[ Sharing Experiences ]

[ I Like Stockholm most than New York ]

An awesome place to live would be Stockholm, Sweden. All of my life I have dreamt about living in a foreing country; that has it's own culture and history. Stockholm isn't as big as Santiago, but has equal (if there isn't more) cultural life and landscapes. I particulary love Stockholms diversity in terms of things that you can do. Plenty of nightlife, parks, rivers and so on. The swedish way of life is something that I also admire, it is just fantastic.

But on the other side of the coin there is New York. Even though I like English speaking countries, I think that New York would be too much for me. This city does not have a personal identity, being a mixture of different cultures from all over the world. I just want a quiet, nice place to live, and New York is too wild an crazy for me.

[ Motivation ]

Motivation is something that is fundamental in the learning process of every person. If there is a lack of it, this process becomes extremely difficult, due to the fact that the learner has no willingness to attain any knowledge. But, if in fact the learner has plenty of motivation, this makes him/her eager to attain what is being taught.

Motivation may have plenty of factors that can affect it, being home background, how tired is the learner or just his/her personality, some of these, but I must say, that I totally agree with Andrew Littlejohn’s essay, where he states that previous experiences can model a predisposition to deal with a class. If children have had awful teachers and they feel that thanks to that, they are not going to get anything from their classes, even if they get the best teacher, their predisposition in front of these cases, will be negative and it will also create an environment lacking from students motivation. As a matter of fact, during my time as a school/high school student, we had constant changes of teachers, which took them to a constant struggle to get and maintain our attention, especially as we were growing up. I must say, that as time goes by, it is more and more difficult to get people's attention, and, for this, keep them motivated.

To keep and constantly “feed” children’s self-esteem and confidence, in my opinion, is another issue that is one of the bases of motivation (along with willingness). Children measure their educational and personal development according to how successful they are, and if this is not taken serious, this might generate really important problems in children’s motivation regarding their education.

This is why it is very important to encourage children’s motivation since they are young, in order to generate students that can feel part of their education. If students feel part of something this makes them eager to learn and the learning process easier.

Littlejohn, Andrew. "Motivation: Where does it come from? Where does it go?" English Teaching Professional, April 2001: 5-8.

[ Creativity ]

I must admit that I really enjoyed this exposition of creativity by Ken Robinson, and also have to say that I totally agree with him. Creativity, nowadays, is being left aside. As Robinson states, at school, teachers (and educators in general) are focusing on children's "head" more than their body as a whole. The most important subjects at school are math, languages and cience, but arts are just a complementary knowledge.

I felt, as same as Robinson, that it is essential to focus on children’s creativity, due to that they are independent thinkers that need have feelings and proper ideas, that need to be expressed as individuals. But this is not what really happens. The educational system restrains this and, in some way, automates the learning and their (children) way of thinking and expressions.

Children are being educated to not be wrong, and to do things as they are taught, leaving no room for creativity. Young boys and girls, should be able to try different things in order to develop some result and to acquire (and develop) new knowledge.

As Sir Ken Robinson states, the educational system discourages children when they want to be something different than a professional. With this I mean that, in our time, when you state that you would like to be a painter, an actor or a handcrafter, people says that you are crazy and that you are going to starve for not getting enough money. If you see at schools, art and music programs are left at the bottom of children’s learning priorities. This due to that, the educational system main concern is to give the essential tools to become a successful (in terms of money and social acceptance) professional, more than a happy individual.

Robinson, Ken. "Schools kill creativity", TED. Filmed February 2006, posted June 2006. Online May 15 2009. "http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html"

[ Challenging Students ]

In every school, in every classroom there is one or more challenging chlidren. These kids oftenly become the teachers "headache", making the realization of the class very problematic. This children can also be the source or the leaders on the problems, thay might emerge in the classroom, and for this reason their are often isolated, and left aside.
Leaving these kids aside from the educational process is the biggest mistake that a teacher or a parent can commit. As seen on Aaron's Story (1), he, a challenging kid with ADHD (2) and ODD (3), that has been like that for a long time, is part of a program in which all his issues are being treated, in order to improve his behaviour, that not only affects him and the people that work in the school, but his mother too.
As we can see in the video, these children with some behavioural disorders must not be left aside, but be encouraged into self improvement.
As a matter of example, I, at school was a challenging and problematic student, but with good grades. I was constantly suspended from school, my mother was always at school excusing me for my repeated faults. But I was not as lucky as Aaron, in getting the propper help or guidance to improve.Until my last day at school I was recognized as one of the worst students.
That is why all kids should be taken care of, despite the fact if they are well behaved or not. It is our mission, as future educators, to make the commitment of becoming children's guidance at school, so they can be good people in the social and personal aspects.




(1) EBD - Secondary - Aaron's Story. http://www.teachers.tv/video/32362
(2) Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
(3) Opositional Defiance Disorder

[ Government Letter ]

Dear Mrs. Michelle Bachelet:

My name is Guillermo González, and I am a student of English Pedagogy at the Alberto Hurtado University of Santiago. I decided to write a letter to you, due to that during these days I have seen on the news that the new education law that is going to replace the old one, lets profesionals without a degree on education to give classes. As a future teacher I find this outrageous and totally disrespectful for all the teachers and future teachers of our country. I (and all educators) have to study and pass through a process of preparation strictly constructed to acquire the needed knowledge to teach in our respective areas (mathematic, language, cience, and so on). Because of that, I can not accept that someone that does not have the needed preparation goes into a classroom with the same authority that me and all my colleagues have earned with years of effort and sacrifice. This is almost like having a cirgury by a nurse, or getting a car built by an architect. This is why, I would like to say that I totally disaprove this law and I would like to ask for more respect for the people that has chosen to educate kids, us teachers, who are worried about the future of our nation.

Best regards,

Guillermo González Moraga.
16.822.479-6

[ Bad Manners ]

It is hard to choose just one example of bad manners. People having lunch in the subway, excesive public demonstrations of affection, shouting on the cellphone, just for naming some, are the best example that there are plenty of bad examples being difficult just to choose one.

As I have to choose one, I have to say that what really annoys me is loud people. It is very upseting when you are in the subway, and even when you are listening to music on you Mp3 player (or Mp4, or Ipod, whatever) you can hear them being really loud, and almost shouting on your ears, there is absolutely no respect for the others. To make my point clear, the subway was just ONE example, ONE context in which peoples is rude and loud. This can happen everywhere, being the most annoying places the subway, at an elevator (getting someone on his/her cellphone shouting "I can't hear you, I am on the elevator"), in the classroom and all the places where you have breakfast/lunch/dinner.

The solution might be to learn to moderate our volume in public areas. It all comes down to respect, because we never know if the people around us are having a headache, or if their are studying for an important exam, or if they want to eat something peacefuly. Respect is the basis for a calmed, some sort of quiet enviroment. Most of the cities (specially Santiago) has high rates of acoustic contamination, let's not make it higher.

[ Bullying ] In Japan... what about the rest of the world?

Bullying in classrooms has not became more often. It has been an issue since school started long time ago. The thing is that now it has more space on the news and the every day newspapers. As I could read on BBC (1), in Japan two kids gave up hope and took their own lifes to escape from the constant abuse they were being targeted every day. But this happens every day, in every school all over the world. In our country (Chile) we had the case of some kids that also commited suicide due to bullying, last year.

Bullying is something that affects not only children, but also their families, their friends and their teachers (that, someday will be us). And that makes it a very important issue to all of us, because we (and I mean everybody, not just future teachers but everyone) to become "change agents", to start teaching children to live in community, and to respect everyone, no matter how they look like, their race or where they come from.

Respect is the basis to create a better enviroment in our classrooms, and all of us (teachers, parents, friends, people in general) must work to show the world that with respects, we can stop this abuse and save the lives of those who are being abused.

(1) Hogg, Chris. "School bullying in Japan". BBC News. Online. 15 November 2006, Tokyo.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/newsenglish/witn/2006/11/061115_bullying.shtml

[ The Beggining of the Journey ]

Who am I? I kind of hate to answer this question, due to the fact that this creates a certain pattern or ideal of "who I am", that the reader (I mean, you) will have according to my personality. If by some reason, with time, I do not fit with what I have written, this is introduction about myself, will be a little bit hypocritical and will became simple words.

But... who am I? I am a little kid trapped in a young-adult body, that comes from the heart of the country, a little city were wheat grows and poets are born. I'm also a very laid back person, who goes through the day one step at a the time, with no rush at all.

Now, this is a new step on my goal to become a teacher, and English teacher, so I can pass the passion that if feel for English on to younger students, so they use it for they own benefit, as a tool in their professional life but more important to get their minds open, in a world constantly changing and sinking into globalization.