---THE LAST BLOG--- TOP TEN!

(Prof Janell:  Sorry for not having posted these last blogs before. I thought that we were not supposed to write during the thanksgiving break. I apologize and hope you understand. J)

So this is the last blog. I have to say that I really enjoyed the experience of blogging.  I realized that when you write about some topic, then is easier for you to express your opinions about it. My first blog talked about my first IS 101 Class. I think that for this one it would be nice to make a general reflection about some nice moments of this course. So I made the TOP TEN of the moments that I enjoyed the most of the IS 101 class:

10 – Orange Exceleration: This was a unique experience. I think that this orientation was a great experience to meet new people and break the ice with some other college students. I enjoyed specially the social ice cream in the house of the president Colson and our first speech about procrastination.

9 – Jurassic Park: this was a funny way to start the year. Watching the movie made think about how much my perception has changed since I first saw that movie when I was kid. I remember the popcorn and writing a first paper.

8 – Credo Assignment: I enjoyed this assignment, especially because it made me think and reorganize my beliefs. I think that I would keep that cardboard circle that I made as a reminder of the things that are important for me.

7 – Portrait myself as a learner: This paper was a big challenge for me, but it helped me a lot to understand why it is important to receive an education and specially, what means to be educated.

6 – Barry Schwartz

The piece by Barry Schwartz was really interesting, because after reading made me wonder what is that I am prioritizing, is just grades or in learning? I made further reading about this psychologist and I am really interested in his theories. For example he says that in our modern society we have extremely high expectative of ourselves and that is responsible of modern diseases like depression and eating disorders

http://youtu.be/VO6XEQIsCoM

5 – The Graphic Novel

I loved the Persepolis assignment. I made a comic about the story of my dog Mimi, making this made me not only processed better the death of my doggie, but also made me realize how much I like drawing.

  

4 – The Andromeda Strain

Interesting movie based on the novel of Michael Crichton, we ate pizza courtesy of prof. Wright. Al thought I did not like the ending, I don’t like open endings that much.

3 – The Debate

I enjoyed the debate so much. I loved how we made a good job as a team and I recognize that the opposite group had some strong points too.  And as one of the girls in the other team said: “if the global warming is true at least we going to have warmer winters” haha!

2 – The conference

For my conference about the novel Sphere I decided to make a visual presentation summarizing the plot of the novel. I decided to use paper dolls. I was not sure how that was going to work. But at the end I think people liked it and I feel god for having tried something different. I really enjoyed this experience.

1- New Friends

And of course one of the best things of IS101 is that different from all the other classes this has helped to make new friends  with incredible people.

In conclusion IS101 has being a very special class that came exactly in the moment that I needed.  This has being an amazing semester. And of course thank you to my only reader Prof. Wright!

Merry Christmas and I hope you enjoyed my Blog! 

3 months in the USA

Sometimes I forget the fact that I am coming from a different country, and then is when I notice how much I am learning from the United States and this culture.  There are a lot of things that I like and dislike about this country but I can guarantee that the experience is going pretty well so far. Sometimes I can be a little cynic, so now I decided to think in things that I admire from this country and the culture.

One impression that I have about the United States, is that here all the buildings, streets, bridges and the infrastructure in general are of very good quality. Probably this is one of the aspects that have allowed the United States to become one of the most “developed” nations in the world. In Costa Rica for example, the authorities have spent a big portion of the budget investing in repair damaged schools, buying new facilities, patching the streets, and this is mainly because, the government have a very short term vision, so they buy what is cheaper, but not what is of better quality. The result is that they are constantly replacing and fixing everything. Here in the United States you rarely find a patch in the highroad, because they are made of better materials and quality.

Another thing that I admire is that people, is more coordinated. For instance if you set a meeting with someone at a certain hour, you are going to see that this person will be on time. But in my country people take things in a more easy way, so you set a time, but you always know that the reality is that you are really going to meet that someone ten or twenty minutes later. It is true that people live less stressed, but sometimes the lack of the value of punctuality can make that everything moves slow.

Third, I have perceived that people in this town, Waverly, trust more in other people. For example their houses are pretty open, they mail boxes are in the sidewalk, the store has less security guards. I think that this is something very valuable. I guess is because they do not high crime rates like in other countries. But at the same time, I believe that when you trust in people they feel happier and act in a more responsible way.

I still need to know more about this country, and of course I cannot generalize, but those were some good impression that I have of this place.

Time travel, Sphere and God Will

After reading the novel “Sphere” by Michael Crichton I been thinking and imagining what would happen if we someday have to opportunity to travel in time.  This will be probably something very risky. Just imagine that if today someone from the future comes, this someone will be at the same time affecting the future, which is normally his or her present. 

Some people say that in the future they would discover the technology to make people travel on time. But so far we haven’t seen anyone from the future visiting us, which means that probably this will never happen. Or maybe the technology is going to be invented, but those  with the power for using it, will be so concern about interrupting the delicate equilibrium of time, that they would be extremely precautious in not been seen by anyone. And in fact, some of the fans and researchers of paranormal events say that some of our photographs and videos of OVNIs are in fact those spacecrafts from the future incidentally being capture by someone, but the impact on the equilibrium of time is so small that it is not important to fix these mistakes.

If I would have the chance to go back to the past, probably I will try to do something altruistic, like killing Adolf Hittler before he started killing other people, or avoiding the colonizers to kill the natives in the Americas,  or calling the army some days before the 9/11. But we don’t know why things happen.  We do not know what God really want for us and for humanity, so sometimes, even we cannot explain what things happened, we need to learn that what we cannot control is God Will.

In the novel Sphere, the protagonists encountered a spacecraft, they initially though that this was some kind of alien object, but finally they came with the theory that this was in fact an American spacecraft from the future.

 Probably the most interesting part of the book is seeing how the characters got psychologically instable, even thought they were considered brilliant minds, this is probably one of Crichton messages, humans are so primitive for having a power like this.

Capitalism Self Destruction

Many people think that communism is death. They assume this after the nineties with the dissolution of the Sovietic Union. However, currents events are supporting what Karl Marx predicted many years ago. The Capitalist system is going to eventually collapse.

If we see what is happening know in the United States we will notice that there is an enormous debt that is growing and growing and now is more than a trillion dollars ($1000000000000). This country also just faced an economic crisis and some experts are predicting more crisis like this one in the future. Also, many of the good values in this society are getting lost; everyday irresponsible consumption becomes a bigger component of the modern American Lifestyle. We tend to think that capitalism is making us freer. However I disagree with this assumption, people now have to work more and more in order to pay their debts. Some people have to sell all their goods in order to get medical care, because the insurance companies have denied helping them. We are not freer, we are slaves of the money and just small and greedy elite is enjoying of most of the wealth in the country. So, is capitalism really a good think? I don´t think so.

Marx predicted that the workers would eventually rise against the bourgeoisie and will look for a system more similar to communism. And this is exactly what is happening now. The occupy movement has raised the interest in one of the issues that we tend to see as normal in the past. Only 20% of the population in the USA is enjoying of 80% of the money. Many people is joining and supporting this movement. While the rest of the people have to conform witj living as slaves of an oppressor system, fooled with the idea that with a big effort they would be able to be more like that greedy elite. And the reality is that is not happening. They believe that this system increase the hard work, when what really does is to keep the masses fooled and generating the benefits enjoyed by the elite.

And what I found even more stupid, is that some people insist in saying that this inequality is normal. Probably if you distribute all the money, some people will start to accumulate more than others again, but of course this does not work like that. This can happen because there has been an unequal distribution of opportunities. For instance, for a college graduate will be easier to make money than for someone who didn’t had that opportunity. I will take years to guarantee equal opportunities to all the population. Then money will start losing its value as status provider. And one day money would stop being our motivation for everything what we do. And our motivation will be to enjoy this life and develop our human potential, instead of a desperately search for accumulation of money.

Capitalism success was given the fact that it can move faster that communism, but the fact that it can move faster does not means that is the best thing. 

How bad are Stereotypes in the media

I was thinking that most of my life I have believed in the assumption that stereotypes are always wrong and that they produce a big damage to society and to victim groups. But then I realized that this might not be always true. Stereotypes under certain circumstances can lead to a better understanding of other cultures and groups when there is no a previous idea about them. Actually, I think that what is bad, is not the stereotypes, it is actually the fact that some people do not have the ability to analyze them. Some people start believing that stereotypes are true, but when they found someone coming from a different background victim of any kind of stereotypes, they soon realize that the stereotypes were not true. I think that is actually very few people who insist in stereotyping. Keeping stereotypes just mean to me ignorance given the lack of contact with different groups of people. There are also many who will interiorize the stereotype and start behaving in a way according to the stereotype of their ethnic, religious or gender identity and this is because of the lack of critical analysis in people.

So, what are the benefits of stereotypes in the media? If we train our critical thinking we would be able to learn from the stereotypes portrayed in the media, avoiding making generalization, but seeing what values an cultural elements of a group can be identified, and the improving our knowledge about the identity of the group. Probably one of the cases of stereotyping that I remember the most is the case of Speedy Gonzales. This is one animated character of a Mexican mouse created by the Warner Brothers. He is always wearing a Mexican folkloric hat and saying Spanish phrases.  Speedy is clearly a stereotype of Mexicans who live in the border locations like Tijuana and for some fans of the political correctness might result offensive. However, Speedy had a great impact in divulging cultural elements of the Mexican society. Probably after this animated cartoon many American are able to tell how the national costume of Mexico looks like.

Evolution and Faith

Today during the biology class we had a special guest speaker. Dr. Brian Jones from the religion department talked about why he as Christian accepts Darwin´s theory of evolution, even some people may argue that there is a conflict between these two. He began his speech giving an explanation of what is the theory of evolution. He focused specially in the evidence that supports evolution, like the artificial breeding of dogs and the finding of vestigial organs in different species. Then, he started saying that one of the reasons of why he accepts this theory is because there are many scientific fields of study that support this, like paleontology, archaeology and off course biology and the he presented more argument to support his thesis.

Dr. Jones speech was interesting. However most of what he said was not something that I haven’t heard before.  For me it is clear that we cannot accept the literal meaning of the bible and that this book should be seen according to the epoch and context from it came. I believe that seeing what the bible says as an absolute truth is as “bad” as trying to explain all our existence based on the evolution theory. But as humans we have a tendency to “go to the poles” in a binominal way of think. This means that we tend to believe only reality is one element or the other failing in recognize how there may be an intermediate between both of them. It is always YES or NOT, BLACK or WHITE, GOD or SCIENCE. We cannot explain why we are here based only on one of these perceptions. I believe that as humans we have a lot of gifts that it is just impossible so many favorable coincidences, there is something else out there.  I also think that the scientists who argue against the existence of God are really wasting their time; there are mysteries that science cannot explain and probably is never going to explain. Is not about duality, is about making our own connections and creating our own perception.

State of Fear and a reflection about global warming

I must admit that for the last reading quiz about State of Fear I did not feel enough confident, probably because at that moment I was just a few pages to finish the first chapter (Akamai). At the beginning it was difficult for me to understand what was really happening in the book. I felt that they were so man they were so many characters and places.   However I been reading the book this weekend and I am starting to feel interested about it. What I am enjoying more about the novel is that Michael Crichton shows much evidence that make you doubt about how real is the theory of the global warming. Some part of the novel seems more Crichton trying to persuade the reader to consider different points of view about the topic of global warming. I think that Crichton represents himself with the character of Kennel, because this is the character that represents the skepticism.

I think that Crichton has a point with that we should be more critic and analytic of all the information that we receive, however, the fact that the global warming is not something completely certain, does not means that we should sit and relax because all that is not true. The scientists have a concept named the precaution principle, this means that when there is something that seems to be affecting people or the environment in some way, those affected need to provide evidnce that there is a relation with X activity and Y effect, while those who actually perform the activity, need to show evidence that there is no relation between X activity and Y effect. But the most important thing of the precautionary principle is that the lack of full scientific evidence does not mean that the measures to protect the environment from a serious threat should not be done.

Crichton says that many “crisis” of the past were fake or not that serious and that might be true. But in the case of global warming we are risking the equilibrium of the earth. The discrepancy between scientists makes this like a playing with dice. We need to something.  If the global warming turn to be rejected theory, we cannot feel bad, because many of the changes that we need to do to reduce our greenhouse gases, are changes that will still benefit us in a certain way. 

The Green Lifestyle

Many times I have asked myself this question: Why is important to live a green lifestyle? When you think about how all the system is made in such a way that you are always tempted to waste energy and resources, living a green lifestyle is a big challenge and sometimes a big sacrifice. Therefore, it is important to understand why it is necessary.  Many people will argue that in order to beat the environmental degradation the changes need to come from the government and big companies, because individual lifestyles cannot make a big difference. However I think that people who live green lifestyles have a bigger impact on the world, more than just smaller carbon footprint or water consumption. When someone is brave enough to go against the status quo and adopt new habits, they influence people on their surroundings and show that it is actually possible.

Two years ago I decided to become vegetarian, which means that I do not eat any meat or chicken. For me not eating this kind of food is not a big challenge, actually I enjoy more other types of meal in my dish. But what I have found really challenging is how other people react towards my vegetarianism. For instance, when someone invites me to eat, I have to first tell this person that I am not going to eat the meat. Most of the times people gets worried because they feel I am not going to be satisfied with the other thing for eating. That is very annoying because I don’t like them to worry.   However I feel that every day many people are becoming vegetarian. I believe that vegetarianism is one of the best ways to be more consistent with the environment. When people ask me why I am vegetarian I have the chance to tell them that meat production is one of the most pollution producers industries. With the calories required to feed a cow or pig many people could be directly feed and also the way that animals are raised is cruel and non-hygienic.  

I don’t like to say that just because I decided to adopt vegetarianism I am a green person. Actually I believe that I still have many things to change. However I know that these changes have influenced my family and friends.

The occupy wall st.

Recently, the newspapers have been publishing more and more information about the Occupy Wall St. movement. I find this movement really interesting, but what I find even more interesting is how this has been gradually growing. At the beginning, it was only a few manifestations in some big cities of the country. Now, people all around the United States are joining together to support this movement. A few days ago I was walking outside the Mensa and I saw a poster endorsing the Occupy Cedar Valley, which means that even in Waverly we are getting the influence of Occupy Wall St. Cool!

They are asking for a change in the government that during history has been giving a lot of benefits to the big banks and corporations, which they remark as responsible of the big debt in the economy of the country. Thus people are manifesting in different ways. I read a journal that says that one million Americans have recently closed their accounts with the big banks and moved to a credit union. For these banks, losing a million customers may not sound good at all.

They also complain to a bigger issue behind the debt crisis, the fact that only 1% of the population in the United States manages most of the money of the country, while the other 99% has to share a smaller wealth.

It is very exciting for me to see what is going to happen in relation with the Occupy Wall St movement. I personally hope that they can be able to make a change in this society, where the unequal distribution of the wealth can only be described as cruel and greedy. Especially when we know that the 1% that has all that wealth has produced it in an unfair way and by making some many other people suffer.   Like the insurance companies, that gives coverage to people based on their convenience, or the big banks that create fees in their costumers account when they like.

My Trip to Clarksville

Two months ago I started to feel an annoying sensibility in my teeth. Every time I ate something cold or hot it hurt. That is when I started to think that I probably had a cavity. I talked with many people about what was the best option for a dentist. It seems that the best was the “People Health Clinic” in a small town named “Clarksville”, because they have financial aid for people without a dental insurance.

The first time that I went there, the advisor of the International Students, Kevin Roiseland gave me a ride to there. After the X-rays, they told me that I did have a cavity and they gave another appointment for the treatment.

For this second meeting I tried to find a ride, because Clarksville is at 13 miles from Waverly. But the appointment was quite early on a Tuesday, so there were not many people who could give me a ride.

I decided to go by bicycle. Some people told me that Clarksville was so far and that droving a bike to there was not a clever idea. However I had not another option. The day before the appointment, I printed a map in order to avoid the highway route. That day I woke up early, had a good breakfast, and started pedaling to Clarksville.

For a big part of my trip, I got lost. I had not the most remote idea where I was, and I was very close to give up, lose my dental appointment and go back to Wartburg. But when I turned my head I got to see a big signal on the way that said “Clarksville 7 miles”. It was only twenty minutes before my appointment started and I decided to pedal as fast as I could. On my way, I enjoyed the rural sceneries of Iowa, the farms, the cows, the big plantations and the noisy railroad.

A police truck came next to me. The police officer looked at me and said “Hey, where you going”. I explained to him that I was going to Clarksville and he replied “Well, be careful with highway”. Then I continued pedaling. I found a Snickers chocolate on the street, probably because the night before was Halloween.

I got on time to my appointment. They filled the cavity and know I can eat perfectly. When I leave of the dentist office, I told the lady in the desk that I came from Waverly on a bike. Another lady who was sitting there was surprised about that, and she offered me to give me a ride back to Wartburg.

We putted the bike on her car and we had a nice conversation on the way back, she told me about her family and she bought a sandwich in subway for me. I was embarrassed because she and her son (who was also there) were really nice with me.

 I realized how people with just by simple things like giving a ride to someone can make a person really happy. That day I had a significant lesson about solidarity and humbleness.

Bowling Alone, we are becoming selfish.

We read an article written by Robert D. Putnam titled “Bowling Alone: America´s Declining Social Capital.” In his article Pu tnam talked about how the community engagement and the capacity to work together, what he calls Social Capital, was one value that characterized the United States in the past. However, this interaction between people has being declining since the 1960s. He supports his idea by given different statistics of how different kinds of organizations have seen a decline in the number of its members. And he purposes that the reasons of this decline in the Social Capital are possibly related with the movement of women in the labor force, different ethnographic aspect and the role of technology in the American society.

The fact that people is less involved in organization is quite sad, but it is just reflect of how the American society is becoming more selfish every day. Think about how the wealth is distributed in this country, there are small group that have so much money, that they do not know what to do with all that money. While there are people who live poor, dealing with what to eat every day.  
For instance I am now at the Complex Study Lounge. A girl who is sitting next to me made brownies and she is saying to her friend that she does not know what to do with all those brownies. But she did not offer me anything, even I am right next to her. 
One of the main things that Putnam did not mentioned in his article is that this decline in the Social Capital is a result of the big obsession with money.  It made me think about the Social Capital in my home country Costa Rica where, I have observed that in the more poor neighborhoods people interact more with each other, while people who live in the richer neighborhoods live more isolated of the rest of the people.

Also this society is rewarding individual competitively rather than group work. Thus, it is normal that the social cohesion is decreasing. But thats an intersting topic for another blog entry :).

Wartburg College Social Change

In the IS 101 class, we look at different ways that people can contribute to social change.  They gave us a sheet of paper with information where we can see different activities that we can do at Wartburg College in order to contribute to someone’s concept of social change. There are some good suggestions but I hope that the people who received that piece of paper have defined before what is the change that they want, before participating in an activity, just because of doing it. For instance, some people may think that feed starving children is just a short term ineffective solution when the real problem is the bad distribution of resources (I mentioned the waste of food on a past blog entry). Also,   I think that some of the activities suggested in that paper does not contribute to any social change, instead they are just ways to keep the social structure the same. For instance, even though there are people who believe in service as way to improve the world, there are many others who do service as a way to obtain individual benefits.

By looking at the social change wheel, I think that I have done many different types of service through my live, but what I really think has contributed to social change is much less than that. This “Social Change Wheel” gives the feeling to people that just by doing easy things as “follow the student handbook” they are contributing to social change when they are not. Thus people feel happy and comfortable, because they justify their lack of action by believing that they are contributing to social change just by “follow the student handbook”.

With which type of social change I identify myself the most? Since that is a personal preference question I feel free to say that with any of those mentioned in the Wartburg College Social Change wheel. I feel that I still need a lot to do in order to say that I am contributing to social change.

I believe that if we want to see a big change we need big actions and especially big sacrifices in our lives.        

Waste of food

One of the most shocking moments that I experienced since I came to Wartburg College, occurred when I was at my job in the college’s cafeteria and I saw the huge amount of food that was just thrown away. It was not left overs, it was trays full with food that was being thrown away, just because it could not be keep for later. At that moment I felt different sensations. I felt sad to think that nowadays many people in the world would actually eat that food, because they have nothing else to eat. Then I felt disappointed. When I decided to come to Wartburg College, one of the things that made me feel interested about it was the community engagement and service, but all that is contradicted when I saw how that food was thrown away.

I heard that they can just give that food to charity because of the risk of being sued if someone gets sick with food from them. It is all about money.  It makes me sad to think that this is only what I have observed at the cafeteria of one college in the US, I am horrified to think in the amount of food that is being thrown away by all the colleges in the countries. And then it makes me disappointed to think that colleges are supposed to be the places where idealism and different ideas grown, but it seems that many people here is more concerned about their own well.

I hope not to start seeing this waste as normal like many people here does. I know that I am not perfect, but at least I promised myself to eat all what is my plate and I have two years of not eating any kind of meat except for fish.

Really, does that match with the values of the Lutheran or any church? Does that match with the change that we want to see in the world?  

Is that normal?

Two months and my vandalized bike

In only one week, I would have spent two months at Wartburg College. A lot of experiences have happened to me so far, some of them nice but some of them pretty challenging. Living far from home is more difficult that what it though, especially because I have started to feel things that I have never felt before, but the effort is worth considering the good things that I have experienced so many beautiful things.

Since the moment I got inside the plane that was taking me to the US I knew that the only way to make of this a success, would be by keeping a good attitude. So I decided not to let myself think about things like how much I miss home and all that. But now I have understood that I just cannot avoid it, I have to think and talk about these things, because if not, they started to accumulate in my head and suddenly explode. 

I had one specific experience that made me reconsider talking about my feelings, the story of my bike. Once I was walking to Wal-Mart because I decided to buy one specific thing, a bicycle; this idea came to me because at that moment I was feeling that I would like to explore more Waverly by my own. I was at halfway from Wal-Mart when someone in a car sounds the horn. It was Kevin, the president of the international students program here at Wartburg, he offered me to take to Walmart. So when we were on the way to it I told him what I was going to buy. He answered me that he had a used bicycle at a warehouse close to the college, and he offered to borrow it to me. I was very happy, we went to there and he gave me the bicycle. For around twenty days used the bicycle so much. Until one day I woke up and I didn’t found it. Then I looked all around the campus. I found outside the student center, but it was vandalized. For some reason that made me feel so bad, at that moment I just wanted to be in my home, in my country, with my family and friends, I felt so lonely, like if the person who did, (probably someone drunk) wanted to make damage to me. That is the moment when I realized that it was not really what happened with the bike that was making me feel that way.  It took me a couple of days before start feeling better (emotionally), the security people caught the guy who did it, however I don’t know if I am going to get another bike from Kevin, but after that event, I feel that I am more conscious about my feelings here and by expressing them I feel that I can handle them better than just not saying them. I am excited for all what is coming, live and particularly this experience is like a rollercoaster, so I have to enjoy the ride!

Michael Crichton's Speech: information or misinformation

We were watching on the IS101 class a panel where Michael Crichton participated, by the time that he was releasing his book State of Fear. Crichton talked about how the media makes us believe that some events in history were worse or not that worse than they really were. He pointed out the effect that this misinformation may bring negatives effects to society. He referred to the catastrophe of Chernobyl as an example of how different newspapers and studies showed different statistic related to the damages of this accident and he suggested that the magnification of the catastrophe led to  consequences like the decrease in the optimism and self-expectations of the people in Chernobyl. Then he applied that same idea to the environmental field. What would be the effect of not having the accurate information regarding the global warming? Just because scientists support global warming, does that means that is necessarily going to happen? What if yes? What if no?

I think that Dr. Crichton´s speech was a good example of the critical point of view that we all need to have in our lives.  We need to learn to be skeptic when we read the journal front pages or see the CNN or Fox News, knowing that their information may not be real and that they can be a tool that people in power use to manipulate the ideas of the population.

So what can we believe on? I am convinced that when something happen the first information released is the less accurate. A modern example is the tragic event that occurred in Norway some months ago, where the reporter constantly changed the number of victims, at a certain point I remembered when I though the following: “See the power of media, fifty Norwegians died and that was one of the world´s most tragic events, but what about the people who died every die because of terrorism in the middle east, and by terrorism I don’t mean only Osama and their internal conflicts, but the terrorism generated by the US army, where with sources like Wikileaks we can have a small idea that how people is being killed”. We need to know that the information that we receive sometimes is not only intended to inform us, but misinform us, manipulate us.  We need to overcome that State of Fear generated by the media and before feeling terrified (if necessary) by something, be sure that we have looked for many different sources. Unfortunately even we tenf to believe that we in the era of the communication, reliable sources are just a few.

Teaching: power and responsability

Paulo Freire is a recognized Brazilian teacher, who has written many works about the modern educational system. We read a piece of him in the IS 101 class, named “The Banking Concept of Education”. I have to recognize that at the beginning it was a little bit hard for me to understand the language that he uses, but I thing that I comprehend most of his points. Freire argues that in the modern educational system there is a big issue concerning the relation between students and teachers. There is a sense of superiority from the educators, where they perceive  students as empty people who have nothing to contribute and that he or she has nothing to learn form them. This attitude is very prejudicial because it limits greatly the creativity and critical thinking of the students, who at the end interiorize this system becoming more alienated and  reproducing it leading to a hardly breakable cycle.      

I think that teachers are one of the most important pieces of society and this means a huge ethical responsibility. They have a big power of influence over their students and they should be aware of this all the time. As physicians have the responsibility of keeping their selves informed all the time about changes and innovation in the medical field, teacher need to keep an attitude of learning all the time.   The challenge for teachers is to assume this open attitude while keeping enough credibility in their students and this in my opinion only come with years of practice.  That why good teachers are so difficult to find, because sometimes the easiest way to teach is the conventional and practice teaching as any other paid job, but those who get to that equilibrium can feel satisfied of the positive impact that they are letting to the world.

Free to learn

We read a piece written by Barry Schwartz named: The Debasing of Education: Turning Play into Work. I found it really interesting and I definitely agree with many of his arguments; however I feel that many of the points that the author provides area too idealistic and the only way that all that idealism can become reality is by proposing solutions.  He recognizes that we have a big issue with the motivation of students, because the system is made on such a way that extrinsic motivation is fomented rather that the intrinsic motivation. But what is the solution? How can we change? This is the thought part, because without grades and all those elements of the extrinsic motivation how can we guarantee the quality of the learning process and of course the most difficult part is: How can we change such a complex system? Probably the change should start with each one of us. We need to be conscious that we are in a learning process and that if we want to get the most of it, we need to enjoy it. I know that for some people, it sounds ridiculous to pretend, enjoying something that we don’t, but life is full with those kinds of situations, so people who actually have that ability, may have a great advantage. But the most important thing to remember is that having access to a college education, is something that most people in the world do not have, even they would want to, so there are reasons to be happy, enjoy and be grateful with life.