The teachers’ strike

The teachers have carried out a month of strike since they called to undefined strike the last October. But why are they on strike? Many people ask themselves.
Teachers are on strike because the government refuses to pay the historical debt. This historical debt initiated in 1981 when the state transfers the schools education to the municipalities a year after that the military regime announced an especial bone to compensate teachers for the low salaries, and that will be paid in 4 installments the subsequent years.
According to the teachers the debt reaches nine thousand million dollars and the government does not recognize the debt because it says that they are no public workers anymore after they are depending on the municipalities.

I believe this is a complicated situation which the government has to analyze deeply, but I disagree with the long strike because many students have lost weeks of knowledge, they need to be educated and students need to know that when we want to achieve something, going on strike or making hunger strike is not the way. I am going to be a teacher, I am not going to teach English only, but I am going to teach how to be a person, therefore I propose that teachers should fight maybe for higher salaries but not making strikes and they should forget the historical debt.

The last microteachings, November 17th, 2009.

These were finally the last microteaching of Mr. Litman’s subject. At first it was complicated start the presentations because my classmates could not play the projector to she their PowerPoint but finally Alex did it.

Juan Pablo Solorzano dealt with the topic subcultures also known as urban tribes. This was a very good topic for us as future teachers due to we have to be aware of our students’ styles, thoughts and interests to do a meaningful teaching strategy at school. Juan Pablo’s PowerPoint was also another positive aspect of his presentation, because of their images, music and colors.
The problem was that he did not have the intention to do a microlesson therefore we did not have the opportunity to speak; he just did a simple presentation. Juan Pablo also did not relate as he should the topic with the pedagogical relevance, so I would say that he did do what was required.

Daniela Wilson did a very short presentation, also a presentation because the teacher talking time was too much and lasts no more than ten minutes. She talked about adolescent pregnancy or teenage pregnancy, how teacher should face this situation at school, this was the positive part but she asked us very general questions, when nobody spoke, she did not ask directly and did not wait for answers. Also I think that she gave us unnecessary information but very good tips.

Lessons, November 3rd, 2009.

At the beginning I thought that these two new presentations would be the last one, but no, this time presented my two classmates Francisca Heredia and Teresa Buch the last one presented the topic friendship, the topic that liked the most of those two..

Francisca Heredia had a weir beginning, I do not know why, but my classmates who were seated close to me and I, looked each other to see if someone understood something but nobody understood anything, I could not understand what she was saying, because I thing the nerves betrayed her and she really got confused. Another negative issue was that we spoke maybe one of us two words, nothing else. The teacher talking time took too much time, she asked us very general questions and she did not wait for answer, Francisca answer herself.

Teresa Buch chose the topic friendship, a topic someone can think “boring”, “childish”, but no, she presented the topic in a very interesting way, with a beautiful PowerPoint with very nice colors and attractive pictures. The topic was really touching for me, I got very moved and I believe this topic is crucial at schools because the relationship between children and teenagers are like air, if they have bad relationship with their partners they can gain terrible illness like depression, therefore we can advise them. I would say that the weakness in this microlesson was the low tone of Teresa’s voice.

Lessons, October 27th, 2009.

This day presented two of my classmates, Juan Gonzalez y Mauricio Lillo, in my opinion both microlessons were good an originals. Let’s see what were the characteristics of their presentations.

Mauricio Lillo was the first classmate who presented the microlesson. He talked about “diversity” and he related the topic to the schools. Mauricio Lillo looked very confident and he behaved as a teacher. The first thing I liked about his presentation was that he could choose the right information. I also thought how lovely was his microteaching due to his explanations and the videos he chose to show us. Mauricio as in my presentation gave very good tips to follow in our future career as teachers.

Juanito Gonzalez is the classmate who was closer to the teacher requirements, for the reason that he really did a microlesson; he divided us in just a few seconds and he did a debate, the debate was good because Juanito made talk everybody and he manage us a his students. I think that the weakest thing of Juanito’s presentation was the PowerPoint and more organization in he debate, because sometimes a persons spoke more that he/she should and that makes that his presentation lasted almost half an hour.

Lessons, October 6th, 2009.

This day the teacher began the class talking about the blogs and he gave us the date we have to send him our blogs. We had two presentations, the first one by Yara Faunez and the other by Eduardo Maldonado. Both presentations were short in the minutes that had to be, but one was better than the other.

Yara Faunez did the microteaching about body language and in spite of it was a topic that we already manage and know, it was a microlesson and not a presentation. We could think that if we know about this topic it will be boring for us to listen to her, but her microlesson had nothing to do with that. She presented the three stages with confidence and eye contact. She kept us entertained. The only negative thing I would say about her is that she did not show too much body language.

Eduardo Maldonado’s microlesson was about “Less words and more action”. I think that Eduardo at the beginning of her presentation got confused about what he had to say and I did not understand very much because his explanations were not clear. As the time gone by, Eduardo, I think felt more confident and could take the bull by the horns and manage us as students very well. Eduardo moved around the classroom, he presented a nice video that unfortunately was in Spanish. Something that I did not like was the topic and that Eduardo read a lot from the power point.

A beautiful mind, the film.

A beautiful mind is a movie based on a true story, the story of John Nash a man who lived a complicated life since he was a child until years ago, but he could overcome thanks to his wife Alice.
John Nash is performed by the actor Russell Crowe and the story begins when john is at the university. When john was graduated he elaborated a theory that changed his life and the life of the economy. Then the movie shows the relationship that Mr. Nash has with the government for secret issues due to the bad relations EEUU had with the Russia. In those time john was also working at the university where he met to his future wife Alice, a student of him. When he is thirty he realizes that he has schizophrenia, illness that makes him loose his job at the university, but years later return much better and continue working with his researches. Finally he is shown old and getting the Novel Price in 1994.
Personally I do not like the actor Russell Crowe but I think that his performance was excellent, I suppose that the real john Nash is feeling very happy for how he has been shown in this film. I think that the love Nash feels for his wife is very passionated that inspire me to be like him or that someone loves me like john loves his wife. I would like to add that I was very impressed with the capacity he has to observe, like when he observed the pigeons eating at the university.

Presentations, September 29th

Today we had two presentations again, one by Francisca Nuñez and other by Nadia Palma, one was very good and the other was really confused, then we go to the lab to work in our blogs.

Nadia Palma in my opinion, got confused about the presentationn because she did a common presentation, she did not discriminate between a microlesson and a presentation. She had terrible errors in the PowerPoint and her tone of voice was very low. The topic of her presentation was “Behind a social network service”, that I think it was an interesting topic but she did not know how to carry it out. Nadia had in her PowerPoint a lot of information and the teacher talking time was too much.

On the other hand, Francisca Nuñez showed us confidence in herself, she looked very confidence on what she was saying and everything was very clear. Her topic was very suitable to us as teachers, due to games are a very good tool to teach anything, especially English. The PowerPoint had very nice colors and she gave us some keys only to detect what she was trying to tell us. The student talking time was precise, and she did a very interesting and funny game that was "WHO WANTS TO BE MILLIONAIRE"

Presentations, September 8th, 2009

Today the presentations were only two because Mr. Litman wanted to go to the lab. But we couldn’t, therefore we participate in both presentation that were very nice organized and attractive

María Ormeño did her presentation about tools to teach English, this presentation was not a microteaching, was only a presentation but a good one. She asked questions like what tool will you use to improve writing in the classroom? Which I think is a very good question to make us think about our future teaching. She was precise in the minutes of presentation that were 15 minutes, also she spoke very well with voice projection and good use of English. She walked around the classroom.

Paula Villaseca presented the topic: “English only movement”. I believe this topic was attractive to us, it was new and at the beginning we did not know what was this theme about but I think it was good in spite of some errors in the PowerPoint and the use of space. She used a video, a very good resource to engage us at the beginning and it gave results. Paula also had very fluent English and kept eye contact the whole presentation.

New presentations, September 1st, 2009

This was the day that I presented, I think I did a good job especially because of my classmates’ and teacher’s comments but my mark does not reflect that, I am very frustrated for that reason. But also two classmates presented. The video, which is added at the bottom of this post was as a introduction of my microlesson "The power meddia can have".

Romina Bosán talked about “classroom management strategies” I think that she did a good presentation but it was only a presentation, not a microlesson so I think that that is not a positive aspect. The topic was good even we had already learnt about those strategies that is why I was not very motivated with her topic. Romina has a very good tone of voice, she speaks very well and that day she looked very confident.

Camilo Opazo’s presentation for me was very boring, it was about studying abroad and she did a very long listening, the presentation was too much long and Camilo’s voice too low. The PowerPoint was confusing because of the colors and the images. The slides where dirty and it had too much reading. Most of us lost our attention in the presentation and we where doing nothing in relation to the presentation.

Gallipoli, the movie.

This movie is based on the First World War in Turkey, specifically in Gallipoli and tells the story of two Australian athletes who join the army to fight for Australia and the Britain Empire and tells the cruelty of the war.
At first they were not friends, but then in the war they love each other very much. This was something that call my attention very much, because the relationship they have in the story is very close, they are very good friends since they join the army to the end.
I got very moved with this movie, I cried a lot because is very hard to see how cruel is the war and how the war destroy the dreams of the two young man, and that make me think on all the wars that exist and have existed in the humanity and how lucky I am of being existing in this times and in this country due to millions of people have participate in wars.
The performance of Mel Gibson was extraordinary and also look very handsome.
I am thinking on the end of the movie, and how tremendous was that moment for me, because I jumped on my bed screaming run, run, run! terrible, on those minutes I was very distressed, but in spite of all the tension I had watching this movie, I think is a great movie and also the soundtrack could not be better.

Presentations, August 25th

This day was very good because my classmates did very interest presentations, the three presentations caught our attention, so I can say that this day we could learn something interest and new.

Evelyn Antillanca’s presentation was “have we lost the respect inside the classroom?” which I think is a great topic for us to know what is going on this days in some schools and the difference that exist today comparing with the past. She showed us two or three videos that in my case were shocking but at the same time very educational. She spoke very fluently and with confidence and clarity. A very good idea was give us tips to manage that situations, all those tips are very useful. Evelyn had a few mistakes and a very good PowerPoint.

Cristóbal Jara talked about “teaching technologies” this was also a very good presentation and really useful for us as a teachers. Most of us have facebook or other technological resources only for fun, but we did not know that we could use them for teaching in a different way. Cristóbal also showed us a very funny video, we all like it. I think that Cristóbal weaknesses were his voice, but not his tone of voice, but his rhythm, he spoke very, very fast. Other thing is that he was static, he did not move in the whole presentation.

Daniela Aguilar talked about “recycling” which is a topic I love, so I do not know if this presentation liked me due to the fact that I am, very interested in this topic or she really could keep me interested in her presentation. But I think that this has been the best Daniela’s presentation of this year. She gave us tips and advises to recycling and where to go if we want to recycle. She also showed us very touching videos, I wanted to cry. I think that the negative part was her pronunciation and that she was as static as Cristóbal.

Classmates presentations, August 18th, 2009

These microlessons were the first of this semester and I think that were the weakest of all at the moment, maybe because of the nerves that my classmates had for be the first of presenting, I don’t know but for example:

Gustavo Rojas did a very boring presentation. The strengths he had were first of all, the good tone of voice; he was understood by everyone because of his voice projection. Another strength I believe was that he moved around the class and could keep eyecontact with each of us. Unfortunately he got more weaknesses than strengths, for instance: he looked very insecure because of the nerves, and that forced him make mistakes in English.In Gustavo’s PowerPoint there were extracts in Spanish which are not aloud in these microlessons. There wasn’t too much participation thanks to topic that was terribly boring in my point of view.

Daisy Barril was very nervous too, but at least the topic was less boring, although the topic was not very close or related to education. She also was very nervous and she could not manage it. She also read a lot form her notes and from the power point. Other weakness that I found was that she could not project her voice in the classroom, in some moments I could not hear her.

Stephanie Bravo was the classmate that better did her job. Her topic “obesity” is much related with education because obesity in children has increased in the last years very much. She shows us very nice videos that caught our attention, she knew ask for silence in a respectful way and the most important thing is that this topic is one of teh problems of the 21st century. The negative things I could realize was first of all the timing, she had not less than 30 minutes presentation, which is too long. She had errors in grammar in the PowerPoint and when she did not check pronunciation before presenting.

"Propósitos 20-20 ¿resultados 0-0?". Comments on Fernando Villegas' article.

The thing is that I agree with Mr. Villegas in almost everything he said. We have as a society a tremendous work in terms of education, we are so lazy to think and act that we copy everything from European and North American countries and especially we copy all plans that have failed. It is time that our mentality change for once, from the head person of the country to the children, like “Educación 2020”, that it is a group of people who want to start to change us, the only big, terrible and important problem is that if we do not help them to change this, they probably won’t get positive results.

I believe, like Fernando Villegas in a creative society, with ideas and proposals, I believe in a society with dreams an aspirations, with goals, but I also believe in a society which acts. We must stop talking and criticizing everyone and everything, we must do something now, quickly, because we have to educate generations of children and they will educate future generations. We must give support Educación 2020, they are fighting for us.

The film: Billy Elliot

I have loved this movie since the first time I saw it. I remember that I told everybody to see it.
This is, I heard once, a true story, set in Britain in the same epoch or time that the story was happened.
In this movie we can see different topics presented, one of them are the problems that Billy has to say that he likes dancing for the reason that the people who live in the town is very traditional and dancers are thought like homosexuals. The other idea the movie present is the conflict that Billy’s father and brother have in the mines, due to the low salaries,therefore They have to choose for one side, to continue with the protests, or for the other, work in the mines even against their values only for Billy’s future to can afford his dancing studies.
The soundtrack of this movie is great, there are artist like T-Rex and the clash and the songs fit as good as we all want to hear it.
The end of the movie was the scene that most touched me, i cried for hours.
The massages of this film are very positives, therefore every time I see this movie I feel very good and hopeful, I recommend everyone to see it, especially hopeless human beings and people who is not in a good moment of his or her life. As billy,we can pursue our dreams...