Next Year

End of the semester:

I never thought this course would be developed in such an innovative way. Many different forms to analize the different readings, including and relating within the Chilean teaching reality. It was an amazing work that our teacher did with us, making us reflect upon our practices, although we had really little time this semester. I am glad because this learning process that held Mauricio, allowed me to use my creativity in a variety of ways, that I was willing to use from the very beginning of my career. However, I am still afraid of what is coming, I am not want to become what I critized. However, I got more confident this year of what I doing and what I am thinking about teaching and its responsabilities. Also, I think that our learning process allow us to think differently from the old teachers because opened our minds to teach students to communicate and express what they think and feel in a different way.

Class Video

Context: 9th grade student at San Luis Beltrán School (Pudahuel)

 This is part of the evaluation of the activity called "Conversation Group" my group and I made in this school. After 6 weeks of hard work with different grades, we realized the importance of teaching the students to communicate in English. Also, we learnt that there is much to do in the future regarding the teaching of the language, because there is still an assumption the English is based on grammatical aspects that for us are very old- fashioned what is more, boring for the students. It is clear that, as many other languages, English is purely communication, not memorizing nor repetition of isolated vocabulary. I think that this experience taught us many good things,and some others that are relevant to improve regarding education. 

"Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes"

- John Dewey

Teacher`s Identity Essay

Teacher identity: a way of concerning to society

For Chilean society, teachers do not have the importance that they really deserve in depth because they are seen as instruments that only deliver information to their students. Taking that into consideration, it is really difficult to establish the boundaries in which teacher identity is set. Because of that, it is an entire society who defines teachers, not them indeed.

In theory, teacher identity can be represented as an agent of change, empowered, and committed . However, these intentions are repressed by the society that does not allow teacher identity to flourish properly. In practice, those social responsibilities are not consistent with the reality teachers and students are living in. For that reason, I agree with what is said in the text “The Educators Manifesto” that, education is thought as a factory like process of production, educator suppressed pedagogical self awareness, particularly among students(Mc Clintock). In addition to this, it is clear and noticeable that if our education is thought like that, this teacher identity that some people try to defend is vague and flawed. I believe that teacher identity turns unreasonable in an education which does not support not even justify what is inside of the schools. Furthermore, education became a minor profession consisting of well-defined functionaries whose controlling norms and standards were set, not from within, but by groups external to the profession's practice. (Mc Clintock) With all this, I am not trying to be pessimistic but critic about how identity is represent  in this country and how education is thought. If teachers do not define their identity and do not understand the real power they have in their hands, the school will be passing through them without any regret and they will do it with their students, as a vicious circle that is never going to end.

Teachers should understand their roles in school so that they can assimilate how empowered they are. For example, when a teacher assimilates his/her role inside of the school he/she can promotes a better sense of citizenship. However, when his/her role is authoritative, he/she tends to abuse of the power inside of the classroom. That is what happen in my current working experience, my host teacher undervalue and distrust the students` capacities and abilities. That is why, I believe that having an unfriendly atmosphere creates those situations that the majority of the teachers complain about. When teachers do not believe in themselves or nobody else does, reproduce this situation into the students`realities. For that reason, it is quite important to have a clear identity that represents who we are as human beings, then as citizens and finally as teachers. There are some many situations in which is noticeable that teachers do not have a consolidate identity, reaffirming their duty in the society that teachers do not realize the power they have, having at the end teachers who help to reproduce unconscious students. Identity is not an easy aspect to develop because there are many social,cultural and political factors that help in its building that sometimes is very ambigous and undefined for some people.

Finally, I would say that having in mind what identity means, we can understand and reflect upon the reality we have today. In some schools, there are still teachers who believe that they do not have the power to create their own identity instead of being themselves, others manipulate who they are. It is sad but true, that is quite difficult to set teachers`identity when chilean identity is not even set yet.

Essay created based on the notions and theory that shape teacher`s identity in Chile
Works cited: Thinking Power and Pedagogy (Adam Lefstein) & The Educators Manifesto (Robbie Mc Clintock)

Teacher`s Identity

In this video, we wanted to show that our Chilean reality shows that teacher`s identity depends on many external factors that sometimes that identity lost its meaning because some other aspects are revelant as the ones we showed in the video. Depending of the school practices, teachers develop a positive or negative identity. We assumed that having a constant pressure on the teachers`development, the identity of the teachers will never flourish.As a consequence, those teachers will reproduce the same attitude towards their students as a vicious circle that will never end.

TPACK Poster Session

How big would be the teaching impact if teachers would consider technology inside the classroom. That was one of our thoughts regarding the topic from the very beginning. Understanding technology as a tool not as a threatening weapon that unable the lesson development, teachers could comprenhend from inside what their students are living in. Part of our concerning about the topic was "Motivation Students Through Technology" because it is necessary interesting tools as cellphones in which students are more along with. Now, teachers have a variety of tools to use inside of the classroom that should be considering in their classes within the content. Group members: Roxanna Ortiz - Romina Ramirez - Paulina Soto

Expectations

To begin with, I would say that one of my biggest expectations of any course is to learn from my teachers` experiences as much as I can. For example, about using different methodologies. Regarding this course in particular I expect to improve my writing, to turn it into a more academic one. Another aspects that are linked to my expectations could be related to the innovation of the course, let`s say, the teacher, the content itself and the learning process.

“We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation -rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing.” 

Ralph Waldo Emerson