Monday, September 29th

RECUPERATIVE CLASS

During this class each of us shared our future plans. Eventhough just a few of us attended the class, its advantage was the environment given to share our thoughts and intentions, its drawback was that not every classmate were there to talk about the topic.

It was surprising the different expactations that my classmates have; some of them would like to work in cruise which might be very demanding as well as exciting, Claudio also said that he is thinking on studying abroad to pursue a postdegree, specifically in Australia, expectation that I also share. I have to mention that on Wednesday the 2nd, a group of classmates and I went to Expo Australia carried out in Sheraton Hotel. It was really crowded but we could talk with some representatives of many Australian Universities, they gave us useful information about postdegrees we are interested in.

Anothe topic that Mr. Litman mention was educacion2020, which is a movement created to make an educational revolution, in other terms, the aim of educacion2020 is to commit the Chilean society to increase the poorer student's education. Every person that wants to cooperate with this cause only has to register in its webpage: http://www.educacion2020.cl/

PROJECT ZERO:

During Tuesday, September 22nd. Daniela, Katherine and Nadia prepared a debate about Project Zero. They prepared the given information in advance. Although, no clear definition was given to the rest of the class. One of the girls pointed out that it was really hard to find information; every publication was made under Harvard's researchers and there is not any document to download (fact I realized myself now that I investigated about it)

"Project Zero's mission is to understand and enhance learning, thinking, and creativity in the arts, as well as humanistic and scientific disciplines, at the individual and institutional levels".

Project Zero encourages arts activities within schools, it does not only promote the implementation od arts educations in formal and non-formal settings, but also improves the quality of edcuation, appreciating the role of arts and creativity in school environment as a tool for promoting ethical values. Additionally and accordingly to classroom observations, interviews and analysis of materials, the participants of this programme showed higher levess of class engagement, such as the level of attentiveness, participation and student interaction.

helpful link: http://www.pz.harvard.edu/

Tuesday, September 9th class

PREU- UNIVERSITARIOS IN CHILE:

This debate was presented by Claudio, Paula and Marlene. They made a good factual presentation. Eventhough, the made many basic mistakes in terms of organization and language usage. Overall they prepared a good debate; we were really into the topic and we supported it or went against it.

I believe Pre-Universitarios are a good option to reinforce the contents that will be evaluated in PSU although, attending a Pre-Universitario will not guarantee a succesful performance besides the cost of it is another important issue when deciding if it is a good decision attending one. I also consider that Pre-Universitarios are not the only way to reinforce contents, these days students that get access to internet can take online facsimiles and several newspapers freely provide them too. I also consider that Public, subsidized and private schools should provide free pre-universitary trainning programmes to its students.

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During the September 2nd class; Diego, Felipe and I carried out our debate. The topic had the following introductory question: Can anyone be a teacher? We started comparing two different realities where teachers are highly rewarded in terms of prestige and income. In contrast, Chile only have "Red Maestros de Maestros" to support teacher trainning and in Subsector Inglés they do not present any proposal to aid and guide English begginer teachers.

In terms of self-appraisal I consider that all mistakes made on the power point were my risponsibility because I prepared it, it was my fault also the information given, which was very long. I made the research about Finland and South Korea as well as Red Maestros de Maestros. Overall, we made a good debate, our classmates were able to reflect on the topic.

August 26th class

During this class Mr. Litman told us to take this test, he said it would be useful to identify our characteristics in classroom context.

I was really surprised when I saw my result but while reading I realized how accurately described some of my qualities. Regardless I would like to know which artisan I am.

Artisans are described as optimistc, realistic and focused on the here and now, but related to teaching I consider that an artisan is able to combine diverse methodologies and approaches in order to fullfil his/her students needs and learning styles. An artisan can also be an amusing teacher, someone students like to play and laugh with but even if I like to make my students laugh I also encourage them to learn and to perform any given task.

Tuesday, August 19th class

CURFEW FOR STUDENTS.

If you do not know what a curfew means, the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary provides the following definitions:

1.- A law which says that people must not go outside after a particular time at night until the morning; the time after which nobody must go outside.

2.- A time when children must be home in the evening.

This debate was in charge of Marlene R, Clara and Claudia C.

They gave interesting information as well as important facts about why adolescent curfews are gaining popularity among parents. Overall, they made a reasonable presentation.

In Chile curfews for teenagers are not legally aproved or are not part of the complete family routine. In some cities like Baltimore teen curfews are typical; kids under 17 must be off the streets after midnight on Friday and Saturday and during week nights they have to be indoors by 11 pm. Many parents took this decision to protect their children from drug-related fights. In addition, there was a curfew study in the United States Mayors.org done in 347 communities with populations of at least 30,000 people in 1997. The 80% of the communities imposed a nighttime curfew on teenagers, and 26% also implemented a daytime curfew. These curfews were applied to decrease crime, reduce juvenile victimization, increase parental involvement, and to allow police officers the ability to stop people involved in suspicious activities.

I consider the topic is very engaging because it made think about if it is beneficial for teens or not. First of all I believe that under some extreme circumstances teen curfews can provide a good method to prevent teens envolvement from drug-related events. It might happen that a teen is not participating in drug dealing or is not doing drugs but sometimes inocent people get hurt on drug-related events. On the other hand, I do not consider that a teenager must be late at night by his/ her self, and when I say late I mean 11 pm or earlier depending on the age. If there is no one who can pick him/her up from a party, mall, sports activity, or any other kind of activity teens like to do during their spare time, they should follow a conscious curfew provided by his/her family, caretaker or school in order to realize that is applied for his/her own safety.

I also consider that it is important to consider a cultural shift; from the family, school through the whole community because community involvement is the key to solve juvenile crime or drug dealing, etc. Curfews can be applied as a tool to fight against these facts that damage our society and younger generations.

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.