Still Changing (Reflection#8)

Educational reform began at the end of the nineteenth century when the United States of America was experiencing great economic and social changes. However, it was not until 1983 that the need for schools' reform was brought to the spot light with a report called "A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform" from the National Commission on Excellence in Education. This report made emphasis in the poor test results of American students at an international level, and it suggested reforming the education system and changing the alarming situation. The report also called the attention about the United States' disadvantages of being behind in comparison to other countries regarding education. Consequently, states respond with the first wave or attempt to reform education which had to do mainly with an increment on the rigor of programs and tests either to become a teacher or a graduate student. This attempt to reform the school system has the state as the central figure which means that politicians are who decide over educational issues. This first wave suggested the transmission rather than the reconstruction of the American culture. The second wave of educational reform which was started in the late eighties proposed the decentralization of schools. This wave was against large school districts and suggested to give the power to the teachers to take decisions regarding school management. This second wave which promotes the creation of smaller schools and districts is also called "school-based management." The third wave started between late eighties and early nineties, and in order to reform the education, it proposed the institution of schools where the students could find help beyond academic matters like social and medical help. The main focus of the third wave is the children. This wave is also called "school choice" movement. In summary, the three waves to reform education have the same purpose which is to improve American education; however, the waves differentiate on the ways they use to accomplish this. As I said, the first one's main focus is to increase the academic level of tests and programs; the second one emphasizes in the teachers' autonomy, and the third one supports a broader education beyond an academic program. The most dominant of these three waves has been the first one. I think that this supremacy over the others is due to the fact that this wave is based on the same roots of United States' education since its foundation with the only difference that the education has been taken to a more difficult level. Also, I think that the first wave is stronger than the others because it is favored by the government due to the fact that the power regarding changes and decisions about the educational system is held by the state. However, some argue that this first wave could emphasize the sense of superiority of American people mining the respect for other cultures.

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Where All Started (Reflection#7)

When I think about education, I see a tree. The culture and believes are the base or the roots of the tree because the place where people are educated has a strong influence in their education. Secondly, the trunk of the tree would be the historic period because time is another factor that influences in education and the available learning resources to students. Finally, the branches of the tree would be the different teaching ways among a same cultural surrounding. In the case of ancient civilizations like Egypt and Mesopotamia, the branches of the tree would be homeschooling, apprenticeship, and temple education. Homeschooling, which was the first and simplest teaching method in the child's life, refers to education at home where children learned from their parents and elder people only by observation, listening, and imitation. This is why some people say that "home is the first school". In Egypt, children used to learn about tradition, how to behave in society, their ancestors' religion, and even their future profession because occupations were considered hereditary. For instance, a farmer had to teach his son how to be a good farmer, and an artisan had to teach his son how to do pottery. Those men who could not have a direct descendent could adopt a son, but only with the condition to educate him in their labor. It is pretty obvious to me how important was for the Egyptian to follow the tradition. The only one who did not teach his sons directly was the king. The girls were also instructed at home. They learned to do households, sing, dance, and in some cases, play a music instrument. In Mesopotamian civilization, the education of values and tradition by the family was similar to the one in Egypt. A more formal approach to education was apprenticeship which was like in a job training nowadays. The method like today consisted in observing the task, practicing it under supervision, and mastering the abilities. Memorization was a main key on the apprenticeship method to educate. Masters not only trained about crafts but also medicine, architecture, sculpture, and several others. During the time they were learning, apprentices lived in the house of their masters who had to support them like a son. In ancient Mesopotamia apprentices were so important that apprenticeship was included in a code of laws called the Code of Hammurabi. Besides their future profession, apprentices sometimes learned writing, and arithmetic. When the time came to prove their abilities, apprentices became journeymen. Apprentices in Egypt enjoy a great consideration and esteem, and learning an occupation was seen as a life changing process that revealed the Truth. The other type of education was the temple education. This way was more sophisticated than the others because students took lessons in a classroom with a scribe or priest as a teacher. Most of the students who graduated from a temple school ended as priests, or they became temple or royal scribes. In ancient Mesopotamian and Egypt the formal education in temples was about the same where the students learned about medicine, astrology and laws in addition to basic subjects like writing, reading and math. Temples' classrooms can be considered as the first academic schools. Finally, despite the fact that education in Egypt and Mesopotamia was diverse, there is no doubt that these first innovative methods of teaching served as the base for the existence of modern schools.

Second Discovery of Fire (Reflection#6)

The invention of writing was crucial for the establishment and development of the world's greatest ancient civilizations. Before writing, men used pictographs which were pictures that represent the objects just like they were. However, with the emergence of agriculture and the establishment of population in certain areas, counting people's property became necessary. In ancient Sumeria, this was the reason for the appearance of tokens. These counting tokens had pictographs on them that represented the possessions of their owner like grain, terrain, or cattle. Counting tokens are among the first tries of men to transfer information to other people. Soon, the pictures were not only about objects and physical elements, but they express an idea. The pictures representing ideas were ideographs. It is pretty obvious that men wanted to express through a medium other than spoken language which was ephemeral like the wind and could be forgotten. Soon, the ideographs and the pictographs were combined to represent not an established idea or object but sounds. What moved these men to try to represent sounds? Well, I think that language became complicated, and what was simple to express before when they did not talk that much, it was not simple anymore. New words appeared, and the language became vast like the sand on the beach. Verbs, adjectives, pronouns, and others were not tangible, so men had to come out with the idea of representing words through the connection of several images to form the word. The images were organized by order, and each image had a corresponding sound with the syllable of the word that they wanted to express. The images were stylized, and the Cuneiform writing style was born. This process of development of writing is relative to the Sumerian culture, but this was not the birth place of writing. Actually, it is said that writing was invented in two or more places. For example, researchers think that it was also invented in Mexico by the precursor of the Maya people, the Olmecs, and China is considered one of the birth places of writing as well. Other civilizations took advantage of this powerful innovation, and introduce writing into their own culture adapting it to the nation's language. For example, the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek symbols all came from one source, Phoenician scripts. The greatest merit of the Greek alphabet is that it was the first one to represent the vowels. Now that I know about the history of writing, I asked myself, Why was writing so important for these first and greatest civilizations? First of all, I think that most of the information that we have today about these civilizations is thanks to the written word. If it was not because of writing, we would not have any knowledge about the way they lived, their social organization, their battles, and their history. The member of these civilizations knew that writing was a great opportunity to preserve and pass their knowledge, costumes, and culture through time. Writing became an excellent way to show future generations about their ancestors and historical roots. Writing also served to mark social classes and to justify superiority of the religious and wealth people over commoners and slaves. So, writing was also an important factor in the definition of social classes. Besides, writing was seen in most of these cultures as something divine coming from the Gods. So, whoever knew how to write must be respected and honored. I suppose that writing was also important in the military field because in that time, the best way to communicate among troops were through messengers carrying important and sometimes confidential messages. Writing also allowed men from different cultures to show their words, thoughts, feelings, and point of views among themselves. Writing was like a second discovery of fire because it brought new light to the human existence and took the illiterate civilizations out of the darkness of ignorance.

Beyond One Generation (Reflection#5)

Rites and rituals play an important role in children's education and in their introduction to the society and the adults' world. These ceremonies vary depending on the places, but they all have something in common: They are learning experiences that help preserving cultural tradition. Some of these rites may take one day; others may take years. People do not have to travel far to be witnesses of a ritual ceremony. Most of the countries have their own way to do rituals. In my birth country, Cuba, most of the girls have a great celebration when they turn fifteen years old. There are some girls who decide to not celebrate this party, and others simply do not have the required money to plan an event like this. Usually, this celebration called The Fifteen takes years of planning by the family of the girl, but it only lasts one night. The day of the celebration is the same as the girl's fifteenth birthday. Usually, the big day, the girl's parents had a stylist to come over and make her beautiful. Then, a photographer takes multiple pictures of the girl dressed with several clothes and posing in several places. She wears big dresses like in colonial times and modern outfit for these pictures which are an important part of the ritual, almost as important as the party because they preserve this moment in the girl's life. Finally, when the big moment is about to come, the girl rides a convertible car around town waving to everybody on the streets. Then, the car drives her to the place destined for the party where her friends and relatives are waiting for the special person of the day. She wears a big long dress at the beginning of the party, but after a while she changes to more comfortable clothes. She dances with her father and her boyfriend if she has one. The way to celebrate The Fifteen is not the same with each girl, but it usually follows the pattern mentioned before. Maybe, this ritual was instated in first place to introduce the girl to society. However, nowadays, The Fifteen's main function is to preserve the tradition. Another function of this ritual is to show the wealth of a family. A better party, more pictures, video taking, and nicer dresses mean that a family is better positioned than others; it is somehow pretentious. This ritual has not a changing effect on the girls' minds and social condition, but it gives the girls the opportunity to participate in a popular tradition and follow costumes of her people that otherwise would be lost. The Fifteen is about the same as the Sweet Sixteen in the United States. I also think that whenever young teenagers reunite in a secret place to smoke or drink trying to imitate adults, they are doing kind of an informal ritual based on what they see and learn to do from adults and based on their wish to grow up. In other places, rituals have a greater importance and impact in young people's lives. In some African tribes there are rituals that mark the turning point for children to be considered adults. These rites may take years, and during this time the children will learn about the costumes of their people. In certain cases they may learn about how to survive in the forest and take advantage of natural resources, or they may learn about sexual behavior, fertility, and reproduction. These rituals are sometimes associated to religious believes in these African tribes, and the natives never take these rites lightly but celebrate them with a big ceremony that includes all the members of the tribe. The way I see it rituals could have a huge magnitude or they could happen at a smaller scale but all of them are educative and carry a lesson of cultural believes and sometimes abilities needed to survive among people and the environment. Rites and rituals mold people and develop customs on them that last during their life time.

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Haiti Claims for Our Help (Contest)

Haitian people who suffer from the devastating results of the earthquake that took place a week ago can be associated with the proverb that says, "Nou led, Nou la" which means, "We are ugly, but we are alive". When we think about the Haitian people, people could enumerate a series of unfortunate events and conditions that they have suffered since they started to emerge as a nation. For example, along with the Haitian Revolution, political disturbances, crimes, poverty, and hunger, Haitians had also suffered natural disasters like hurricanes, and earthquakes. The most recent of these disasters was the earthquake of January 12^th, 2010. Entire families were destroyed, and houses and buildings are not longer standing as part of the city's architecture. The country is devastated; however, Haitians have learned to overcome their difficulties through the years, and they have become strong people who fall but know how to stand again.

First, what is really important right now is to preserve life of those who made it through the earthquake. The proverb says, "Nou led, Nou la." Right now, Haitian survivors are ugly survivors because they come out from the ashes hurt and dusty, and they have lost everything they owned. Some of these survivors may even have to face the terrible reality that they lost part of their family. But like the phoenix which reborns from the ashes, Haitian people can recover from their grief if the rest of the world offers help. The ugly survivors who live in despair claim for help, and they say, "We are alive; we are still here." This terrible event have promoted the most lovely actions of humanity at a global level, and examples of this kindness show trough several donations of money, medicines and food that the people of the United States has offered. It is the time to make a positive difference and help Haitian people. It does not matter if we have never been in Haiti; we have the moral duty to help them. The reward for those who help could be to see in the news how a child finds his or her mother after the rescue team gets her from the ruins of a building. Another reward could be to see how elderly persons who survive the earthquake do not die a week after the disaster because they do not have anything to eat. Finally, Haitian people may not have anything to offer in return, and they may have different religious believes and costumes from some of us, but all this is not a reason for doing nothing. Haitian people ask for immediate help and let us know that their hearts suffer, and we must answer.

In conclusion, the proverb "Nou led, Nou la" made me think about the need to help the earthquake's survivors who are in a really hard situation. I can feel their pain, and I joined to all of those who support in a way or another the Haitian people.

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Lucy's Secret (Reflection#4)

The story of Lucy does not affect my beliefs at all because I believe in evolution. I also believe in God. When I was a little boy, my parents took me to a catholic church because they were catholic, and they wanted me to be catholic. In church, I studied the Bible and I learned about the story of Adam and Eve. Who does not know this popular story that talks about the creation of men and women? There was a time when this story was real to me, when I actually believed that men and women from today were direct descendents of this first couple. However, later on, I went to school and I was able to study science, biology, and history. There, another truth about the origins of men was revealed to me. I learned that man had gone through an evolutionary process from primate species to what we are now. Then, this new truth substituted what I had believed until that moment about the story of human kind's origins. This did not mean that I stopped believing in God, and it did not affect my religious believes. I just saw the truth from a new perspective, and the story of Adam and Eve came to be like a fairy tale or a story for children. Do not get me wrong; I respect everyone else's beliefs. If someone believes in Adam and Eve, I dont criticize them. I am just stating my beliefs and my learning process about human kind's beginning. The new truth that talked about evolution was superior to the story of Adam and Eve because excavated bones were the scientific evidence and irrefutable proof that human had evolved. People say that God works in misterious ways, and I still think He created us, but I think it was not simple just by taking dust and breathing life into it. Maybe, and I am saying maybe because nobody has the absolute truth, God created us as primates first and then let us be and transform through a process that took millions of years and not just one day. A few days ago my understanding of human beings took a turn which made me see that there is always more to learn and investigate. I read that modern human beings had a common ancestor that left Africa to populate the rest of the world. I also learned that modern man is not the result of a straight evolutionary line, but there were several species of hominids like the branches of a tree, and only a prevailing specie was able to adapt and survive to nowadays unlike the other species that did not make it. I still have to keep reading about these new information about evolution to form my own hypothesis, but the truth is out there, and we cannot close our eyes to the evidence.

Without Barriers (Reflection#3)

About three days ago, I had never heard the term multicultural education. However, I had been reading about it, and I think it is an important subject to think about. It is quite easy to know what multicultural education is by looking at the name only. It refers to the integration in the classrooms of students who are different concerning religion, social class, gender, and sexuality. Multicultural education is also related to the ability of teachers to employ different teaching techniques depending on the students'needs in order to make them feel comfortable. I must say that my experience in elementary and secondary school, and even high school was quite different from what it would have been if I had studied in the United States. That's right! I had most of my education in Cuba, my birth country. I consider my elementary and secondary schools as multicultural, but my education there was not very multicultural. What I mean by saying that my schools were multicultural is that these schools accepted everybody who wanted to study, and there was not any discrimination based on religious beliefs, race, social status, or sexuality. It does not have any influence in education if someone has more wealth than others because schools in Cuba are public and not private, and students do not need to pay for tuition. Also, my schools were not for boys only but also for girls. Race was not an issue either because students with different skin color shared the classroom without feeling uncomfortable about it. I knew students with different religious believes to mine, and none of us were discriminated for being religious. Professors treated each of the students equally and dedicated the same amount of time to answer their questions and explain the subjects. In summary, I think that my school was multicultural because there was diversity among the students. I remember I treated everybody as an equal, and I did not feel uncomfortable with someone who was different in a certain way because professors thaught the students that everybody had the same rights and oportunities as human beings, and this way, students learned to see others like brothers or sisters with the common goal to study. However, I think that my elementary and secondary schools are not as multicultural as a school in Miami can be. Classrooms in Miami are usually composed of students from different countries who speak different languages, have different religions, and were raised in different cultures. So, it is my impression that schools in Miami are more multicutural than my schools back in Cuba. Also, I consider that my education in elementary and secondary school was not multicultural to a great extent. My experience on these schools is most indicative of the contributions approach because the education was not taken to a higher level of commitment. What I mean is that in these schools, students did not have to take a determined course during a special week or month because there was not a special period dedicated to other races or only for women. Consequently, students never received an additive approach to our education. Likewise, students did not experience the transformation approach because professors taught from only one perspective, the government's perspective, because schools belonged to the state. So, any source of information contrary to the government's precepts was not disscused or mentioned during classes. Consequently, students were confined to the government's way to see history, and they did not have the chance to form their own opinion about a determined issue. I think that level four to multicultural education which is the social action approach would have been considered treason in my country. I said this because not only students but all the people were aware of issues in the country, but we could not take any action, or we would be punished. The only approach that professor took in my elementary and secondary schools was the first phase to multicultural education which is the contributions approach because professors talked to us about several ethnic heroes on other countries. If I could go back in time to my elementary and secondary schools, I would prefer my teachers take a transformation approach to promote multicultural education. So, this way I would have a broad perspective of the different points of view about a determined issue, and I would be able to form my own opinion and express my feeling without being afraid to be punished.

Comment to two gnomes dance the celebratory hopaky (5) on Asili the Journal Blogspot

In the background, I can see two faces, i guess they represent the two gnomes. In the foreground, I see two bodies shaking hands and dancing. I do not see them move, but I know they're dancing because of the poem's title. I think that the two gnomes represent people who do things they like instead of things that they are supposed to do. For example, a gnome would be a teenager whose parents want him to be a doctor, and he choses to be a basketball player because that's what he likes. I may be wrong, but this is my interpretation.

Comment to bat (3) on Asili the Journal Blogspot

To me, there are a lot of bats in this picture, but the black one it's the only one that represents a real menace because it's closer than the others. There is also like a whirlwind on the background which makes me think that the bats are about to go into it and never come back. The poem on the other hand made me think about the bats as dark temptations that can consume people and take them to lose everything.

Comment to coyote (2) on Asili the Journal Blogspot

The coyote described here is like a free spirit no subject to any rules or chains. In the image, I do not see any coyote, but a grotesc face laughing and defying the rules of the world.

Inventions and Their Impact in Human Development (Reflection#2)

Human beings' perception of the surrounding world has changed and evolved over time since the origins of human kind as well as humans' abilities to control nature and understand unexplained phenomena. The combination of certain circunstances like location, time, and available resources to a determined population has a deep influence in the way its members think, learn, and behave. This statement can be easily seen throughout human history For example, a caveman did not think the same way a modern man thinks today. First of all, the early hominid species did not have a brain as large as humans today, so they were more close to the animals than to us. These early species performed only basic functions like eating and reproduction. They had to travel in search of food that nature provided them. They also had a perception of the world different from the one human beings have today. For these primitive men, the world was extremely vast and full of unexplained and frightening phenomena. With the appearance of tools to cut and crush like scrapers, hammer stones, and others, primitive men learned that they could use instruments to hunt and improve their control over the elements and nature. The invention of tools was to me the first step in evolution that set apart the human race from animals and started the slow development of the human brain and intelligence. After the tools were invented, primitive men had the opportunity to perfection them which indicates that they were able to learn in order to improve their lives. Another great advance in human history is marked by the control of fire which increased humans' power over the beasts and dangerous animals and allowed primitive men to cook food. I think that by the time men gain control over fire, they had changed their way to see the world. They still had much more ahead to know but at least they were sure about their superiority over other animals with the new haunting instruments and the new marvel of controling fire. I think that once human beings could control nature in somehow, they decided to settle because they did not depend on what mother nature wanted to give them, they were able to take it by themselves. Also, because they could produce fire, they were able to move to colder areas and unnexplored places. This settlement brought about the surge of primitive civilizations, agriculture and domestication of animals. The creation of boats allowed fishing and travel over water, and the invention of the wheel made it much easier to travel by earth. Civilizations grew and keept perfecting their mode
of transportation, so they could travel longer distances, and soon, they discover that the world was not as small as they thought it was. Then, men began to ask themselves what was on the other side of the world, and their imagination flew away to unknow places. Then, adventurers went out looking for new worlds, and soon they circunnavegated the globe coming to the conclusion that the world was round and not flat with an end. Every new invention along history, and every new discover that humans had made amplified the human race horizons and its power. For example, microscopes had allowed humans to know the secret of viruses, and bacteria, so they have been able to find the cure for several diseases. Telescopes had allowed humas to explore galaxys far away from ours and understand our universe. Computers nowadays keep improving people's lives. Humans fear what they do not know, so the more their knowledge grows the less they fear, and humans amplify their knowledge by improving themselves and the instruments they use, and by inventing new tools. Everything began with a simple stone hammer and the dream to control the world. Now that humans control Earth, we keep looking at new horizons looking up to the stars.

The Long Way of Teaching (Reflection#1)

From colonial times to nowadays, teachers' preparation has improved greatly. In fact, most of the teahers in colonial America did not have good preparation because they had gone to a elementary or secondary school only before they decided to teach in front of a class. These teachers were not required to have teaching abilities or great knowledge about the subjects, so the students received a mediocre education. Because teachers were not required to have good preparation, some of them were not reliable. For example, some teachers were fired because they were drunk or had stolen something. Also, some of the teachers were teenagers, and others taught for a year or two and then left schools because teaching was considered a temporary job. It is clear that the majorirty of American teachers at that time were not professionals, and students could not have a satisfactory learning experience at schools. The teachers' preparation in colonial times was the same as it was in medieval times, and it did not change until the nineteenth century with the appearance of normal schools this concept which had a positive in the American education system. These schools provided future teachers with teaching skills trough formal training, and some of these schools became prestigious universities of today. However, teachers' preparation still needed improvements. In the first years of the twentieth century, teachers were not considered professionals, and this was in part due to the fact that their level of preparation was not as high as in other careers like lawyers, and doctors, but this situation changed with time because programs to become teacher turned out to be longer, and harder, and universities amplified the number of teaching programs. In the eighties, there are clear attempts to improve teacher preparation. Some prestigious professors from different universities wrote reports criticizing the level of professionalism exhibited by educators at that time, and they suggested some changes to the education system. For example, a group of deans of Harvard called The Holmes Group wrote a report named Tomorrow's Teachers in 1986, and the same year, the Carnegie Forum released its report titled A Nation Prepared. In the 1990s the creation of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) was extremely important. This organization rewards teachers who show great preparation and commitment to students, so it encourages teachers to never stop improving themselves. Nowadays, teachers can obtain their degree and start working in a classroom trough a traditional or an alternative way. The traditional way takes place when future teachers acquire their knowledge by studying and then take their knowledge to practice, and the alternative way happens when teaching students work helping experienced teachers and at the same time they learned through the experience. Probably, the most famous of these alternative programs is Teach for America (TFA) created by a college student in 1990. This organization recruits members to teach in schools with poor resources and schools located in rural areas, and its members are rigurously selected. Then, it is not strange that this program is extensively accepted as one of the best among the alternative programs. However, not everyone has a favorable opinion about TFA. Some people think that recruits of this organization are not well prepared as teachers given the short period they are in the teaching field which is two years, so the students do not receive a good education. These people who do not agree with the program suggest that its members prepare more and stay as teachers a longer period. Teach for America is a controversial program without any doubt. Finally, the education system in the United States has experienced several changes since colonial times, and teachers' preparation has improved along the way, but I think that the education system is still evolving in order to make this countrys teachers more prepared and subsequently the students as well.