Moving on

It is hard to write this last blog summarizing my experience and where I have been..
As I have been looking at the past blogs through the semester.. I must say WOW.. where was I and where I am heading are two different things. I see, how limited my thinking was. How I had visions that were tied down with tradition, perceptions, oppression, thoughts and many more things. As I have been thinking all day of what to write and listening to one of my favorite songs I ponder on the path I have taken this semester and the choices I made. Some of the things I have learned :

This is my second motto for the semester. No matter what people say, no matter what you think, never ever give up on someone. You would be amazed at the outcome of people whom others don't give up on them. I remember a story an inspirational story about a teacher who never gave up on a boy and how little gestures had turned his life around. When I find it on youtube i'll add it to the blog. 

life is an obscure box, we only get to see the wrapping of one's life, and most of the time, this wrapping is chosen by the person him/her self. No matter what the color of the wrapping is, we will never know the true nature of the person from the inside. thus, I advise that we take time out of our busy schedules and really look deeper into people. 

Letting go was hard for me to do because I am an organizer, i like things planned out. When I let go, i learned a lot. I learned that priorities are more important than deadlines. I learned that treasured time should not be cut short. I learned that things will get done no matter how much you stress for them to get done. 

Well I cannot say that the following is a poem but merely a scribble of thought...that describes the journey I have fathomed. You have to understand, i write free-verse, with no punctuation so everyone can understand it they way they want :) 

the map of life has been torn

its colors have faded

the paper turned yellow

and the edges are wrinkled 

many parts have holes

due to its many folds

many scribbles have been written

notes, names, love letters

is the new life being written

or does this one need tape

do we get one map per life

or do we get spares

or are all of them simply extensions

from the one big thing

i have no answer to give

nor a vision for what's coming

but what i have is much more

a faith a believe a hope

a wish for a better tomorrow

improvement innovation creativity

a strength for change

a wit for knowledge

and most importantly

a big heart for love

Yes, I may not know what tomorrow holds, but I know that at the end of every dark tunnel there is light and with every fall there is victory. One of my favorite inspirational videos of all time is of Derek Redmond. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ9Lek6HMOw 

I learn that when I fall I can always get up and finish my race. Nothing can hinder me from finishing my race if i just believe. 

Beyond Stereotype

In our lives we view people through lenses, we cannot really identify with a person until we are in his/her shoe. What may seem simple and easy to one might not be the same to another. We cannot simply generalize aspects in life or even people. As seen in the picture above, these are some general stereotyping we do on daily basis. We take on piece of knowledge that may or may not be the famous aspect of the country and glorify it to an extend we forget everything else. This is an aspect I personally struggled with being a student and a teacher. We must admit that stepping back and looking at the whole person is something we usually forget to do. Part of my pedagogical philosophy is not never consider the problem at hand, there is always an underlining cause for it. We as humans need to understand the underlying cause and reality. 

As I am thinking about my country Humanity and especially its chosen name, I come to wonder the necessity of such pedagogy, but to achieve that, we need awareness, understanding. My main concern will be how to teach the true values and the essence of knowledge. In another class we have been talking about youth and their voice and how it is not heard. We also talked about how teachers plant and teach seeds for long term reform. Usually when writing policy, people want to see short term plans and goals being achieved but for a nation to change tremendously, I believe long term change needs to be put in the plan. As seen in the picture, we teach kids since a young age certain perceptions, when  you want to get somewhere use a car, instead of imagining or thinking use a computer, to talk to someone you use a phone, to know about other people you watch television, to love someone is to love yourself, God is money and that is your aim to achieve, and most importantly, morals and values are trash that you need to ignore to reach your goals. We might not be saying this to them in words, but we show it through actions. We shouldn't come and complain when we feel our kids are introverts and have no social skills.

When the new generations start to learn about traffic lights, recycling respecting others and accepting differences then they will be raised with those beliefs even if they do not see them happening in their every day life. A story that brought that to my attention when kids in an esteemed school were playing red light green light ( a game where a child says green light everyone runs and when they hear red light they stop in their tracks).. it was noted that many Egyptian kids did not stop when they heard red light. It is not that they did not understand it, or that it is too hard for them, but because their perception is different, no one has taught them to stop at a red light.

Our humanity country has been too traditional so far. After take the trip around the world with the countries from Egypt, Cameroon, Yemen, Nigeria, Singapore, Netherlands, Finland, Canada and all the way to Australia. This very informative trip has opened eyes to understand a crucial underlying way of thought. When we come to plan for reform or policy, look at the needs, investigate, integrate and never ever follow what others are doing. This is simplified in the image I have below and that is what Finland has done, it looked at what is right and followed it and now everyone wants to follow Finland.

I was not surprised when I finally ended up with choosing mentoring as my topic for the final paper. Being a leader I have assumed that role without its title since a young age. You always had to have the heart to help, to offer, to listen, to aid, to support, to redirect and most importantly to let go. A mentor and a leader have a lot in common as I have been reading, characteristic and traits. I am eager to learn more about the application and if it is the same techniques I learned growing up. When I first started to teach, I was never assigned a mentor per say, it was in the records but he/she was never anywhere to be found or helpful. Not even the rest of the teachers were helpful  I had to resort to my own research and understanding. I don't know if it was a lack of trust because I was the new teacher or because of their natural of the job, I never quite understood. That doesn't mean I had to follow their lead :) The idea is so much trial and error would have been saved if someone would have guided me towards the norm. Even if you aren't going to help someone at least point them in the right direction that's always my motto. 

Ups and Downs of Teacher Education

I have discovered that there are many aspects for the up-rise in teacher education. Yes, being a developed country has its benefits, but it's all about the movement. There has to be a whole movement for improvement. In other classes we have been discussing the role of youth in the revolutions that are happening in the world such as in Egypt, Kenya, Uganda, Qatar and so on. It is evident that the important aspect to allow for the revolutions to occur is the movement. In unity there is power; but that is not the only aspect. There has to be a collective power. This includes people, government, political, economical: a compulsory movement. The movement for change has to be a cause that is close to everyone's heart. It has been illustrated that the success Finland and Singapore have achieved is because it was a compulsory movement. Even though Australia, for instance, is considered on the road towards teacher education reform, but in my opinion after the knowledge I got from my classmates regarding their own developed country's teacher education, I believe that still there is a missing link. I learned that if the movement of teacher education is not supported radically by people of power and the people are aware of its importance then the change would not be foreseen. I also learned that focusing on teacher education as a top priority is important because then everything falls back in order. The idea is not just about the teacher educational program but also the undefined system as a whole or in other words the shadow education. By that I am referring to the status, salary, definition of teacher and education. Another aha moment I had was referring to the ease of the system in Finland and Singapore and the main cause for this reform was not to be the best but to actually help reform their education. In doing that they insured that the education the teachers receive is the best there is, which in return reflects on the student's performance. In addition to that, their political and economical efforts have been put in the right place to ensure that those students are actually fit to their society's needs. 

Hand in Hand is all it takes

Hand in Hand is all we need

Place one in the other and together we stand

Stronger than ever and Shine through thee

A song comes to mind by Pink Floyd it is called a brick in the wall

We don't need no education 
We don't need no thought control 
No dark sarcasm in the classroom 
Teachers leave them kids alone 
Hey teacher leave them kids alone 
All in all it's just another brick in the wall 
All in all you're just another brick in the wall 

which is what I have felt is the calling from all developing countries. Children are frustrated, teachers are frustrated and everyone is simply trying to find ends meet. Then if the movement doesn't happen from within the society itself like Koboul mentioned and the government does not have high alerts on the matter as Othman said then there is no hope.

 

developing countries

Congratulations to all my friends for accomplishing seminar 2.

I must say, I was very interested to see all the similarities found between developing countries when it comes to education. I was impressed how if we could simply take out the name of the country and replace it with another developing countries it will not really matter.

I personally was in a catholic christian school called Sacree Coeur where I spend my first years of primary school. For me it was a nightmare because I could not cope with the educational system. I had always felt that it was me to blame for this, for not putting a lot of effort, for not being able to memorize. When I transferred to an international school AIS, it was an eye opener for me. I was actually getting As on my report card. I realized how significant it is to to have an educational system to suit the needs of the students beyond the scope of the curriculum. There are many skills I have acquired from school that I still use today in my masters program.

When I became a teacher, it was my dream to work back at AIS, to give it what it has given me, but after researching I have discovered that since I do not hold an international passport I cannot work there. This presentation has also clarified some questions regarding a few teachers that have crossed my path, especially my IB physics teacher who let one of the bright students explain to us higher level theory of relativity which was part of our curriculum. I remember explicitly that he said, you better find a seat next to Adam Caroline if you want to understand "theory of Relativity." It was a shock to me, and a more vivid shock was when I found out that the next year after I graduated he became our detention disciplinarian and left teaching altogether. This has now been explained on the idea that the qualifications of teachers does not matter in Egypt.

To be honest, I never knew we even had Islamic Schools in Egypt, this was a new piece of information I discovered about my own country :)

I loved Othman's presentation about Yemen with all its images, and I really look forward to visiting it someday.
                                          
I did not understand the relationship between child mutilation and teacher education from Merriam's presentation. For me this topic is horrid and it breaks my heart each time it is spoken of. I was volunteering in a rural area in Egypt as a math, social studies and living values teacher for a group of girls in 1st secondary. When it was time for living values, we discussed hygiene because they only showered once a month due to the lack of water supply to the village then of course the topic of boys got opened. Well two things left me speechless until this day. First, the idea that the entire family lives in one room where everyone has sexual intercourse with anyone and the girl has no say (meaning that the uncle could be living in this house and sleeps with the girl, so does her father and brothers). In addition was their mutilation and how it was a celebration even though they hated it, they kept referring to it to be similar to what boys go through. They had no idea that when that happens to girls its different than boys.

Looking forward to see the differences between developing and developed countries. 

Democracy :)

It really made me laugh. it might be just a cartoon, but this is truly what happens.

Pregnant delivery

I must say, I never felt so pregnant with ideas and thoughts from one source. It took me all week to think of what I want to share with the class, and still while we first started and Dr. Joyanne commenced to ask us what are some of the things we took out from the presentations I was still lost and said the first thing that came to my mind. I must admit that thought is long gone and got mixed by all the other thoughts my classmates shared, but the only thing that remains is love. I strongly believe that love conquers everything. If I love the person in front of me for who they are and I feel no threat from them. What has been going on around the world is the effect of threat that is being felt. People go around with a motto to guard yourself and protect from any harm. This is what they are doing, they guard and push back as strong as they can. Many religions have spoken about unconditional love so I believe we have a clear example of that, but we as humans put restrictions to that claiming it is impossible. If it is not impossible, people make it impossible because when you love unconditionally they hurt you back, thus the feelings of guarding and protecting yourself emerge.

One of my most successful classes which I am still teaching, the same group of kids for the past 3 years is a class that is based on independence. I have reached a mutual understanding with the kids for knowing why they are here, what they need to learn from here and how they can search, and extract knowledge on their own. When that stage was completed now, I am simply a facilitator. In addition to that, I created a bond of love between us all. We care and love for each other to an extend that goes beyond the class. If we want to make a difference then we have to be the difference ourselves. We talk, we argue about reform but we don't reform ourselves. The main question remains, to which extend am I willing to reform myself? For how long will I keep doing that? I believe our main problem is that we have guarded ourselves for so long that we forgot how to open up.

When wanting to teach others about diversity, social justice, equality, reflection, technology we need to step down from our pedestals and get our hands dirty. We like to live in a world of grey, where we can always question and say that what is right and wrong is not really distinguished but it all falls under the umbrella of uncertainty. It helps us to do what we want to do without feeling guilty about it. We like to talk about things but when we hit the reality check button we back off, we stop, we think it over. We might as well get used to being objected to, ridiculed, threatened, because when we decide to really step up and talk about those topics and implement them in reality, people will not like it.

What we are doing in Humanity and our made up countries, is very similar to the story Lord of the Flies, where a bunch of boys got stranded on an island after a shipwreck and they created a society on this island. They came up with laws and ideas which seemed very reasonable, but in the end, it all ended in brutality. What was astonishing is how this ended up being the norm. They forgot what was right and things just went down from there. This is what's happening to society. The idea we need to keep in mind when we are creating Humanity is that how will we deal with corruption, how will we keep those ideologies from being forgotten? People not only need love, but understanding even to those who are fighting against them, the mean ones.


I would like to end with this picture. What we want is to look in the mirror and see things in the correct way, but lets not be fooled into the correct way by taking the short cuts and the fastest and easiest solutions. Dig deep, work hard and don't give up!

had to share it

This is actually what I have been feeling throughout my master degree so far. I feel that the more we dig deeper into understanding the more we realize that the sea is so much more frightening than the reality of it.
I came across this picture on Facebook and it broke into my heart.

those are representatives of the world getting an education. The first one is Arab, second American, third European and fourth African  The teachers asks a questions : "what is your opinion about the lack in food supply to the rest of the world?"
the Arab says: what does "what do you think"mean?
the American says: what does "the rest of the world"mean?
the European says: what does "lack"mean?
the African says: what does "food" mean?

the idea is, we may all be speaking the same language, but unfortunately this is the reality we live in..

just thought of sharing!!

Diversity

This was a topic I was waiting to hear more from...

Coming personally from a very diverse community at home, in school, among my friends and work. It may seem that diversity comes easier to me.
I do accept everyone as they are, and I do acknowledge their differences and gain more understanding and compassion towards them in that way. I strongly believe that there is a difference between understanding diversity and living diversity.

Understanding diversity is when I do know that people are different than me due to their color, race, ethnicity, gender, social class and so on.
But living diversity is a much harder task. I may accept people for being different but to which extend I allow that difference to merge within my norm.

Diversity is like paint spilled with different colors everywhere, could those colors stay away from each other for long or will there be a merging point?

When we decide to live in a world of diversity, then we need to accept that this will sooner or later be merging and that should be accepted not cause conflict.

In another class, we were watching a documentary about Serbia, Yogoslavia and Bosnia and what astonished me was a girl who says that, I live in Bosnia but I am Serbian. That does not mean I am Bosnian because I am Serbian, but when I go to Serbia, I'm not Serbian because i'm Bosnian , then who am I.

This is what we create when we only acknowledge diversity and not believe in it and accept it.

A great struggle faced with diversity is religion.

Many religions defy and go against each others in belief, then how can we unify and still allow freedom and equality and not become the next France? 

I must quote Mike and say, those past two presentation classes made me pregnant with thought! I believe I will be even more pregnant when I try to fulfill those ideologies i have into Humanity. 

How can I allow people to freely express themselves while respecting others but at the same time make them understand and believe that if someone wants to merge those two extremes then it is acceptable even though the norms might go against it. 

For example, I might know and live with GLBT people but my religion defies it. I might choose to accept it as long as it does not affect me personally, but what will happen when it is merge into my family? 

I believe many of us may accept something on concept but when it comes to actually being a part of it, it is different. 

To be honest, I do not think that any level of awareness is enough to make people accept and appreciate others for who they are. What should we do?? is a big question mark I still hold???

Social Justice

Creating a World or a Community where everything and everyone is considered equal. We are born different yet we need to be considered equal. 

From my friends' presentations about social justice. Many questions filled my mind. 

What we are trying to do in Humanity is create the perfect world, where we have a clean slate to do whatever we want. We do not have the common excuse off, it was just handed to us that way. 

Since we are created different, I imagine that Humanity will have lots of different people which is evident with the multilingual aspect we have established there. 

Social Justice aims for a community where everyone feels equally appreciated, their rights heard and addressed and there is mutual respect among all. 

I do support those theories greatly, but when we come to create a unified system, with all those diverse people, then who's laws and regulations would I place. I believe the struggle will be who's equality are we considering. Yest there are certain aspects we all agree on, for instance, right to life, education, gender, race. What got me thinking was the idea that justice is blind. 

Thus, it does not matter who you are, it considers everyone the same. Will my distribution of justice actually be equal? A picture that has been posted on facebook for a while talks about how it may be just to give each person a box to stand on but is it equal in benefit to do that? 

My other major concern is... equality and freedom, are they on the same side or are they pulling at opposite ends?

The idea is, as Humanity is diverse, then how will there be satisfaction from each party towards the justice and equality the society has place. I do not believe that everyone will see it as fair or as equal distribution over certain rules, which will result in conflict. Will it turn into a vicious circle?

Controversy

Controversy 

what a teacher needs to know vs. what the teacher has to know.

Mabrook to my fellow mates  your presentations were exquisite. You have set the benchmark so high, I am proud. We are all now Prezi experts :D

Civic Education.. to be honest, at my school we were never taught anything about EGYPT.
I remember we talked about:

• civilizations in grade 6
• geography and monuments grade 7
• world war 1 and 2 grade 8
• humanities (which was an integrated course between English and History, so we read about the history of the books we are reading) grade 9 and 10
• then in IB I never took History :)

It is quite astonishing, I have no recollection of ever taking Egyptian or American History except I guess about the Alamein War in World War 2. I don't even know any famous figures in Egypt or what they have accomplished  this is also due to my hatred towards History thus, even a struck of interest does not occur. 

This makes me reflect on the idea that I do not feel patriotic towards any country. I personally never felt I belonged somewhere but I always wanted to work for Humanity as a whole, regardless of place. 

I like that quote from the presentations:

"Education is the great equalizer of the condition of man"

A Network of Contradictory Thoughts

A Network of Contradictory Thoughts

I love purple, I was reading some articles on the internet and it came across to me that "purple is the color of good judgment. It is the color of people seeking spiritual fulfillment. It is said if you surround yourself with purple you will have peace of mind. Purple has been used to symbolize magic and mystery, as well as royalty. Being the combination of red and blue, the warmest and coolest colors, purple is believed to be the ideal color." 

 
Purple is the spirit I felt in class, it was magical and full of mystery. We were uncovering the life story of Ms. Jenny. Even though she did not talk specifically about education but I sensed a lot of knowledge towards it from the talk. 

While sailing through the conversation, I made a few stops to ponder about specific ideas. Those ideas are as follow:

• do you best in all you do
• don't be afraid to create
• always go back to knowledge
• allow people to help themselves
• look at the big picture, all aspects
• stop fixing the problem and recovering, aim to prevent the damage from happening
• make something out of nothing
• invest in training and education
• take risks
• be willing to change
• be creative
• seize opportunity
• get enough knowledge to proceed
• ignore irrelevant comments
• be who you are
• work hard
• make yourself known in a friendly way
• networking
• create friends not enemies
• publicize everything
• FUN FACTOR!! as you go along

 I've been thinking about HUMANITY my country and trying to think outside the box, for some reason which is not clear to me, I really feel frustrated. Why isn't it coming easily to me? Why can't I think outside the box?

I wanted the country to have equality in all its rights. Whether you are rich, poor, with status, male, female, handicapped, child or even color. 

I was intrigued by an article I read for Dr. Jennifer's class 533 comparative gender adolescent youth called "Youth, gender and livelihoods in West Africa: Perspectives from Ghana and the Gambia" where they have invested money into educational reform but when the those students got educated they had no job opportunity. This made me realize how education even though it is the backbone, the country as a whole should play a factor in reform. 

Thus, I am thinking of adding more rules to HUMANITY. For example,

• job acceptance related to skills only, not gender / age or credentials
• have opportunities for people with special needs to learn and work
• quality education

 here I was in a struggle, should people learn what they want, the subjects they want or should there be a system with many chances to improve and retake. I had another thought, instead of examination maybe there could be practical projects that apply to the needs of society, like we do as graduation projects from undergrad.

I still feel frustrated that society needs a clean slate and how come Finland was able to do it in a very short time, well because the entire society's focus was on it!!!!

Don't let Knowledge weigh you down!

Don’t let Knowledge weigh you down!

Another wonderful class was held on Tuesday. I was glad that all like the Kobeba or Keba and yogurt, a traditional Lebanese food. I was astonished with Koboul kept asking where is the bread, it shows how different cultures interact with the same kind of food but in different ways.

I believe the importance of teacher education is being highlighted more and more in this course.

I personally aspire from the small gestures Dr. Babb does in like just to keep everything lively, when she mentioned a “guest speaker” coming to give us a talk and we can contact her anytime. That was a funny surprise.

In my adult classes, I thought of allowing them to do the exercise we did in class and see how they will create their own country.I kept emphasizing the importance to think outside the box, to innovate, to create!

I asked them to create a country, give it a name, location, flag, population, educational system, wealth and 5 laws.

I preformed this activity in two of my classes, where they were divided into two groups each. Around 8 people in a group for 30 min. The student’s ages range from 19 to late 40s. There are students who are graduates, post graduates, business men, mothers and unemployed. Their nationalities are mostly Egyptian but some are from Somalia, Syria and South Sudan.

Group 1 in class 1 created a country called Dream Island, located in the middle of the Sea. The flag’s color is green for agriculture with a white horse in the middle for freedom. The population is mostly middle class between the ages of 35 to 40. The main wealth of the country is agriculture and trading. The educational system involves home schooling and online undergraduate courses. The main 5 laws of the country are equality, no killing, safety, no war and freedom for all.

Group 2 in class 1 created a country called Free Serious Island, located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The flag’s colors are blue for the ocean, white for peace and green for agriculture. The population was divided into 3% rich, 75% middle class, 20% poor of all ages. The educational system depended on what the society needs, mainly technical education. The 5 laws were freedom without harming the freedom of others, 1 period for president, no smoking, renewable energy sources.

Group 1 in class 2 created a country called Dream Ocean, located in the Atlantic Ocean. The flag’s colors are blue for the ocean, green for agriculture and red for strength. The population was divided into 30% high class and 70% middle class with an age range between 16 and 50. The main source of wealth of the country is tourism. The educational system was all American Schools and online classes for graduate and post graduate studies. The 5 laws of the country were a minimum salary of 5000$ per person, you cannot sell your land or belonging to anyone outside of the country, everyone rides bicycles, the government provides free health care and every person is required to invest 50% of their income in the country for it to grow.

Group 2 in class 2 created a country called Peaceful country which his located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The colors of the flag are red, white, black with an eagle which is the Egyptian flag saying that they only dream to see Egypt a better country not to be in a different country altogether and that if they can dream they better dream for Egypt first. It is not a crowded country and 90% of the people are rich with an age range of 25 to 30. The main source of wealth of the country is industrial, trading, fish and agriculture. The educational system is modern, meaning not what is currently in Egypt where there is usage of technology, I pads and computer in schools. The 3 laws of the country are justice, safety and wisdom.

I was impressed by many educational strategies such as technical education and online classes. This emphasized their ambition for a better education but the lack of funds, I then took the chance to introduce them to MOOC and will provide them with a small training to use it next class. I was quite astonished the lack of the usage of technology in the country in addition to agriculture being the main source of wealth in addition to the chose territory for the location of the country, in the middle of the ocean. Their rational was to be in the middle between Europe and Africa and in their opinion would be a great source of trade. I was surely impressed by their educational system which brought me back to reality, they have no knowledge but they dreamed. It made me realize that sometimes the excess of knowledge in one area hinders in many times the flow of creativity. Thus we have to remember that even though we have knowledge, we need to dream beyond the box we hold in our hands, innovate and create!

A reality check!

As soon as I think about class I remember a song called "true colors" which was presented by students from all over the world and it always reminded me of education. this is the image I get in my head when I listen to it (students in rows and lines sitting and standing by the side, sad faces everywhere, and teachers come alone with colors and smiles, changing the mood and giving hope, encouraging to be yourself, to aim far and shoot for the stars)... The lyrics goes as follow:

You with the sad eyes

Don't be discouraged

Oh i realize

It's hard to take courage

In a world full of people

You can lose sight of it all

And the darkness inside you 

Can make you feel so small 

(refrain)

But I see your true colors

Shining through 

I see your true colors

And that's why I love you

So don't be afraid to let them show

Your true colors 

True colors are beautiful 

Like a rainbow 

Show me a smile then

Don't be unhappy, can't remember

When I last saw you laughing 

If this world makes you crazy 

And you've taken all you can bear 

You call me up 

Because you know I'll be there 

Cant remember when I last saw you laughing

If this world makes you crazy

And you've taken all you can bear 

You call me up 

Because you know I'll be there 

So coming back to earth, I must admit that yesterday's class was a big reality check for me. Even though I felt sick and was totally out of mood, but the spirit got the better of me and I became very excited and eager to share and be a part of the activity. What I learned was that, I feel I have been speaking about reform as child walking along his path with covered eyes. It seems that all the dreams and arguments I have even though they are legitimate to the cause are still influenced by the old and traditional perspective of things. When given an opportunity to break free, I still abide by what I know. 


To be honest, that made me think about myself a lot. Am I acting the way I preach? Am I lying to myself by being a person away from the reality of who I truly am?


Back to the educational perspective of that awakening. I was mesmerized that the amount of knowledge I personally lack in many areas, thus referring to the image of a child.

• I was astonished when Mike and Othman chose a poor country, it was really not expected at all. 
• I argued a lot with Koboul about having people below average because she really supported the idea, I didn't understand why would I need those sort of people in my made up country. 
• I also never realized how important agriculture is. I always think of technology and moving forward, ignoring the benefits coming from agriculture. 
• When Phililps and Mariam proposed having a class of students regardless of age but are on the same level, I did not feel they really understand the flexibility, effort and level of creativity the teacher has to have to be able to achieve that sort of things and the resistance that might occur from students. Being someone who personally is facing this situation in my voluntary class where I have students whose age range from 1 to 13 is challenging enough without adding adolescents and adults, and i must admit they are only 20 students in class. 

My final conclusion is to research read, analyze, integrate, think outside the box, take risks, take action and most importantly learn from your mistakes.


until next time!

Aspire to Inspire

"Aspire to inspire before you expire"

Through my years at school, my teachers had a great impact in my life. Mr. Boler my science teacher in grade 6, my first year at my new school, taught me not to be afraid of new information and to accept my imagination to flow and discover.  Ms. Hunter my 7th grade English teacher was the first teacher to introduce me to books that were not girlish for my taste and since then I am a reader. Mr. Martin my social studies teacher in grade 8 was the funniest man alive, I learned that it is OK to make your students laugh and not to always be serious in class. In grades 9 and 10 Ms. Craig who taught an integrated course between history and English helped me discover my talent in writing poetry and my love for English. Through my IB years, all my teachers played an impact in my life in their own way. Through all those teachers' help, I am the person, the teacher and the educator whom I am today.

I have always wanted to make a difference in the world but being known and noted was not of any interest to me. Just as I was inspired through my youth it was my turn to inspire back. My aspiration to inspire became vivid when I found my calling for teaching. My classroom became my world to change. Every 6 weeks I have new students, thus those 6 weeks are my door to inspire. The idea of inspiration is not for the students to remember your name at the end or call you their favorite teacher, but to leave them with questions, thoughts, ideas that they may not have been exposed to before. I always leave myself time through the course to talk to them about poetry, books that have inspired me, controversial topics to get them formulate their own thoughts about it.
some of these topics, books, poems include:
Last lecture by Randy Paush
What is Freedom?
Quotes by Nelson Mandela
Gandhi
Mother Theresa
The road not taken by Robert Frost
and any inspiration book, quote or video I come across. I do not follow a pattern because each class is different and each day is a new day to be inspired and inspire in return.
I personally do not believe in coincidences, I believe that each person you meet along your way is meant to teach you something, thus I not only teach my students but learn from them too.

My dear friends,
I may walk one day and never come back
the world has many opportunities to be seized
do not hinder yourself with obstacles
but consider them tools to shape
allow yourself to learn
to love
to dream
take every step with confidence
knowing inside you there is a giant
be happy
shine around you
and above all
ENJOY!

A Great Welcome

Famous Treasured People of 581, 

I feel I need to start this blog by saying "Dear Diary." Instead I'll say how happy I am to be joining you all in this exciting journey or should I say life changing experience. Personally, I have never kept a diary or thought of keeping one before, but I guess there is a first time for everything. 

581 has attracted my attention since its first posting on the list of courses because it has come to my attention that I feel the need to reach out to teachers and be a significant part of their development. My thesis is jumping around between students and teachers and who should it be focused on to aid in technological development. Thus, when the syllabus was presented, I was very drawn to the topics to be discussed and I aspire great discussions coming along. 

The size of the class is exceptionally pleasing to me. I personally don't feel comfortable in big classes and it takes me a while to get used to the people around me. What was different in this class is not just the size, but the students who signed up for the course. I was very excited and happy to meet my fellow masters graduates to be who make me feel comfortable in my own skin. In addition to our diversity and our different background, culture and experience, the information brought by each one will be treasured. 

I was intrigued when Dr. Babb has explained how she taught German without knowing the language. It was my "aha" moment. She talked about how she had a reference point and simply coordinated the class, which was marvelous. This special incident opens up a whole new definition on education and how its not about the place, time, subject, curriculum or even credentials. I am interested to find more about that. 

I second Michael on his post about the concern but i'm quite sure everything will work out just fine and we will not miss any valuable time from this exceptional course. 

Well, I can't wait to see you again next week. I bid you a farewell and my favorite motto.

"aspire to inspire before you expire!"