Public Schools in Britain

The second lesson of this second semester, started with the presentation of our classmates Evelyn, Ma.Teresa and Rodrigo who explained some aspects about the public schools in Britain.
At the beginning, I was a little bit confused, because the concept of “public schools in Britain” is completely different at the concept that I known previously.
In Britain, a public school is not like a state school, is like what we know in Chile as a private school.
Some characteristics of public schools are:

- They have an excellent academic level.

- You just can be admitted if your grades are excellent.

- If you want to study in a public school in Britain, your economic situation must be according with the high costs.

After this presentation, we had to debate about this topic, considering if this kind of schools are good or bad for our society. On my personal opinion, I think that the education in public schools in Britain is a very good example of discipline and academic results, but it is not fair for the students that have not a good economic situation.
For me, a good education is a right for every one student or person who wants to learn.

Learning to Learn

After the discussion about Ma. Musica and the education minister, Mr. Litman gave us a new and interesting topic to discuss and understand which was "Learning to Learn". This is an American and succeeded program to study in a good way.
This program, provide to the students with different skills like:

- Critical thinking skills.
- Reading, writing, math and science skills, etc.

The main idea of this program is to increase the effectiveness of student's natural abilities to solve problems, increase their academical performance and comprehension.

On my personal opinion, I think that this kind of programs are really useful for everyone student who wants to increase and improve his or her academical results in a significative way where the right use and development of their skills must be the main tool.

Violence againts the Education Minister

Starting this second semester, our national education was surprised with an incredible reaction of a student named Maria Musica who decided to show her annoyance against the education minister, Mónica Jimenez, when she was participating in a dialogue with students and teachers about the new L.G.E.
On my opinion, I think that this kind of attitudes in our students is a very important matter to face by teachers, parents and society in general, being teachers and the educational system catalogued as the main guilty of this kind of behavior; for me, this is completely unfair, because the concept of education is something that must be made by everyone person in this society, where the participation of family must be the most important influence for the formation of the students.

Then, through this reflection, I have to say that the importance of a common participation of our society in the process of education is vital at the moment of learn and teach values.

Debate about L.O.C.E

The last class, our classmates, Rodrigo, Nicole, Dreny and Eduardo, made the first debate about L.O.C.E (ley orgánica constitucional de educación).

As an introduction, Nicole and Dreny explained some aspects and bases of this educational law. In my opinion, they were very clear in their explanations trying to do special emphasis on the most important aspects of this law.

After that, Rodrigo and Eduardo started the debate; where they gave us different ideas about the advantages and disadvantages of this law. The idea was to organize the class in two different groups where each one of them had to be agree or disagree with this law at the moment of debating.

I think, that this debate was very useful for us, because through its dinamic was possible to express our ideas, knowledge and opinions about our actual education, espontaneously.

Objectives and Debate

Objectives
The last class, Mr. Litman made us discuss about the objectives of his subject.
To know and understand the main objectives of Mr. Litman's subject is necessary to have a clear vision about the use of English language and its importance.
Mr. Litman, specifically wants to help us to increase our level and use of English through, micro-lessons, vocabulary and developing our analytical and cognitive skills to express our personal opinions and feelings, this last point is the most important, because, expressing aloud our feeling and opinions we are training our abilities of communication in a better way.

About Debate
In the second part of the lesson, we started to disscuss about the importance of debate in teaching.
For me, debate is a very good tool to practice English using the cognitive skills at the same time, because through this kind of activities, we can be able to develop our critical skills, knowing more global information and knowledge.
A debate is also an incredible oportunity to defend our presonal ideals using our own information and opinion which are always important.
Finally, is important to say that an active participation in a debate can be a very useful experience for people in different aspects like: self esteem and comradeship.
Doubtlessly, debates are an excellent way to teach.

About Blogs

Two lessons ago, we went to the English laboratory, where we were updating and cheking our blogs, its content and grammar.

I think, that Mr. Litman's idea about working on the blog in the lesson was incredible, because we could discuss some topics, add extra information and check the grammar mistakes in a better way with our mutual collaboration.

Education, Students and Parents

The last Tuesday, Mr Litman gave us an interesting paper about public students' demostrations for a good and equal education.

In the paper, appeared a good example of one of the most traditional public schools of Chile "Instituto Nacional" where the students began to do some strikes and riots to be heard by the authorities, their idea is to obtain a real change in the general education law (L.G.E) to increase the level of our actual educational system, that is the reason why they are deciding to organize a huge demostration throughout the country as two years ago.

For me, our actual education is a very important matter, because that is the only one way to abtain a better ecucation and more qualified professionals for Chile.

In the second part of the lesson, we went to the laboratory where we could visit the website of "la tercera" newspaper. In this website, we were focused in an interesting article about "new strategies of parents" to know about children's behaviour, and their performance at the school.

In my opinion, the permanent attention of parents in their children's life is very important to orient them in a good way, but I think that the use of strategies of websites is not the best option, because the most important for parents and children is just communication.

If we have a close and empathic relation with our children, we will be able to understand their reality directly, without using an external guide.