quinta-feira, 24 de janeiro de 2013

Learning from the Master

                 The classes will start in February, but before that, we, the teachers, get together at school to plan our year ahead. As usual, it's part of this planning week to receive some lectures and speakers to present many different topics, all of them related to education. It really has been a very informative and enjoyable week, but I must say that, so far, the one we attended today in the morning was amazing! Luiz Schettini Filho, a 77-year-old professor and psychologist provided us some important moments of reflections! Using kind words and with his calm way of speaking, he conquered the teachers and moved all of us. But it was mainly his words, what he really said, that made us thinking about our own daily practice. According to the professor, communication is a very crucial point in any kind of relationship, including the one between the teacher and the student. He said "I'm responsible for what I say, not for what you listen!" As teachers, we know (and we feel) that sometimes many of misunderstood situations could be prevented if we helped our students to focus on what is going on at the moment we are talking to them. And even doing it, we may be completely misunderstood. The vice-versa is also true. Sometimes we just listen to what we want to and not exactly to what the other one is saying. Sometimes we don't even wait for the speaker to finish the sentence because we "guess" what he/she is going to say. It's a serious problem because we often act according to our thoughts and in this case, if our thoughts are mistaken, we won't act in a properly way! He also said that we can learn best when we are learning from someone that we admire! No doubt about that! He reminded me of some teachers I had and how much I really admire them - not only for their knowledge, which was unquestionable, but also for their way of teaching so many aspects of life that weren't exactly involved in our studying points but were also important for us, as individuals and as citizens. I do miss them and I'm sure that a little bit of them is part of who I am today and there is a great influence of them in the way I conduct my work. Good times, good memories!

Teachers and principals from Eduardo Gomes school and professor Luiz Schettini Filho

Post Question: Think about someone you really admire. Why do you admire this person? What are the characteristics of this person? Do you think you have some of these characteristics in your personality?  Is there a common aspect between you and this person?  

Tip: There is a site with a list of  the most admirable people in the world society. The cool part is that you can contribute to it by voting in someone from the list or by adding someone who is not in the list, but in your opinion, he or she should be there. Just click here.


Happy Aniversary São Paulo!

        Have you heard the term "megacity" Maybe your haven't even noticed that you are living in one of them. Megacities are huge than big cities. It has a large concentration of people, whuch can cause a lot of problems if they don't have infrastructure. It's the biggest city in Latin America and the richest in Brazil. 
        According to the 2010 census conducted by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), the population of the state of São Paulo was 41,252,360 inhabitants, being the most populous state in Brazil, accounting for over 20% of the brazilian population. The population density in the state, which is a division between its population and its area is 165.7 inhabitants per square kilometer.
 It's population is made up of people from different ethnic groups. The strong immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century brought to São Paulo people from all over the world. Mostly of the the five million immigrants who landed in Brazil settled in the state territory. The population is descended mostly from European immigrants (mainly Portuguese, Italian, Spanish and German).
There are also large communities of Middle Easterners (Lebanese, Syrians and Armenians) and East Asian (Japanese, Korean and Chinese), and descendants of Africanan imigrants.  Just as an example, the largest Japanese community out of Japan is in São Paulo, (Check it here) and the largest Lebanese community out of Lebanon is also in São Paulo. So many different people from a lot of interesting cultures have immeasurable contributed to the great diversity in music, food, literature, dance and all other cultural aspects of the city. These aspects have been so weel mixed that we can say São Paulo is a "melting pot". Although this expression was particularly used in the 1780s to describe the assimilation of immigrants to the USA, it designates a heterogeneous society which becomes more homogeneous, a place where the different cultural elements "melting together" into a harmonious whole with a common culture. And that's São Paulo - a mix of so many "everything" that get so well together and which is able to built a special city, with many problems, of course, but whose importance goes beyond the borders of our country.  
Post Question: Do you live in São Paulo? Do you like to live there? (If you don't live in São Paulo, where do you live? Do you like to live in this city?) Why? What's your favorite aspect of (or place in)  SP city? Why? In your opinion, what's the biggest problem in São Paulo?
 
Tip: To know a little bit more of this megacity, visit the official tourism site of São Paulo city (Just click here). You can plan your weekend and get some very useful and nice tips to have fun, eat well and learn about this important city! Enjoy it!