Essay

Tania González
Claudia Trajtemberg
Culture and Civilization
04 December 2009

“What is essential is invisible to the eye”
Antoine de St. Exupéry -The little Prince-

Teachers have a tremendous responsibility. Be a teacher is not an easy job. Educators have not just to teach knowledge, abilities, but also values in each learning they give their students. For that reason, and after seeing a pretty interesting film entitled: Modern Times, I have decided to write about the problems that chilean schools are having now to provide their students what is essential to life. I could see in the film how human beings became machines and how they were alienated by the society. Poverty and umployment were part of the atmosphere in Modernity, and it seemed that anybody cared about it. For that reason, and in order to support my ideas, first of all, I will write about how individualism has started becoming part of the educational culture. Then, I will analyze the indifference, apathy and inertia that are facing up schools because of the loss direction, and the desacralization that teachers are suffering continuously. Finally, I will conclude giving my hoping about what I consider a teacher should bear in mind if they really want to bring up human beings who be delicated with the social problems that their country have. I hope you really enjoy my essay because is plenty of my most deepest thoughts about the main aim of education.

As I wrote it above, individualism is one of the problems schools are having these days. For example, in my life I have seen how teachers do not teach their students to share and accept others. For instances, Bullying, as a educational problem, is one of the consequences of this lack of consideration for others. It seems the others do not exist as once Aksenchuckonce said. Unfortunately, even teachers are suffering this issue. Schools are becoming a place where instead of learning in comunity, students and teachers have to learn in isolation not allowing the affective and educational interchange between students and teachers. In Freire (1970) words, teachers are just those who have to fill the students’s minds and students just have to accept passively this transacction. Schools, then, are just focus on creating “students-machines” that do not show their fellings, do not think or reflect about social or political problems. In simple words, schools are creating students who just reproduce what others say, and who are, most of the time, interested in competing with others to be best individuals.

A second problems that needs to be said is the indifference that is suffering the education system. According to Lipovetsky(1986) “The indifference is growing”. Here, he is concerned about this because in his opinion, the prestige and authority of the teaching field has practically disappeared. This makes sense with the fact that teachers and teaching have become in neutralized machines, and students, as well. For that, Lipovetsky (1986) does not hesitate when he say that schools are pretty similar to a desert where learners vegetate without huge interest or motivations. For our bad luck, this is not just a educational problem, but also a social and political one because the apathy is generalized and citizens are also being catch by this inertia.

In order to sum up what it has been analyzed in this essay I could state that it is totally necessary that teachers be aware of the problems I refered above. It is pretty relevant that teachers do their best to allow such as individualistic situations. It is also important that educators could understand the real meaning of being a teacher and they could follow what Alberto Hurtado said:

“We have to create the cult of responsiblility. It is necessary to make each young and child conscious of the fact that first of all, they are human beings. They have in their hands the power to make good or bad things[...] responsibility, social responsibility is a word that educators have to predicate in all the tones, and in each moment to their students[...] instead of preparing to a encyclopaedial learning, teachers should be form their pupils to life”

Having read this, I think teachers and future teachers should see the film Modern Times because they could show their students the social problems people had to face up in modern times which persist in our times. Of that way, educators could show their pupils that they need to compromise with life and be responsible men. At the same time, to teach them the values which are necessary to break the social distances in our country and around the world. Teachers could develop the critical thinking of their students and teach them that, first of all, they are human beings that suffer, feel and who were born to live in society with the idea, of some day, to become true Martin Luther Kind’s dream.

Machines or Human Beings?

Having seen the marvelous film "Modern Times" I would like to write about the influences that this period had in people’s everyday life. Those were difficult times. People had to work a lot to suvive. They were actually machines, controlled by their bosses at work. Men were seen as animals that had to work during the whole day. It was kind of a joke, but even in jails people spent a better life.

Industrialization and modernization had a huge influence on people’s lives. These 2 historical and phylosofical events brought abject poverty. People worked a lot but they did not earn a decent salary. The big fatories were the only ones which became rich while citizens became each day poorer.

Industrialization, as the film showed it, changed completely the way people started seeing the world around them. They became human machines, times were something that started having too much importance in their lives. Unemployment had high rates. People did not have work. They did not even have anything to eat, for that reason, and as the film showed it, people had to steal to survive those deplorable life’s conditions.

Nevertheless, something that really caught my attention about the movie was when, at the end of the story, Chaplin, despite of everything he had to face, asked his girlfriend for smiling. That really was a pretty useful learning for me because I could realize how worthy of admiration “those” people were. They smiled and were grateful with live dispite of everything bad things. I really would like to be like those human beings. Fortunately, even in our times we can find still people as great as “modern” people.

"Queen Elizabeth"

This time I would like to write about Elizabeth, the Queen of England" during 44 years and 127 days about the middle of the 16th century. This queen was a woman plenty of character and bravery.

At the beggining I had the feeling Elizabeth was not a good person, and to be honest, I am not going to judge her actions, but then, I realized that despite of all her will, she was also a human being that shoud have suffered a lot for all she had to face throughout all her life.

However, I would like to stop in the importances or maybe the consequences that Elizabeth’s reign had to the history of her country. She really knew to defend the crown and her dear reign. I could observe that “The Virgin” left a great legacy in terms of culture, faith, literature, and mainly, the legacy of starting looking outside of England, new lands and wealth.

I think, however, that the main influence that Elizabeth inherited was that open she left in terms of economy and expantion. Since those times, England started seeing what was out of its lands, it happened the opposite, now, England was the reign that wanted to see further. Whether I bring things to the extreme, and as we analyzed it in classes, this period was the beginning of the globalization and with that, the capitalization time, as well.

"Natives and Immigrants"... The constant fight between cultures.

This time, I will write my reflections about natives and immigrants, a topic that we have been discussing in classes, and which is connected with the terroritorial formation of what we know today as: United Kingdom.

One of the characteristics of this magnificent process of settlement in the sparsely populated England lands was the fact that natives allowed to shared their way of living with the immigrants and they also brought new ways of subsisting and living which was making richer the differents cultures that inhabited those inhospitable lands.

However, the process was not as easy as books tell us. Maybe the resitence of native was stronger than we can imagine or maybe they saw new opportunities of subsisting in the new people coming.

During these weeks I have been thinking about the huge changes that England has experimented. Nowadays we can see how United Kingdom has developed in all possible aspects. Nevertheless, I would like to homage to all those people that with their blood and sacrificies helped to form what we know today as UK. They, as most of natives and immigrants had to struggle for getting what they wanted to.

This also made me think that human beings were created to live in community and help each other. It is truth that always someone has to win, but this time, instead of criticizing Romans or Anglo-Saxons I would like just to strees the fact that human beings build each other. We need each other to grow up, to develop and to share worlds with others. It is important that we as a future teacher do not impose way of seeing or living, but also, it is imporant that we learn our students that people learn when they related with others, and when we respect others viewpoints or customs.

*My expectations*

All new experiences make that people think about what they really expect to do or receive from a specific fact. For that reason, and being quite honest, I could say that my expectations about this new course which I am facing now, are many ones.

By first, I think that in this new course, I will learn many things about the English culture and civilization. To me, that is pretty important because people who want to be english teachers have to be educated, and know, at least, different aspects of the culture that they are going to teach in the future.

I really expect to be a very good student. I want to participate in class, ask the things that I do not understand, be always on time, be responsible with my posts, be open minded, and respect my classmates’ opinions.

Finally, I strongly believe that I will be able to achieve all the expectations that I have about the course and myself. I know that with the help of my teacher, Óscar, classmates, and my own, I will learn from the good, but also from the bad things.