out their essence and to take advantage of their essence, helping them to be successful and happy.
Robinson, Ken. "Schools kill creativity". TED(2006). Online.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Let's speak 'in fair-minded words'
This Sunday 17th of May , Barack Obama, who was adressing a Notre Dame's University commencemen, stated:
'No matter how hard we trie to convince each other to adopt our viewpoints or our beliefs, sometimes the views of two opposite side are not possible to fit. But, instead of just keeping firmly our point of view, we should empathize and understnad the situation of the poeple who are across the river, and, at least, respect everyone's choice'.
The United State President mentioned this taking into account the controversial situation, in which he had received an honorary degree from the University of Notre Dame, despite The president supports abortion rights and federally-funded embryonic stem-cell research( positions that are not well considered into the traditional Catholic world, and so for the University of Notre Dame which is considered traditionally as a Catholic university). As well, it was the main reason for some students fot not attending to thier commencement.
Anyway, President Obama was aware about this situation, therefore, that is why he tried to give this message of tolerance and peace, pointing to help to those people who are involved in that dilemma, trying to make adoption more available, helping to reduce unintended pregnancies providing to the teenagers with a proper sexual education and giving some help and support to those women who decided to take care of their children. But, in the case, that helping them was not possible, at least, we could just respect them, in terms of their situation, their choice and their beliefs.
I personally consider that to empathizes, to understand and to empathize with people who feel, think and act different from us is very important at the very moment to make a better place the world where we are living , we could accept it or not, all together and sharing our lives with people that sometimes we do not agree with. Thus, making easier and happier our own and everyone else lives, in conclusion, I believe that respect is the key to open the main gate of heaven on earth.
Maksin,Sherri; Hornick, Ed. "Obama calls for 'common ground' on abortion at Notre Dame". CNN(2009). Online. 17 May 2009.
'No matter how hard we trie to convince each other to adopt our viewpoints or our beliefs, sometimes the views of two opposite side are not possible to fit. But, instead of just keeping firmly our point of view, we should empathize and understnad the situation of the poeple who are across the river, and, at least, respect everyone's choice'.
The United State President mentioned this taking into account the controversial situation, in which he had received an honorary degree from the University of Notre Dame, despite The president supports abortion rights and federally-funded embryonic stem-cell research( positions that are not well considered into the traditional Catholic world, and so for the University of Notre Dame which is considered traditionally as a Catholic university). As well, it was the main reason for some students fot not attending to thier commencement.
Anyway, President Obama was aware about this situation, therefore, that is why he tried to give this message of tolerance and peace, pointing to help to those people who are involved in that dilemma, trying to make adoption more available, helping to reduce unintended pregnancies providing to the teenagers with a proper sexual education and giving some help and support to those women who decided to take care of their children. But, in the case, that helping them was not possible, at least, we could just respect them, in terms of their situation, their choice and their beliefs.
I personally consider that to empathizes, to understand and to empathize with people who feel, think and act different from us is very important at the very moment to make a better place the world where we are living , we could accept it or not, all together and sharing our lives with people that sometimes we do not agree with. Thus, making easier and happier our own and everyone else lives, in conclusion, I believe that respect is the key to open the main gate of heaven on earth.
Maksin,Sherri; Hornick, Ed. "Obama calls for 'common ground' on abortion at Notre Dame". CNN(2009). Online. 17 May 2009.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/05/16/obama.notre.dame/index.html#cnnSTCText
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Errors are the beginning of the learning process!
Firstly, to start I would like to state that it is pretty normal that people make some mistakes, even more those who are studying some career related to English Language. I think it is fine for our level to commit mistakes , because we are not native english speakers. In fact, we are latinamerican and spanish speakers, which represents the basic reason for all our mistakes and misundertandings, in terms of speaking, listening, reading and writing.
Well, I have realized that the most common error that we commit in our wrintings is related to spelling errors, which significates that we type too fast that there is sometimes we can make dozens of this type of mistake without noticing them. And furthermore, there are some funny words that we make up, based on this kind of error.
Another common mistake, and what I think it will be the most difficult error to get over to us, is when we translate from spanish to english our thoughts about what we are trying to express through our writings. How I mentioned at the beginning, this error is due to fact that we are native spanish speakers.
Ultimately, a minor mistake that I have seen is related to grammar structures and verbal tenses, which means that there are few errors confusing present tense with past tense and some grammatical inappropiate order structures.
Finally, I have realized that we do not have further problems when we tried to express ourselves. It is demonstrated in the coherence and in the well supported ideas full of good human values , which sometimes is more important and appreciated than a fancy, sophisticated and formal vocabulary.
Well, I have realized that the most common error that we commit in our wrintings is related to spelling errors, which significates that we type too fast that there is sometimes we can make dozens of this type of mistake without noticing them. And furthermore, there are some funny words that we make up, based on this kind of error.
Another common mistake, and what I think it will be the most difficult error to get over to us, is when we translate from spanish to english our thoughts about what we are trying to express through our writings. How I mentioned at the beginning, this error is due to fact that we are native spanish speakers.
Ultimately, a minor mistake that I have seen is related to grammar structures and verbal tenses, which means that there are few errors confusing present tense with past tense and some grammatical inappropiate order structures.
Finally, I have realized that we do not have further problems when we tried to express ourselves. It is demonstrated in the coherence and in the well supported ideas full of good human values , which sometimes is more important and appreciated than a fancy, sophisticated and formal vocabulary.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Quiet please!
For this time, I will talk about a video that I watched on http://www.teachers.tv/
This video is about a rookie teacher who was trying to keep the order and silence on his class of 5th grade. During he is telling to a girl (who might be a teacher, too) the situation of his everyday starting class, they both were watching the video which demonstrate what he was talking about.
Firstly, he started talking about how he tries to make the children to form a straight line before to get into the class to start the lesson time. In the video, which they are watching in the meantime, is seen that it is a complete mess at the moment that he is trying to make the children to line up.
Afterward, the teachers kept showing to this girl in the video how he tries to catch the attention of the children during the lesson time. He explained to her that no matter how hard he tried to maintain the silence, it just did work.
Finally,The woman gave him some advice about how he could be in control of the class, and keep the guys quiet and tidy, during he was lining them up and at the lesson time.
It seems to me, they were not thinking in the main reason of the untidiness of the students. Although, they were trying to find out the solution to this situation, they did not think on the possibly inadequate methodology that he was using to catch the attention of the kids. Maybe, the students feel boredom while they are in his class, because of the method he uses. In other words, the guys may be the problem, but he may be the reason of that apparently simple trouble and not the students.
Cowley, Sue; Hertage, Mark."Caothic start". www.teachers.tv/(2006).Online. 9 May 2009.
http://www.teachers.tv/behaviour
This video is about a rookie teacher who was trying to keep the order and silence on his class of 5th grade. During he is telling to a girl (who might be a teacher, too) the situation of his everyday starting class, they both were watching the video which demonstrate what he was talking about.
Firstly, he started talking about how he tries to make the children to form a straight line before to get into the class to start the lesson time. In the video, which they are watching in the meantime, is seen that it is a complete mess at the moment that he is trying to make the children to line up.
Afterward, the teachers kept showing to this girl in the video how he tries to catch the attention of the children during the lesson time. He explained to her that no matter how hard he tried to maintain the silence, it just did work.
Finally,The woman gave him some advice about how he could be in control of the class, and keep the guys quiet and tidy, during he was lining them up and at the lesson time.
It seems to me, they were not thinking in the main reason of the untidiness of the students. Although, they were trying to find out the solution to this situation, they did not think on the possibly inadequate methodology that he was using to catch the attention of the kids. Maybe, the students feel boredom while they are in his class, because of the method he uses. In other words, the guys may be the problem, but he may be the reason of that apparently simple trouble and not the students.
Cowley, Sue; Hertage, Mark."Caothic start". www.teachers.tv/(2006).Online. 9 May 2009.
http://www.teachers.tv/behaviour
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