MY ENGLISH WORLD! ANDRÉS VEGA A.! UNIVERSIDAD DE TECNOLOGIA EXPERIMENTAL “YACHAY TECH”! ENGLISH L6-007!
TYSON DE MOURA UMBERGER! JULY 25, 2016! URCUQUI!
“To learn a language is to have one more window from which to look at the world.� Chinese Proverb
CONTENTS!
Class Essays!
p. 6-8 Importance of Language in Human Evolution Response Essay
p. 10-14 Approach to a Controversial Culture:Videogames Exploration/ Investigation Essay
p. 16-20 La Vita è Bella Interpretation (Collaborative) Essay
p. 22-26 Censorship is not the way Argumentation Essay
Final Research Project: Esssay!
p. 28-36 Education in Ecuador: The urgent necessity of changing the paradigm.
Yachay, July 14 2016 Andrés Vega Dear reader I hope you enjoy this fascinating history through my learning of English,. My journey across the English started when I was 6 years old. Since then I have continuously prepared to reach a higher level in this language. I have to admit, I've never been a lover regular English language but as the years have passed I realized the importance that can have language in life, both professional and personal. Learning English is a long journey that not only allows you to speak a foreign language, but also allows you to learn from other cultures, such as those who speak English as their mother tongue. From the moment I started in learning this language I have overcome so much, that if today the child was a day had a chance to talk to me now, I would be surprised. Throughout my training school in this language was limited only English I received in the educational institutions s why I went. Later at school I had the opportunity to enter an English course, apart from receiving classes within the school, this made my English will increase much over the level that was handled in my school. In Ecuador, where I lived and studied all my life, it is compulsory teaching English as a second language. During the time of primary and secondary education I had quite easily to learn the language, perhaps this was because the level of English in most educational institutions is not the best. During this time I never saw the need to use English rather than to pass school and college, but as you reach higher levels of education to know the English language is helpful. I have been studying at the University Yachay Tech since 2014 and this has allowed me to have a closer contact with the language. The university in which study aims to promote research and development of technologies, which is a necessary condition for the students meet a certain level of English in order to ease in accessibility of scientific articles written in English it means. In addition to this from the fifth semester classes are taught in English, so learning the language becomes very necessary.
1!
I never considered necessary to master this language, until one day my mother decided to go on vacation to the United States, initially the trip was going to do with my father, but because the failed I had to accompany her. The trip was a great experience for me because I realized for the first time the advantage that might have to learn the language. The level it was at that time allowed me to maintain a fairly fluid communication with the people of that country but also felt I needed to improve my English. After almost a year later carried out a scientific project with my university mate, with whom we became creditors a prize to travel to England to a workshop of entrepreneurship and innovation. By then my language level had greatly improved thanks to the English courses received in college. Within the workshop we did a great job and we became creditors of a recognition by the incubator. This caused the language enthused me now a little more. Now I am in the last level of English and I have the feeling that culminate this will be an important step in my life. When this level began my writing skills were not good enough, the new knowledge and have received reinforcements let me say that although I am not an expert, now I do better than at the beginning. In my first essays during this course was critical as to how to express my ideas, he always left them unfinished or too confusing to be understandable. Now I do much better, I am able to express my ideas more clearly, no longer have to struggle to understand both. I have also improved my oral communication; I can better organize my ideas before expressing them although I still have trouble fitting my oral presentations at certain periods of time. Although I still have a long way to polish and master the language in the end all the work will pay off and allow me to serve better in my studies. Now I invite you to make a brief tour of the work I've made along this course. A small sample of my current language skills and my performance as a writer in this language. Regards Andrés Vega Alcívar
2!
3!
4!
5!
IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE IN HUMAN EVOLUTION.
Importance of language in human evolution. Andrés Vega Alcívar University of experimental technology Yachay Tech 28th April 2016 English L6-007 Tyson De Moura 6!
IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE IN HUMAN EVOLUTION.
Importance of language in human evolution. The world as we know now surely would not be the same without the existence of language. This powerful tool, even now continues helping us to communicate in more simple way our thoughts. This essay analyzes the importance of language in human evolution. What kind of advantages the language gave us, and how important it is in our entire lives. This will be discuss trough three important points that will make emphasis in the advantages and special characteristics that language means. Humanity on top Humans are actually the supreme specie in our planet. Trough the years humans have reached the supremacy in the animal kingdom, but what was this possible. The answer is simple: Language. Language gives humans a definitive advantage over the other species. Language is one of the principal characteristics that distinct us from the rest of species. According to Mark Pagel, 2011 with the creation of the language, there was a boom of creativity and knowledge in our specie. This conduit me to a important question, if any animal would be capable to develop a language at this moment, would it be the beginning of progress for that specie?
7!
The creation of language of a social technology allowed us for first time to work together. Not in the way that species as wolves doing, because now we had the way to understand the ideas of everybody in a better way.
IMPORTANCE OF LANGUAGE IN HUMAN EVOLUTION.
This meant prosperity for our specie. But also I could mean progress for any specie that could have acquired the ability to develop a language. Pagel is very clear expressing that language not only helped us to reach a more complex social construction, but it also contributed to make of us more complex entities. Whit the development of a clear way of communication now primitive humans were capable to organized them to reach common objectives as could be to hunt a mammoth. But this capacity to share ideas not only was to organized, but also to generated knowledge and social learning. Through social learning we were qualified to imitate other’s ideas. This meant we could take benefit from the ideas that we can acquire in our social environment. This constantly acquisition of new ideas resulted in an accumulation of ideas that. This was just the beginning in our way to construct knowledge accessible to all. In conclusion certainly language gives us the definitive advantage over the other species. We constructed efficient cooperative societies. Trough this societies we learnt to transform our environments allowing us to colonize, build and take advantage of every resource that we can imagine. The video that I took as reference to write this essay is by Mark Pagel. I liked the several examples he put, because it illustrated in the best way the ideas he want to explain. I don´t like at the final of him talk when a person make him a question, and he didn´t answer it. He jus answered another related thing.
8!
9!
APPROACH TO A CONTROVERSIAL CULTURE: VIDEOGAMES
Approach to a Controversial Culture: Videogames Andrés Vega Alcívar Universidad De Tecnología Experimental Yachay Tech 28th April 2016 English L6-007 Tyson De Moura 10!
APPROACH TO A CONTROVERSIAL CULTURE: VIDEOGAMES
11!
Approach to a Controversial Culture: Videogames Videogames were conceived as an alternative for entertainment. The industry of videogames has evolved rapidly since 90’s. Improvements in graphics, animation, audio, and development of the argument have caused people consider videogames as the 8th art. Due to the popularity they have reach, videogames are constantly in sight of media. Catalogued by the media, as “full of sexiest and violent themes” videogames are every time more criticized by society. So some questions come to mind: Do the violent content in videogames influence to violent behaviours? Are really videogames bad for children and teenagers? Have videogames become an easy target for society to blame them for much of the existent social problems? The first article, published as “Immediate and Prolonged Effects of Video Game Violence” wrote by Jason L. Deselms and Joanne D. Altman in Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2003. It was chosen because of its title. It reflects precisely the relation between videogames and violent behaviours. According to the article there is a correlation between the charge of violence in a videogame and tolerance to violence in the real life. The importance of this article is that it is a first approach related to the change of the capacity to judge violent actions. As the investigation performed points, play videogames, which contain violence, decrease the sensitivity to violence.
APPROACH TO A CONTROVERSIAL CULTURE: VIDEOGAMES
I found this article very interesting, but not conclusive. I think that the response of an individual to violence depends of the environment in which the individual grew up. For the experiment they divide people into two groups, then there is the possibility that people who played the violent games have hade more tolerance for violence than the other who played normal games. Results could have been different if the same person had been evaluated before playing the games and after them. So this led my investigation to found more tangible researches. In the searching I found an article called “Violent Video Games: The Effects on Youth, and Public Policy Implications� published in 2006, in Handbook of Children, Culture, and Violence. It has been write by Douglas A. Gentile And Craig A. Anderson. This one catches my attention because of the lot of content related to my topic. In this article I can found many references to investigations improved and the past. In this article I have found that the most of the investigations improved were in short terms. According to the authors, the existences of a relation between violent videogames and negative behaviour changes could be very probable. The importance of this article is in the access to analyses improved by experts. These analyses are over distinct kind of investigations in this field.
12!
APPROACH TO A CONTROVERSIAL CULTURE: VIDEOGAMES
I have found this article very useful because it gives me a broad view about investigations in this field. I have found vey interesting the most of investigations are in short terms. Authors affirm that there is not conclusive evidence that led to think videogames could change the behaviour of people. Another interesting thing was this research led me to believe that, if there is really a problem there could be two main cause: One is the lack of parental concern to what their children are doing, and the other is the lack of responsibility from companies who create videogames to generate millionaires amounts of money. Now I had seen the necessity to get a contrast in the way to form my main criterion. The article: “Short History About Videogames” was published in Athenea Digital in 2008 and wrote by Simone Belli and Cristian López. I chose this one because I know Simone; he is an expertise in the psychology field and a fanatic of videogames. In this source I can found information related to the positive aspects of playing videogames. For example they could play an important role in the cognitive development in children. The main importance of this article for this essay is the point of view with respect to the other researches.
13!
According with this article videogames are not only reduced to a way of entertainment, but also they can be applied in a other fields as education, simulation and others. I like also the harsh criticism from authors against media, and they capacity for make little problems the biggest. In the research we can found a top of the best sellers and there is an interesting data, the most of them are titles with nonviolent content.
APPROACH TO A CONTROVERSIAL CULTURE: VIDEOGAMES
In conclusion we could say that the truth behind this topic will remain hidden for some many years. Something that seems interesting to me is the violent behaviours associated with videogames were not only showed in people who play violent games, but also in people who didn`t play this kind of videogames. This suggests that violent behaviour might be rather related to the culture of violence in which we live.
•
References
Deselms, J. L. and Altman, J. D. (2003), Immediate and Prolonged Effects of Videogame Violence. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33: 1553–1563. doi: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.2003.tb01962.x • Belli, S., & Lopez, C. (n.d.). Breve historia de los videojuegos. Retrieved May 18, 2016, from http://www.academia.edu/214747/ Breve_historia_de_los_videojuegos Gentile, D. A., & Anderson, C. A. (n.d.). Violent Video Games: The Effects on • Youth, and Public Policy Implications. Retrieved from http:// ncys.ksu.edu.sa/sites/ncys.ksu.edu.sa/files/Violence 81.pdf
14!
15!
LA VITA È BELLA
La Vita è Bella Adrian Alexander Muriel Sanchez Andrés Paul Vega Alcivar Dayanna Carolina Vera Cedeño Alicia Sofía Venegas Tapia Universidad de Investigación de Tecnología Experimental “Yachay Tech” Tyson Pierce de Moura Umberger June 17, 2016 16!
LA VITA È BELLA
La vita è bella
La vita è bella is an Italian film written, directed, and starring by Roberto Benigni in 1997. The content, message, history, colors, images and mounting of this film is a good explication about the bravery, courage, love, and perseverance of families in front of the different difficult circumstances. It is based on the true experience of Roberto’s father who survived three years as an internee in the German field Bergen-Belsen. This movie won three Oscar prizes: for the best soundtrack, best actor, and best foreign film. The director was born on October 27, 1952 in Toscana, Italy. He is married with Nicoletta Braschi, his costar in this movie. This film is about a family who suffer the atrocities committed against Jews when the Nazi army had the power in Europe during the World War II. In this situation, those who were elderly, children or sick were killed. This film causes a deep emotion in the people who watched it, because it showed the true reality that Jewish people suffered in that time; but it also shows that even in the worst circumstances there could always be a spark of light brightening the path in front of us. The main protagonists are Guido, his wife Dora and his son Giosue. As the film progresses the prospect of happiness changes because Guido, who was of Jewish origin, was captured along with his son by Germans and were taken to a concentration camp, likewise his wife who was not Jew decided to join them voluntarily. Thus Guido’s performance is based on their attitudes, his mood, ie good humor that he expresses, and especially is based in the imagination. Imagination that he uses for prevent that his child realize about reality to which they were exposed. For this reason Giosue relate this experience simply as a game, instead of an experience of suffering.
17!
LA VITA Ăˆ BELLA
On the other hand Dora's performance shows a brave and firmness woman, full of courage facing decisions, her participation is essential to complement the actions and reactions of Guido. Likewise, Giosue during the film is expressed as a strong child despite his young age he never cried. He also has in mind to win the game, that his father built with a lot of creativity, to become creditor of a prize. The performance of Giosue depends on the script of Guido, the father, as his mood determines the development, the role of Giosue. Guido helped to his son to form his will. The location used for this film was Italy, but even when this is an Italian movie the reason is that Italian towns represent families’ love and harmony. For example, narrow and long streets represent the union between families along problems. This streets are made of cobbles that represent how people can fit in a specific place making stronger to their families. A crowded square means people interacting between them without discrimination. Consequently, Arezzo was selected because Roberto Benigni was born nearby, in Castiglion Fiorentino. As the story continues, the sceneries turns more closed. This change represents the oppression that the characters were experiencing, sadness and violence. Closed rooms with lots of people this time do not mean union, mean desperation. In the end, the sceneries change again. This time all begins once more, and the colorful and bright landscapes represents freedom. The highway which they escape through express a change of position, a new revival for their stories and strongly contrast with the concentration camp scenarios. The film can be separated in two parts by the tragic fact that mean for the Jews being taken to concentration camps. In the first part dress stands out as typical dress of the 40s in Europe. The clothes had distinguished
18!
LA VITA Ăˆ BELLA
appearance and were very elegant. Due to the wide variety of garments that were used at the time a lot of fabric for clothing was needed, which resulted in a relatively higher cost for clothes than in the past. Often dress could be a clear marker of social status that a person possessed. Making a comparison between Guido and Dora. Guido seems to belong to a lower because despite dress up seems always use the same costumes. On the contrary Dora always used a large set of varied and elegant clothes so that seems to belong to a higher social status. This fact is confirmed because her family lives in a luxurious house and rub shoulders with important people of that time. Later the soldiers, who wear military uniforms consisting of green pants, boots, a big belt and helmets appeared and became the devil dress for Jews. In the camps all of the prisoners are stripped of their clothing and their new uniforms identify them as prisoners. These uniforms consist of striped shirts, trousers and caps, and black shoes. These uniforms would become a synonymous for the suffering and agony that the prisoners had to endure during their stay in the camps. In the film there is a variety of colors due to the number of places where the film takes place. However, we can highlight three basic sets of colors that are: gray, sepia and yellow. Yellow colors are more vivid would be related to feelings of happiness and ecstasy that live in the film. The gray colors give contrast to the film, showing a much more raw and sad scenes, as when children and the elderly are taken to the gas chambers to be killed. The sepia colors are a representation of the most tension moments of the film, in which despair lives, as in the scene in which Giosue escapes from the room and he was in constant danger of being discovered. The work done with the colors is magnificent because it manages to contrast the big and small moments of happiness with what is a tragic story.
19!
LA VITA È BELLA
The author of this film from tries to convey a message of hope, faith, will and strength. A message that represented by Guido, one of the protagonists, as it is strong and optimistic throughout the development of the film despite the circumstances experienced. Throughout the work, these characters find a way to color even the darkest moments as a reminder that life is beautiful. Landscapes, colors and the mounting of this film express strong feelings that allow people to protect their loved ones.
•
• •
• •
•
References Berkow, Jordan. Kissel, Adam ed. (2007, July) .Life is beautiful summary and analysis. GradeSaver. Retrieved from http://www.gradesaver.com/life-is-beautiful/study-guide/summary-part-i Berzi, Amira. (2000). One of the best movies ever. La vita è bella. IMDb. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118799/?ref_=nv_sr_1 Farless, B. (2013, June 17). Why Life is not Beautiful in Life is Beautiful: Holocaust in Film [Web blog comment].Retrieved from http://www.bradleyfarless.com/why-life-is-not-beautiful-in-life-is-beautifulholocaust-in-film/ N.N. (2000). Roberto Benigini. Biography. IMDb. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000905/bio N.N. [SweetLadyOfSorrow]. (February 16, 2009). La vita è bella - Life is Beautiful (movietrailer). [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sehrSAw0r4r Wikipedia. (2016, June 2). Arezzo. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arezzo
20!
21!
CENSORSHIP IS NOT THE WAY
Censorship is not the way Andrés Vega Alcívar University of experimental technology “Yachay Tech” 28th April 2016 English L6-007 Tyson De Moura
22!
CENSORSHIP IS NOT THE WAY
Censorship is not the way It is important to take into account what censorship in. According to Petress K, ”it is defined as the forbidding, blocking, limiting, or obstructing access to information for whatever reason.” Censorship in many some cases can be good avoiding harming someone, but if the censorship only tries to avoid the access to some information just for personal or group interests without the objective of protecting the people, but for his or their benefits, it is not correct. It is because of the explained before that we have to understand that censorship is to protect people from extreme harmful content. Censorship of class materials in schools is not good, because there are specialized professionals who can explain some controversial contexts in which it was used to avoid harming someone. In schools, we have teachers and qualified personnel who are directing the education of our children, As Petress mentions in the article, in some cases censorship can provoke the censored content to catch the attention of children, and search the avoided content by themselves. This not only generates the opposite effect of avoiding access to the content, but it also can result in dangerous situations because the child who is accessing that forbidden content does not have the supervision of an adult who can guide him. An example of this can be the Yellow Medicine East School District, described in Petress article, in which the MCLU argued to the board that “… educators should use the offensive content in the book as an opportunity to discuss the pervasive nature of racism…” If we analyze the citation and give
23!
CENSORSHIP IS NOT THE WAY
access to children to controversial content, using it explain to them why the information is good or bad. This can result better for the children’s education, than only censor a book. It is important to have in mind controversial topics are part of our society and we have to confront this reality, in any moment children could have contact with them, so it is better to help children to understand it, instead let them do it by themselves. One clear example of censorship used not avoiding some one getting harmed, but just to satisfy the personal interests of some others is mentioned in the article as Tinker v. Des Moines School District. In this example, three teenagers wear black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War and supporting senator Kennedy who had promised to extend a truce in the war. Everyone who joined them were punished by school administrators. Hear school administrators not only attempted against the rights of the teenagers to express their own ideas, but they punished the students without a valid justification that proves they had harmed anybody. What I am trying to say is censorship just to avoid the discomfort of someone’s viewpoint should not be allowed. We can think in other cases where contents can result or not appropriately depending on the point of view of each individual. According to Petress, there is a significant issue in relation with the mentioned. Over the years there can be a number of groups of
24!
CENSORSHIP IS NOT THE WAY
parents, schools administrators, and teachers who consider a book as inappropriate, and then after another group caves can consider it as appropriate. This is an example that took place in Ohio in 1972 when the board of education refused to approve a book, citing it as being “adult oriented’, and decided to remove these bolo from library shelves. Some families were not happy with the decision and claim the authorities’ decision as an unconstitutional. In this case, two different points of view, the decision of the court to first agree with the decision of the board, but then when The US Court of Appeals of the sixth circuit amended the lower court’s ruling, changing the decision to support families that were against the decision of the board. In some cases, censorship can intend to avoid herm to students as in the case described in the article of the boulder valley school district, where a racial experiment using dolls was presented as an option for a science project by a third grader. In this case, censorship was not necessary to use to avoid problems, it was used to avid the job of teachers to direct the project in a way in which it could be explained to reflect racial societal problems. In conclusion, censorship it's not always applied to prohibit certain kind of content, like the examples listed above, teachers use censorship to avoid the sensitive topics such as racism and different social problems which need to be addressed. It's important that children learn about this type of problems because it's part of life and they need to know that racism,
25!
CENSORSHIP IS NOT THE WAY
for example, it's not Ok despite the different believes people may have. This type of education can prevent many disasters such as shootings in schools, which is very common in the USA. It's important to explain why the censorship it's applied, because once people know why it's prohibited they will understand it and respect it. Finally censorship should be applied only if it's explained why, therefore sensitive topics will be addressed and it would make sense to everyone.
26!
27!
28!
29!
EDUCATION IN ECUADOR: THE URGENT NECESSITY OF CHANGING THE PARADIGM.
Education in Ecuador: The urgent necessity of changing the paradigm. Andrés Vega Alcívar Universidad de Tecnología Experimental “Yachay Tech” July 8, 2016 English L6-007 Tyson De Moura 30!
EDUCATION IN ECUADOR: THE URGENT NECESSITY OF CHANGING THE PARADIGM.
Education in ecuador: the urgent necessity of changing the paradigm.
31!
Education is one of the factors that most influences the advancement and progress of individuals and societies. Whether you are looking to achieve better levels of social welfare and economic growth, or expanding opportunities and raising the cultural conditions of people, education is the tool to carry out these objectives. In modern economies around the world, knowledge is considered the main key to development, because according to studies by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an additional year of schooling increases the per capita GDP of a country by 4% and 7%. For education to meet development purposes it is necessary to generate a change in the current educational systems. This change involves not only ensuring access to education for all people, but also redesign the academic model. Education system must be reformed to fit the needs of each country and form individuals with the ability to participate in the development process of the nation.  Despite the efforts that have been made in many countries in education, most of them overlooked the need to evaluate the current education system and rephrase so it is better to the reality of each country setting so that it contributes to their developmental goals. This is such the case of Ecuador, in the current capital and efforts are invested in order to provide access to education to the entire population. However, they have not considered changes in the educational system is a concern. But why is there a need to rethink the education system? Ecuador continues to manage the education system for several decades. The problem is that the model is based on memorization of content, i.e. the ability of a person to store information instead of focusing on the ability of the person to do something useful with the acquired knowledge is evaluated. Another problem centers on students’ excess over the number of teachers, it is easy to find cases where a single school or college teacher teaches a number of upto 50 students at a time in one class. This is a problem because not only does thread lags the learning problem, but also not to discover and exploit the abilities of each individual. It is for this reason that it is necessary to consider certain priorities in the field of education so that they can be applied in the Ecuadorian education system in order to improve the quality of education.
EDUCATION IN ECUADOR: THE URGENT NECESSITY OF CHANGING THE PARADIGM.
Some examples of educational reforms can be taken from developed countries. According to Sahlberg (2007), “the Finnish education system has become an attractive and internationally examined example of a well-performing system that successfully combines quality with widespread equity and social cohesion through reasonable public financing.” (p. 147). Contrary to the worldwide trends in education, Finland has redesigned the education system following their own ideas. As Sahlberg discusses in the article, global education reform trends are based into three principal aspects: (1) standardization of the education, (2) increased focus on literacy and numeracy, and (3) consequential accountability (built over standardized testing as the main criteria of success). Some people could think these policies are good, but stop and think for a while, citing Einstein’s phrase: “if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid”. The main reason behind the Finnish approach has become a referent it is because they encourage teacher and students to try new ideas and methods, learn through innovations, and cultivate creativity in schools, while respecting schools’ pedagogic legacies. What this model intends is to educate individuals with diverse developed skills that could achieve the goals for development of countries. Since the 1980s education policies have been rethought, the result is a successful model of education which focuses its efforts to improve children’s skills to fit the country necessities. According to Sahlberg these policies are: 1.
Flexibility and loose of standards: Building on existing good practices and innovations in school-based curriculum development, setting of learning targets and networking through steering by information and support.
2.
Broad learning combined with creativity: Teaching and learning focus on deep and broad learning giving equal value to all aspects of an individual’s growth of personality, moral, creativity, knowledge and skills.
32!
EDUCATION IN ECUADOR: THE URGENT NECESSITY OF CHANGING THE PARADIGM.
3.
Intelligent accountability with trust-based professionalism: Adoption of intelligent accountability policies and gradual building of a culture of trust within the education system that values teachers’ and headmasters’ professionalism in judging what is best for students and in reporting their learning progress. These policies can and should be applied to Ecuador. Currently Ecuador’s government is focusing on changing the productive matrix. Becoming a developed country founded in culture, and becoming a service and products producer country instead of being an exporter of raw materials are the main purposes of the current government. These goals could be achieved by generating a new generation educated under the proposed policies mentioned previously. Another current problem with education as Robinson (2010) argues, is “countries which are reforming education are trying to meet the future by doing what they did in the past. “Until not many years ago, the most common and effective for one person was learning to do something good and devote to it the rest of his life”. Education was directed therefore toward that end: to teach people a specialty to which to devote the rest of his life. However after three centuries, the situation has changed. To succeed in this, an organization must be dynamic, fluid, without walls dividing it into sections. It must be formed by a team of people, open, with synergies and connections in all directions, something like what happens in a brain where synaptic connections more and more directions, the better. We need a society of active people, a society of changemakers.
33!
According to Robinson: “We are getting our children through education by anaesthetizing them. And I think we should be doing the exact opposite… we should be waking them up to what they have inside of themselves.” To address this situation, it is imperative that citizens are active, able to innovate, to create answers to new problems, to empathize and know how to lead people situations. That is what a 'Changemaker' is. But to be a Changemaker, you have to learn and master these skills from a young age, and for it to have an essential basis: empathy. Today it is essential that every child, how much smaller the better, learn and practice empathy in action. Empathy focused on improving things.
EDUCATION IN ECUADOR: THE URGENT NECESSITY OF CHANGING THE PARADIGM.
Children should understand what is empathy, know how to identify and practice it daily: when they play, when they are in class when they are at home. It goes beyond empathy misunderstood "I can feel your pain," which is actually "sympathy", and even elephants have it. It is an empathy in which you feel what happens to the other, and act accordingly. It is, in fact, a very complex skill. It requires that we look at ourselves understanding all around us. In the future we will do more and more, better, and faster, and not only in stable contexts (family, work, friends), but also in changing and interrelated contexts. Empathy becomes a very important thing because according to Robinson, “we have to recognize that most great learning happens in groups, that collaboration is the stuff of growth.” The most difficult part in this process could be to raise awareness in the people to start the change. Changes can always generate some controversy within society, because we are beings with a tendency to resist change. Whether because some people think it is better to keep things as they are, even if they do not work very well, or the fear of leaving this comfort zone in which someone can be found. Change creates opposition and even more if what you want is to completely transform something that is already determined. In Ecuador, since the arrival of the current government of Rafael Correa, several changes have been instituted in education. The closure of substandard universities, the requirements for a person to serve as teachers, creation of new universities, these are just some examples of the changes that have generated much controversy in the country. Despite representing changes designed to correct and better the quality of the current education system, they have become the center of criticism in Ecuador. There are people who think that all these changes are nothing more than a waste of money and do not achieve anything. Many people advise that the education in Ecuador already works and changes or reforms are not required. There are even citizens who think that it is necessary to eliminate the changes that have been made and reallocate resources to more valuable works. Thus, the question we are left with, then is it really necessary to completely change the educational system in Ecuador?
34!
EDUCATION IN ECUADOR: THE URGENT NECESSITY OF CHANGING THE PARADIGM.
The fact that someone thinks that something is good as it is, does not mean it's right. In Ecuador, there are many shortcomings in which education is concerned. If we keep thinking about working on the same basis and improve little things, we are then destined to keep falling into the same old mistakes, as continuing memorizing instead of learning, or only teach our people to learn and not apply this knowledge. If we completely restructure the education system, then we have the opportunity to not only improve certain aspects, but to propose a new system that is totally better than the last. Starting from the elementary education level would be the most ideal, this way you get to train people with more functional capabilities such as reasoning and the ability to be self-taught, for example. In conclusion, such a radical change is in no way a bad thing if this is intended to improve important aspects within a society, as it is in the case of education. We cannot sit idly by, and still stay out of the theme. If we want a better country, more developed and better opportunities, we must start from the most essential things such as education. It is not enough to guarantee the access of education to everybody, It is also necessary to reform education in a way that allows to develop the capacities of each human being, without neglecting the importance of learning to work together to achieve important goals, as it is to make Ecuador a better country. Changing the paradigm of education is necessary and urgent, but it is also possible. We know how. We just need to make it happen. Together, everyone can change Ecuador.
35!
EDUCATION IN ECUADOR: THE URGENT NECESSITY OF CHANGING THE PARADIGM.
• •
References Sahlberg, P. (2007). Education policies for raising student learning: The Finnish approach. Journal of Educational Policy, 22(2), 147-171. Doi: 10.1080/02680930601158919 K. Robinson. (2010, October). Changing education paradigms. [video file] Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms
36!
Thanks I take this opportunity to thank infinitely all those who have helped to polish my writing skills in English . I especially want to emphasize two people who have marked my learning, Pamila Florea and Tyson de Moura , who with their invaluable help and comments helped immensely successful enrich my communication through this language. I also thank all colleagues who shared class with me , and that made this trip much more enjoyable . Without them it had not been possible to reach this longawaited goal.