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"Si, se puede"
Comment on article from The Economist Magazine March 31st 2010.
Written by:
Katherine Hernández
Freddy A Cuellar C.
In modern societies, individuals have to deal with different kinds of troublesome situations such as violence, poverty, lack of education and intolerance, among others. However, we as human beings want to do plenty of things to solve those problems. But sometimes it seems to be quite difficult to accomplish that, because we do not have the economic resources or perhaps because governments do not show a real intention to do so.
Nevertheless, famous people (actors, singers, politicians, artists etc) are now very committed to social causes and they do many things about it. This happens because they know a lot of important and rich people who can finance many of those charitable intentions, or just because of their fame which opens lots of doors.
No matter the ways they choose to do it, it is certainly true that a lot of famous people have created different Foundations to help poor people all over the world. One of these is the Colombian singer Shakira, who has been working with her “Bare Feet Foundation” (pies descalzos) in order to guarantee education for thousands of Colombian children.
She says that the experience of teaching the poor in Colombia has lessons for the wider world; and for that reason, she has been working to improve education in her country, and has founded some schools in Barranquilla, Quibdo, and Altos de Cazuca, for those children who do not have the opportunity to finish their primary education. Over 5.000 students are directly served in her schools.
However in this article written by the Economist magazine, she says that in our country (Colombia) the people who are born poor, die poor too, or they never have the chance to improve their lives. And finally these people often end up involved in doing things they never imagined. No child dreams of becoming a militant or a drug trafficker, those are unfortunate consequences of the lack of opportunities to develop as people. Maybe Shakira has forgotten what Colombia is like, or she might have been living in the USA for too long, perhaps she even wants to be our savior. But many things she says are a bit extreme and not completely true. If you are poor, it does not necessarily mean that you will die poor. When people want to get something, they must work hard for it; perhaps it is not easy, but it is not impossible either.
There are different ways to accomplish dreams. It is not just violence or drugs, because Colombians have tools to do everything they want. Obviously they need some help because it is not an easy task; but when someone famous says all those things about our country, an awful side is being shown to the whole world. Our people are great, they are really good workers, have beautiful feelings, they always find the best way to do everything. They work so hard for their families, these are Colombian people.
Unfortunately, there is still a long way to go in terms of education, but the government is working to improve it because they know that education is the only way to help people in the country. It is also valuable to find people like Shakira -despite some of her ideas- who help our people because they deserve it, since they are really good. Definitely Shakira and all the others who have been working for the homeless without expecting anything in return are making the difference in a world that every day seems to be harder and more lacking in humanity.
IS TEACHING RELIGION RELEVANT TO ACHIEVE KNOWLEDGE?
Comment on “RELIGION AS AN UNDERGRADUATE SUBJECT IN HARVARD. Can a university with religious foundations embrace extreme secularism without sacrificing its soul?” Writen by LISA MILLER. Published on Feb 20th , 2010
By Orlando Romero and Carlos Andrés Manrique.
Between 1267 and 1273 Thomas Aquinas wrote the Summa Theologicae, a worldwide known work in which this famous religious and scholastic man combined ancient Greek thought with the Christian faith of his time. Its aim was to argue that the most basic religious truths could be proved by logical arguments, an approach to combine beliefs with one of the most important tools for scientific thinking, having Aristotle as the strongest influence at hand. In the mid-1500s a few scholars published works that challenged the ideas of ancient thinkers and the church replacing old assumptions with new theories. Science would start laying its revenge upon centuries of darkness in the field of knowledge.
Whether to teach religion or not has now become an academic issue which could be apparently related (with a wide difference) to the medieval approach to teaching science. The difference might be found, though, in the absence of a Torquemada to accomplish the commands of the holy inquisition.
Harvard University cannot cope with religion. They do not agree on who should teach it, how it should be taught, and how much value to give it compared with economics, biology, literature , and all the other subjects considered vital to an undergraduate education. They are now facing the dilemma as to whether their students need to be better informed about faith and the motivations of believers or maybe the priority is the intellectual set. There is a faculty´s anxiety towards religion and some academics fear that taking religion seriously would undermine everything else a great university stands for. However, some other universities generate more excitement around the subject of religion and have adopted new religious studies programs.
Although some think religion has no place in the university due to the fact that Faith is believing in something without good reasons to do so, others consider that religion really matters in the world and graduates will have jobs that take them to far places since they will live with people who are dramatically unlike themselves.
First, we couldn´t agree more that religion exists and that we cannot dismiss its importance. Second, there should be openness to discussing God in the classes and students must subsequently explore big issues in religion: intelligent design, debates within and around Catholicism, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, etc. And third, faculties need to reform their curriculum to give religion the status it deserves in the university.
The initiative is neither opposing religion to science in the world we live in nor bringing up the bitter memories of dark times in which faith defied thought development and progress. The current pledge of a globalized world like ours is to offer world citizens the capacity to choose their destiny acknowledging the choices of others by understanding the basis for their behavior.
Getting to know the foundations of beliefs offers a huge range of possibilities to understand patterns of interaction which cannot easily be pointed out throughout scientific guidelines. When human convictions are not recognized by others and science becomes the leaning basis to force an understanding of what we are reluctant to demonstrate by mere interaction, we are doomed to repeat the same historic mistakes like the Social Darwinism applied to explain the European imperialist expansion in Africa in the 1850s.
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ALICE IN WONDERLAND RABBIT REDUX - Comment on RAMIN SETOODEH´s article "Alice in Wonderland" in Newsweek Magazine (March, 2010)
By Jeannette Ladino
Why is the writer so upset about Burton’s interpretation of the whole story and what Alice looks like in the film Tim Burton has recently produced for Carroll’s Alice´s Adventures in Wonderland? In my opinion, interpretation of stories, novels, philosophy and so on is done according to people’s own ideology and way of thinking. It is also true that imagination is a wide vast topic to discuss, even more when it is about a tricky story for any producer who dares to remake this so utterly weird children’s story.
People have just seen one of the several interpretations the whole story has had throughout the years, taking into account there are plenty of differences among them and always some dissatisfied people. To start with, it is very understandable why some people are unpleased and even disappointed with the last version of the original book written by Lewis Carroll in 1865. It is obvious the story has changed since the first time it was made and the several times it has been remade into ballets, plays, films and so on and so forth. The original story is not going to be played out as the book pictures - this magical place called Wonderland, including all of its strange and sometimes understandable characters, since it was made and interpreted by one of the millions of minds around the world. Furthermore, it is obvious that the writer of the article is one of those people who are disappointed and his comments go from criticism of Alice’s bravery to complaints about her physical skinny appearance and the way her hungry nature has been modified.
On the other hand, it is also known nowadays there are plenty of book stories that have been played on the screen as well as many critics talking about them. The writer’s dissatisfaction is not the only aspect noticed throughout the article but also his wide comparison among Wonderland features, and its gate to the unknown imaginary world, among others. Potter’s train station and Narnia’s wardrobe have been taken into account and compared to the rabbit’s hole in Alicia’s gate to Wonderland since the writer takes several aspects into consideration and considers what happens after a book story is played out on the screen. In addition, the writer establishes his own opinion about taking literary figures from books to the big screen and it seems he is in agreement with the fact that characters do change and should change as they always manage to keep up with the times.
All in all, this article leaves readers with a weird feeling not only because the writer’s dissatisfaction with Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland interpretation is very obvious but also because sometimes he is not clear about what he really feels is the main problem one of the several interpretations Carroll’s story has. I believe the article has been written to criticize a factual social problem our current world has on the matters of physical appearance and the prototypes the media shows to young people. I would recommend people to read the book, watch the film and draw conclusions by themselves instead of just keeping silent on the other side of a written paper.
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Comment on "Why we can´t get rid of failing teachers" by Evan Thomas and Pat Wingert.
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By Diana Martinez and Gloria Gómez
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“Education is the movement from darkness to light”
(Allan Bloom, US philosopher)
Education is above all, the vehicle for the expression of a rich and advanced culture. Good quality education improves the economy or progress of a country and that’s why teachers should have an outstanding profileboth in terms of professionalism and as a person. In this century, there should be growth in a more personal approach where teachers engage in reflection of their values, beliefs, practices and knowledge in order to educate and make the students succeed in the different areas of their lives.
Evan Thomas and Pat Wingert (2010) in their article: “Why we can’t get rid of failing teachers”? state that in the last few years, lots of researches have focused their attention on the aspects that make the difference in students’ learning, and all of them have agreed that “what matters is the quality of the teacher” and that this factor is becoming one of the most important elements in the classroom. However, in many countries around the world our colleagues are not as committed as they must be. According to the authors, the problem with education is the lack of teachers’ performance because nowadays there are many possibilities for teachers to improve and be updated. In the USA, for example most of the teachers are looking for a lifetime tenure that guarantees them a salary for the rest of their lives without having in mind the huge responsibility they have as public school educators.
In Colombia, things are no different. In many public schools we find teachers that have worked for 20 or more years. Most of them have already received their pension and they earn more than 5 minimum Colombian wages, so they prefer to stay at the institutions because it is a very comfortable situation for them. But this condition has multiple effects. Firstly, old teachers do not give young and maybe more committed colleagues the opportunity to work in public schools, and consequently improve children’s learning processes. Secondly, old teachers sometimes choose low grades to teach because they consider them easier and without much work. However, those kids could be the ones who need a great teacher the most. According to Kati Haycock (2006), “the kids who have two, three, four strong teachers in a row will eventually excel, no matter what their background, while kids who have even two weak teachers in a row will never recover”. Finally, most of them are reluctant to improve their knowledge and be highly qualified because they feel that they’re overworked, underpaid and underappreciated. Consequently, many of our students have low skills and performances when they reach university level.
For all these reasons, nowadays governments of different countries are concerned about the decline of education due to students’ scores in testing because in national and international exams the results of the students are not the best. We can see that the academic records are low for factors such as the economic and social problems of the families, and besides there are many technological and telecommunication distractions that are affecting the students’ academic performance. Therefore, we can not say that teachers are the only ones to blame. It isn`t possible to say that a teacher is not so good because of the students` low scores or that the teacher is good and effective because of the students` high scores. Good quality education depends on many factors such as: motivation for teachers and students, good resources, social prestige and higher salaries for teachers, higher budget and investment for the government and ministry of education of the country where teachers can feel privileged.
EXCLUSIVE ARTICLE!
Another treat for readers as we continue our series of articles written by teachers here in the Language Centre. This week, Liliana and Andrés discuss a Newsweek article on healthcare - a polemical topic both in the U.S and Colombia.
This article is in response to “The doctor won't see you now” by Mary Carmichael in Newsweek, March 2010.
Is the health system reform a solution to health care system crisis?
By Andrés Felipe Medina and Liliana Prada
Take the case of the physicians role, there are more people that need to see the doctor and they are not sent to a primary care doctor but instead they are examined by a physician assistant or nurse because they are considered young and healthy. We think all patients deserve to be checked up by a physician, because of the fact that every citizen pays their health insurance. Even though, it’s a right that should be provided for all based on what the Colombian constitution says.
All in all, we believe government must pay more attention to health care because it is important for its citizens as a part of their social responsibility, a policy very well-known currently. We agree with Carmichael that this matter is a political issue; in that way the great reform that is required and that would solve the actual crisis is going to be one of the most important challenges for our next president so the choice is yours!
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BRIEF COMMENTS ON THE ELT NATIONAL CONFERENCE
By Héctor Lucero
After checking the suggested magazines at the library, I found no interesting article to write about. So, I decided to do my writing on what I saw, learnt, and remembered at the 13th ELT National Conference held at La Salle University last week.
I attended several plenaries and workshop sessions I thought were useful not only to improve my teaching practice but also to help me grow as a successful professional. Among those engaging discussions, three things caught my attention.
First, Mr. Perkins, with flawless English, beat around the bush for about two hours just to say that teachers use the internet to complement teaching. It seemed to me that that assertion did not fully explain the main topic at all, because G-learning was not either defined nor its pros and cons were hashed over at any time. To me, the presenter’s lack of assertiveness made the meeting fruitless and meaningless.
Second, both Mrs. De la Fuente and Mrs. Rey came to terms with global citizenship. Their catchy speeches let me know that the matter in hand was strictly related to ethics, moral values, and attitudes a person should get familiar with, in order to behave accordingly to the scenario in which an interaction takes place. In other words, global citizenship has to do with people’s ways of acting or behaving in society. This new tendency in ELT also brings into play critical thinking principles to appraise human beings’ reactions.
Third, Mrs. Rogers, Mrs. Dooley and Mr. Brewster made me remember some competences, skills, and pillars of teaching needed for the 21st century. Things which we English language teachers should always have to deal with. Concepts that lead educators to negotiate and make decisions on what to teach and how to teach it.
In short, I learnt and remembered tools that, without doubt, qualify my teaching a lot.
Isn’t it unfair that people pay high insurance costs and they are not being checked-up as they should be. We personally believe that is closely related to our current health system since some of the facts that are happening in the United States are being applied nowadays. The unique form to solve the health crisis is not only to reform health insurance to reduce the costs but also to improve the service quality to patients.
To begin with, there’s a critical shortage of primary care physicians who have dropped their major because their salaries are not considered well-paid. This is expressed in a Newsweek article “The doctor won’t see you now” (Carmichael, M. 2010, p. 47) where the annual number of American medical students who go into primary care has dropped by more than half since 1997. As a result, the physicians who remain are overworked and irritated due to the fact they have tight schedules and this circumstance is reflected when physicians have limited time for appointments. It is evident here when you go to your doctor and you do not have more than 15 minutes to be examined, even in some occasions less than this so that primary care providers have partially stopped taking and checking up patients properly here.
In addition, Carmichael says docs have to convince new med students to continue their studies which won’t be paid very well. What is more, rural doctors have to deal with specialized procedures since there is no one else available. Furthermore, patients are more concerned about the use of technology for a medical appointment than listening to their doctors about how to prevent a disease or sickness. This is controversial because doctors are restricted by the care providers to prescribe certain medicine or determine whether a person must be sent to a specialized examination as it was stated in the emergency social order in council in Colombia.
Take the case of the physicians role, there are more people that need to see the doctor and they are not sent to a primary care doctor but instead they are examined by a physician assistant or nurse because they are considered young and healthy. We think all patients deserve to be checked up by a physician, because of the fact that every citizen pays their health insurance. Even though, it’s a right that should be provided for all based on what the Colombian constitution says.
All in all, we believe government must pay more attention to health care because it is important for its citizens as a part of their social responsibility, a policy very well-known currently. We agree with Carmichael that this matter is a political issue; in that way the great reform that is required and that would solve the actual crisis is going to be one of the most important challenges for our next president so the choice is yours!
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BRIEF COMMENTS ON THE ELT NATIONAL CONFERENCE
By Héctor Lucero
After checking the suggested magazines at the library, I found no interesting article to write about. So, I decided to do my writing on what I saw, learnt, and remembered at the 13th ELT National Conference held at La Salle University last week.
I attended several plenaries and workshop sessions I thought were useful not only to improve my teaching practice but also to help me grow as a successful professional. Among those engaging discussions, three things caught my attention.
First, Mr. Perkins, with flawless English, beat around the bush for about two hours just to say that teachers use the internet to complement teaching. It seemed to me that that assertion did not fully explain the main topic at all, because G-learning was not either defined nor its pros and cons were hashed over at any time. To me, the presenter’s lack of assertiveness made the meeting fruitless and meaningless.
Second, both Mrs. De la Fuente and Mrs. Rey came to terms with global citizenship. Their catchy speeches let me know that the matter in hand was strictly related to ethics, moral values, and attitudes a person should get familiar with, in order to behave accordingly to the scenario in which an interaction takes place. In other words, global citizenship has to do with people’s ways of acting or behaving in society. This new tendency in ELT also brings into play critical thinking principles to appraise human beings’ reactions.
Third, Mrs. Rogers, Mrs. Dooley and Mr. Brewster made me remember some competences, skills, and pillars of teaching needed for the 21st century. Things which we English language teachers should always have to deal with. Concepts that lead educators to negotiate and make decisions on what to teach and how to teach it.
In short, I learnt and remembered tools that, without doubt, qualify my teaching a lot.
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Comment on Newsweek February 15th 2010 article "Crimes of the heart"
By Sulay García and Ada Alvarez
Lots of measures can be taken to encourage a healthy lifestyle. An article from the Newsweek magazine (February, 2010) indicates several steps that have been taken into consideration to diminish unhealthy behavior. The suggestions that should be followed are issues such as requiring graphic warnings on cigarette packages, incorporating more daily exercise and encouraging doctors’ motivation towards decease prevention.
The recommendations mentioned above can be extremely valuable if people take action using these strategies: in the first place, government campaigns should have strong visual warning on cigarette packages, as this kind of advertising has lowered cigarette consumption rates in Brazil. Another helpful way to decrease tobacco abuse could be to make a monetary agreement that reduces the addict’s problem. So, an addict must deposit a specified amount of money whenever he feels like smoking. Therefore, he would end up discovering the amounts of money he has thrown away when he has smoked.
Secondly, an emphasis should be placed upon doing more exercise daily. This objective could be reached by improving physical education plans at schools. This is because children’s awareness in terms of being fit needs to rise. Not only do children need to keep an eye on their body weight but grown-ups also require public spaces that give them the possibility to change risky habits that don’t prolong life, for instance sidewalks should be widened giving people the possibility to walk, run and go jogging.
Lastly, by rewarding doctors’ efforts towards patients self-care there would be more effective results controlling issues that have to do with health weaknesses.
All in all, the use of appropriate strategies that benefit people’s health can help a lot to live longer and diminish the number of inconveniences that affect people of all ages. In our point of view, the government should be highly involved in promoting ongoing healthy steps that result in less risky daily habits.
