Teachers' Strike

What is it about?

It is about two main points; the first is the municipal bonus known as SAE, and the second, is the historical debt. Teachers are fighting for being paid because according to the SAE bonus it supposed that the government granted to municipalities to gave it to public teachers at the end of the year; however, municipalities never paid, and in relation to the historical debt, it is called historical because it emerged when public schools became part of municipalities; therefore, teachers who worked in public schools had to get this benefit, but none of the teachers did.

Is it fair?

This question is difficult to answer because according to any worker’s right this is absolutely unbelievable. Most of the professional in our country receive what it is guaranteed for them according the law, but in the case of teachers that is not applied. Therefore, it is inacceptable and disrespectful. The teachers should be paid, and the strike it is fair because at this point it is the only way to make the authority understand that it is not fair for any worker the situation that they are facing.

Is it ethical?

It is not so ethical because teachers should teach another ways to solve conflicts, but unhappily that is not most of the time applied because sometimes people need to do things like this to be heard. Therefore, it is not ethical, but it is necessary.

Is it legitimate?

It is absolutely justified because from my personal point of view it is the only way to make the authorities understand that they have to do something about, and to be consistent with the teachers’ rights.

Text Analysis

Firstly, when I heard this topic I thought this was more related with the academic part of our lives. However, after the Fabian’s micro lesson, I could realize that text analysis could be one of the tools to teach English because students can practice reading comprehension, identify the important words in texts, and learn new vocabulary.

Fabian did a very good micro lesson because the three stages were presented clearly. However, there were problems with the power point presentation in terms of spelling, font size, and color combination. Moreover, his English was sometimes difficult to understand, but I have to congratulate Fabian because I have seen a huge progress in terms of language since I know him.

Teaching Large Classes

This topic is so familiar to me because I attended one of the Jeremy Hamer presentations at the university, and I could realize that long classes and long lessons are possible to set in an entertaining and effective way. Moreover, this topic is also relevant for us because in most of the schools the amount of students go over forty students per class. Therefore, we have to be prepared to plan according to a large class.

Franco’s micro lesson was meaningful and well prepared. Moreover, the power point presentation had the precise information written in Standard English with no error. However, in my personal opinion there was too much teaching talking time because Franco explained almost everything, and I would like to guess, discuss, and read more. Finally, this topic was very useful, the information covered was interesting and precise, and Franco was a well communicator.

Philadelphia

This movie shows the stereotypes that society set. It is the story about one successful layer surrounded by colleagues and friends, but after his boss realized that he had AIDS his boss found the way to fired him. Therefore, discrimination, stereotyping, and values are the most controversial topics presented. Nowadays, these topics are also in the discussion, but in different levels because we all are aware of the importance of respect in life.

We as teachers have to be careful with falling in discriminating our students by any aspects. In this case there were sexual discrimination, but nowadays can be racial, gender, among others. Finally, I liked this movie because of the huge set of values that expressed even though I disagree with homosexuality I consider human beings to be respected.

Billy Elliot

This movie shows the stereotypes that society and family were presented in the eighties. Basically, the movie defines the two differences between how a man should be, and how a woman should be. Billy Elliot is raised by a strict poor patriarchal family; the father worked in a mine and her mother took care of the house. Therefore, the father taught Billy how to be a man putting his child to practice boxing. However, Billy wanted to be a dancer and he fought against society stereotypes and could achieve his dream after all.

We as teachers have to learn about this movie that stereotypes are not good for our students developing because we cannot impose what they suppose to do or be only according to what we think is better for them, but according to students’ abilities and interests. Moreover, the set of values that are presented are also memorable because perseverance is one of the important aspects of the pursuit of a certain goal.

Urban Tribes

Patricia did a very good presentation because she performed the three stages of a micro lesson, she used a very good English, and she research her topic very well. Moreover, the activity was also useful to put in practice the contents that she taught. Congratulations Patricia and God bless you with your baby.

This topic is one of the most complicated topics in our schools from my personal point of view because every school has regulations to rule students’ presentation, behavior, and so on. The problem appears when students decide to identify themselves with a special group of people that dress, speak, and even think in a particular way, wanting to carry it to the classroom. Therefore, we have to be aware of what urban tribes are to teach our students from their reality not from ours.

Conflict Management in the Classroom

I choose this topic because I was moved to find some information in order to manage the class properly. Sometimes, teachers make mistakes on this area because they lose their self control and try students disrespectful. Therefore, we should be aware of this because conflicts are presented in every place, situation, and environment. We as human beings face conflicts always; thus, we should not only how to deal with them, but also how to avoid them.

I learn a lot from this micro lesson, and I enjoy it very much preparing the material, the activities, and the power point presentation. Moreover, we should use any situation as a tool for learning. I hope my classmates could have learnt as much as I learnt, and put all the techniques in practice because these situations could even produce a bad experience in our life as teachers.

PD: Watch this documental and think about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sROKXRWBWs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CvCLBOoRNo&feature=channel