Some weeks ago I started preparing everything to teach my first graders things related to HALLOWEEN. They were extremely enthusiastic about the topic and they were waiting for the day to come. Finally, on October the 31st, we designed some cards that students ornamented with drawings of bats, witches, goblins and ghosts. They also designed pumpkin lanterns made of orange cardboards and decorated the borad with them.
We were all so enthusiatic. My students really enjoyed the tales I told them and then they made spectacular drawings illustrating them.
When we were drawing one student came and told me with dissapointment: "Teacher, I LOOVVVEEEEE Halloween with all my heart but my mom says I won´t celebrate it because it is not part of our culture".
Well, we all know Halloween is not part of our culture but, if it is a great excuse to teach tales, vocabulary and many other things then, what's the problem with it?
If we take a second to reflect, there are many things that are not part of our culture and we still take them.
Besides, I think we as teacher should teach not only the language but also the culture and I believe our students should be aware of different customs in different parts of the world. That's does not mean being disloyal to our country as many people believe.
Sometimes there are people that seem to be close-minded and, in a certain way, I can see their point since Argentinians have a "special" negative conception about the English language (which of couRSE I don't share) because of historial issues. People should learn that Halloween is actually a Celtic tradition celebrated ALL AROUND THE WORLD and that, if that serves as an excuse to teach and learn, LONG LIVE HALLOWEEN! :)
Friday, November 8, 2013
Saturday, November 2, 2013
glimmer of hope...
Last week I came across a piece of news that set me thinking about the families of people who remain in a comma for many years. I would like you to read it and see if you share my point or not...
Crash victim wakes up after 20 years in a coma
Email
An Arkansas man who went into a coma after a serious car crash during his late teens has awoken nearly two decades later as a middle-aged man with an adult daughter.
Terry Wallis was 19 and newly married with a baby daughter when his truck plunged through a guard rail, falling 25 feet.
He was left paralysed and in a coma by the crash in the summer of 1984. One of his companions was killed outright.
He remained outwardly unresponsive for years, and news reports yesterday described his recovery as all the more remarkable because Mr Wallis was never given specialist care.
His father, a farmer, was reportedly too poor to afford a neurological examination and state medical insurance was reluctant to pay for a man not expected to return to the work force.
But, according to the popular legend now taking root which promises to turn Mr Wallis into a hero for the pro-life movement, the family never gave up hope.
His parents and wife continued to hold one-sided conversations at his bedside, and brought him home from hospital on alternate weekends. Doctors now believe the stimulation kept his mind functioning.
A few years ago, he began re sponding to questions by blinking his eyes.
Three weeks ago, he spoke for the first time calling out for his mother.
"He just said, 'Mom'," his mother, Angilee Wallis, told CNN. "I like to fell over."
Since then, Mr Wallis's powers of speech have slowly returned, and he has been able to tell his family that he remembers snatches of the conversation from around his bedside.
However, his speech remains laboured, he has problems with short-term memory, and his entire frame of thinking is stuck in 1984, the year Ronald Reagan was elected to a second term as president, and Mr Wallis had his life-changing crash.
It really makes me happy to think that this fortunate man was able to wake up after being so many years in a coma however, my point is: these pieces of news shouldn't be spread out. Why? Well, imagine you have a relative in a comma but he/she hasn't any chances to wake up at all (and doctors tell you so but you don't seem to believe them and are optimistic about the future), what media actually does by spreading this is to give hope to those who live a pessimistic reality. One should be conscious that waking up from a comma is not a usual situation. I understand that people want other people to know about the case because it is absolutely unbelievable but I am against the spreading of this type of publications. I'm sorry if it sounds rough but that is how I feel every time I read something like this.
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