British and Cuban Educational Systems.

The following two weeks I was absent, both were excused.

Anyways, my friends told me that during Tuesday, August 12th class, María Teresa, Rodrigo and Evelyn prepared a debate about British Educational System, specifically they referred to its Public System which differs from our Chilean Public Education. In Britain, the kind of students who attend these schools belong to the elite. We can normally referred to these schools as private. The characteristics these Public schools have are that many of them were incorporated by public statute and they were on a fee-paying basis, which means they did not exclude children from any other part of the country.

The following week, Katherine Gonzalez, Pedro and Fabian presented about Cuban Education. The information about their educaticational systen that I know is that they have the highest rate of Literacy in Latin America. One of the reasons why Cuban education mantain these scores is related to the quality of its education. First of all the whole community committed with children, adolescents and adults education, secondly there exists a national initiative in adapting their national curriculum, they develop their instructional material locally which poses low cost but high quality, and finally great attention to teachers is provided, in terms of their professional formation.

Tuesday, August 5th

During the second part of this lesson we went to the lab and we had to research using http://www.cvil.com/ which is similar to google. We had to find different useful information about different topics such as

-Learning to learn which can be defined as "a process of discovery about learning. It involves a set of principles and skills which, if understood and used, help learners learn more effectively and so become learners for life. At its heart is the belief that learning is learnable".

Generally speaking, learning to learn refers to how to motive ourselves in order to acquire a significative learning and how to enjoy this meaningfull process of learning.

It is also important to mention that Learning to Learn is the most effective student success programme employed in the United States, which can be applied in primary and seconday schools as well as in colleges and universities. Learning to learn focuses on four main stages; the first one is related to the past experiences about learning and studying, our habits and methods; The second one comprehends the interest that we have about a certain subject; The third one considers the procces of studying; if we are able to understand the subject, and finally the methods or techniques that we apply while studying.

I consider that this four main stages are really useful and should be promote in our classrooms.

-Another term that we had to investigate was locus of control, which is divided in external and internal locus of control.

The first one refers to our individual beliefs; if we consider that our behaviour is guided by external circumstances, in other words, by fate, luck and destiny.
The second cathegory refers to our behaviour guided by our personal decisions and efforts.

-And finally we had to research the following term:

Micro-violence can be exerted towards someone perceived as weaker than ourselves, the difference that micro-violence carries in contrast with violence, is the fact that micro-violence is a subtle. For example it can be identified as answering your phone while your teacher is giving a lesson or avoiding a question to change the topic. I believe that is very important to sensitize our students and future students about this type of interaction among them.

Tuesday, July 15th

The most recent mass media attention focused on a shocking act perpetrated by María Música Sepúlveda, a fourteen years old secondary education student. She was participating in an "Encuentro participativo de Educación" which literally soaked.

María Música poured a jug of cold water on Mónica Jiménez's face, current Ministry of Education. Immediately the reactions were diverse. In one hand, many people and authorities did not support María's act and on the other hand, the student was even called as heroine. Additionally, a facebook group called "yo tambien le lanzaria un jarro de agua a Mónica Jiménez" was created to reassure her act.

The president Michelle Bachelet stressed the act as "undemocratic". On her defense, María Música declared "it was like being talking to the wall".

In my opinion, María Música was really impolite and her act represents younger generations' lack of values, which are emulated from their homes and schools.