Learn Another Language

... before we say good bye until next year...

Thanks to everyone... See you next year...

Last “Good Bye”

"When Rita says culture is a 'way of living', she latches on to a really important fact about how people live. That's what 'education' is really about - finding things out and having 'meaning' in your life as a result."

Throughout the whole year we have been discussing several issues. In different situations we could identify ourselves either with Frank or Rita.

We have been defending a multicultural classroom, and that was the issue I found more difficult to apply in my life, until the moment I realize that I must have been that difficult to Frank as well. He didn't expect somebody with a different way of living to teach him what education is about. What gave meaning to frank life was the new "culture" as the crystal that shapes the way he sees reality. I was not expecting to learn from others (I tend to stereotype people), I thought my culture to be THE culture; however, I've learnt through this year that we can and will lean from others (TEACHERS and STUDENTS). Hope you could all learn as much as I did through our discussions. It is our choice to keep on sharing. I choose to share it with all of you!!!!! Thanks for choosing sharing your thoughts with me.

Programme of study (Suffer due to Education?)

Have you ever stopped for a moment and analyzed whether we gain or we suffer due to the changes we experience in our teaching-learning process. To me, not only do we gain a lot, but also it is a rewarding process. Helping others in their process of growing and growing ourselves due to the tools that education gives us is one of the most wonderful experiences as human beings.

Now, what about Rita? According to the view of different characters throughout the play we can say that she has gained a lot and also suffered a lot. For instance, no matter whether e agree or not with the "old" Rita, she had a life and a social background that surrounded her; while this new Rita is on her own, she had left her husband and she is now trying to meet new people. However, at the very beginning of the play she states that she wants to know everything and now that she has been through several things she has learnt a lot of those things. Would she be the same without suffering for Trish almost killing herself or "proper" students mocking at her?

Education as a process has its ups and downs, as everything in life we need from those "downs" to learn even more. I guess that Rita discovers that at the end of the play, and that's why she comes back to THANK HER TECAHER after all.

Programme of study (Cultural Clash)

As far as we have been discussing, we can agree on the fact that each human being has his/her own culture and each group of individuals has its own culture too, that is the complement among different individual cultures.
Whenever two different cultures interact there must be a clash, it can be a melting pot, where a new homogeneous culture is born, or a salad bowl, where each of the cultures is identifiable.
In the case of Rita and Frank, it is not an exception. There is a clash since both of them come from different backgrounds and expect different things from life.
After reading the whole play, we can agree on the fact that each of them was of high importance on each other’s life, none of the cultures prevailed over the other and they made several choices according to their new selves.
Let me remain you as clear example of this clash, the discussion Rita and Frank had about the wine and the party.

about Act 2 scenes 6 & 7

We are reaching the end of the play. Have you ever end up a book crying? This was my case. Even if I didn’t expect this ending and I didn’t like it either, I found it really shocking. Could it be the time of the year?
I really don’t know. But let’s see if together we can figure out what our characters had learnt, as well as ourselves. Throughout the play both, Frank and Rita had learnt a lot from each other. But the most important thing she had discovered is that she is free to choose. No matter her social background or society demands she is free to decide. It’s her who says to Frank “Yeh. An’ it might be worthless in the end. But I had a choice. I chose, me. Because of what you’d given me I had a choice.”
Now, if we come to think whether could have been a good title for the play, I personally agree with the idea. He had learnt a lot not only about the teaching profession but about life. He had learnt to value his students’ uniqueness and spontaneity.
Furthermore, Frank gives Rita a dress as a present. He thinks of Rita as an “educated woman”, but here he is thanking all what Rita has done for him. As we could appreciate through the play, he is interested in the woman beyond Rita as a student. We always learn when we are not expecting it. That is what happened to Frank and to all teachers that believing they have nothing else to be give, students surprise them with something new!
Isn’t this the most rewarding profession? Just wondering...  

about Acts 4 & 5

"What's in a name?" she asks. "That which we call a rose, by any other word would smell as sweet" (II.i.85–86). Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare

Name is what determines or distinguishes the nature of a person. It's what identify ourselves and makes us different from each other. No matter how much we change, our name is always there. Changing the name is changing the roots of who we are. However, are we able to change our own essence? In these scenes we are presented with a Rita that is making her best to pretend to be somebody she is not. She has a different attitude and what's more, she speaks with a funny accent, trying to imitate her new friends. She considers herself as "educated" now, but is she truly educated?
As we have been discussing throughout the year, being educated is much more than just being well-read. We, as teachers, should bear that in mind, since we generally tend to forget about the human being's education and foster the student's repetition of content.

As regards as what the whole change generates in Rita, we can infer that she is trying to cope with her new self, a to generalize that she is showing off, but we have to bear in mind that she needs to learn how to live with herself. While reading these scenes I came to think whether she is really conscious of the attitude she is taking "against" Frank, is she really aware that probably she cannot "do it without Frank". Frank has been an important element in the process of awakening to a new life. Is she ready to go ahead without his support? Personally, I don't think so. However, it is important for her to try on her own once and again, she will fail but she will learn in the process.