Up for a test? Did you know the mosquito-borne disease remains a problem in sub-Saharan Africa due to the combined effects of climate change, agricultural practices and population displacement? Or that currently, Pakistan’s people remain without electricity for 14-16 hours every day? Or that on the 26th of October, a 7.5 earthquake hit remote areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan where more than 360 people are known to have died, and at least 2,000 were injured?
If you have answered yes to all these questions, congratulations, you are definitely informed. If you haven’t, I guess you’re not. But, this isn’t about whether or not you are up to date on current events. This is about us, in general, as a human race. I bet most of you answered no to all those questions, and I for one, am guilty of this as well. Every second about 2 people die. You might think, this is natural, this is how it’s supposed to be, and you're completely right. This fact shouldn’t scare you, it should wake you up. Wake you up from this reality you are blinded in. People are dying everyday from unimaginable situations like starvation, car accidents, and assassins. You, on the other hand, are reading this blog post on a computer, which is most probably a MacBook. This isn’t something to feel guilty or spoiled about, this is life. But these incidents should bring your attention to be more grateful for the kind of life you have. How many times have you woken up and thought, I am grateful for another day, I am grateful to be alive, or, I am grateful for my family and my health? One time? Zero times? It’s okay, it’s normal. How about this: how many times have you shown gratitude to others? As teenagers, we have attended school for around 7-15 years which is a total of approximately 4,015 days. How often has a student taken the time to look into their teacher’s eyes and genuinely say thank you for everything they’ve done and taught you? It’s a small gesture that we forget to do. We’re not mean people, we’re just oblivious. Everyday I am taken to school by my bus driver but I never show my gratitude to him when I get off the bus. Because of him, he makes it easier for me to get to school and receive the education I’m given. This is something that doesn’t deserve to forgotten, especially to my bus driver. We become too use to the people we see everyday that we forget about those two simple words, “thank you”. Think about how fortunate you are and the people that help you everyday. It is easy to ignore the problems going on in the world, but it is easier to forget how lucky you are to have be given so many blessings. So, the next time I get off my bus, I am going to thank my bus drive, because thanks to him, I am happier in the morning, and after I express this gratitude, so will he. How will you express gratitude? Don’t be oblivious to the people in your daily lives or to anyone for that matter, show gratitude to yourself and to others. “Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.” - William Arthur Ward
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Death. It is a topic people try to avoid because it seems either too far away or too close. But one thing we can say is that most of us don’t fear death, instead we fear dying. Suffering, feeling pain, none of us want to feel that, which is why we don’t talk about it.
Three years ago, my family was forced to think about it - death, I mean. We couldn’t predict anything bad would happen, but it did. It happened to my mother. One Saturday morning my mother was driving on the Costa Verde when she reached a curve at the same time as another car coming the opposite direction. She immediately steered the car off the cliff, falling 20 meters onto the road below. Still conscious, she was stuck in her car and unable to get out, considering her condition at the time. People driving by stopped their cars and tried breaking the windows with whatever they could find. Finally my mom was taken out, right at the time the ambulance arrived. Her location was 20 minutes away from the nearest hospital. Twenty minutes. This is what pains me the most when I think about the accident. My mom was conscious and alone, sitting in an ambulance full of strangers for 1, 200 seconds after falling off a 20 meter cliff. She was ordered to have a CAT scan on her brain as soon as possible. I had slept over a friend’s house the previous night so I was not there right before she went into surgery, but my dad and my older sister were. I can’t talk too much about it to my father because he gets too sad and my sister doesn’t speak much about it either; the only thing she told me is that she wished she hadn’t seen my mother like that. After 8 hours in surgery, they were able to save my mom’s life. In the past, this is what shocked me most. “They saved my mom’s life”. The thought of losing my mom was unimaginable. I had heard stories all the time about tragedies and accidents that had happened to other people. But I had never had to live it. I had never been in a moment where someone so close to me was on the verge of living or dying. And after experiencing it, I decided that no one, no matter how bad that person is, should ever have to go through something like that. To be honest, I knew there would come a day where I would tell this story in a blog post; it was just a matter of time I was ready to tell it. Today is the anniversary of the day of my mom’s car accident. If I told you this all happened for a reason, would you believe me? For some reason I can’t seem to understand, until this day, the miracle that took place during the accident. Dr. Heeren, my mother’s doctor, told my family that anybody that fell from that height and landed like my mom did, should have died - scientifically speaking. Why did my mom survive? Out of the million accidents that happen year round, and out of all the people that died, why did my mom live? It continues being a mystery to me and my family but not a day has gone by that I am not thankful for this miracle. Death has its ways of surprising us at the most unexpected times, so don’t try to prepare yourself for when it does, because that would be impossible. My mom is able to see life now as the most precious gift ever, and she tries her best to live to the fullest everyday. Let death be the one to take you away, in the meantime, let yourself be the one to take control and enjoy what life has to offer. Everybody has their own ways of bringing themselves happiness. For some people, it’s sports, for others it’s family, or for others it may be social events, but none of these fit me. Helping others is what brings me happiness. I’ve always had this desire inside of me for making a difference in someone’s life. Of course simple acts like holding the door for others or giving someone a gift are nice gestures that bring me happiness but sometimes they don’t quite grant my desire. I truly believe that helping others brings happiness because nothing compares to the feeling of giving without expecting anything back.
As soon as we were presented the IA project, without thinking, I knew I had to do something that involves community service. Since I recently started taking piano lessons, I thought I could maybe bring these two factors together. After changing my project various times, I finally figured out what I wanted to learn about and later apply - music therapy. This therapy uses music as a powerful tool to create positive behavior changes. For the past four weeks I’ve been spending time with my friend’s brother, Lorenzo, who was born with down syndrome and autism. His heart is filled with so much joy, his energy feels contagious by just sitting next to him. Children living with autism and/or down syndrome feel everything we feel. They are completely conscious of conversations going on around them and can instantly pick up if you are talking about them close by. The problem is that their brain does not allow them to express their feelings, so if they feel angry they’ll throw something, or if they feel left out, they might use aggression. Music therapy opens channels of communication, in other words, it’s their way of expressing their feelings. I know this because I’ve seen it during all the sessions with Lorenzo. Helping Lorenzo improve his concentration and synchronization using music is my goal. Surprisingly though, even if I’m not successful I don’t feel like I’ve fail because this whole experience has impacted my life in the most explicit way possible. I haven’t thought about what grade I’m going to get on my project once since I began meeting with Lorenzo because I feel so connected with him and what I’m creating with him: a relationship where both of us gain so much, and formed with so much compassion, trust and constant improvements. It truly is inspiring watching his own music therapists, Mario Bressanutti, with him. I feel like I’ve already gained so much after just a few sessions, I can’t imagine how much I will learn by the end of this journey. I have been thinking about how to re-write my conclusion because I wouldn't want anybody to think of me as a person that has got it all figured out and that I think of myself as some kind of angel because I find happiness through helping others. But the fact is I'm not here to brag about how I found what makes me so happy in life, I'm here to simply share an amazing experience I've had, after spending time with a 17 year old down syndrome and autistic boy. It is hard for me to explain this because no words can really describe how this boy has taught me so much. Lorenzo and I have gained a certain connection I have never made with anyone else in my life. The most beautiful part of all of this is the fact that the point of my project was to help Lorenzo, yet I feel like nobody has ever helped me as much as he has ever before. He taught me about patience and how being different and challenged is not sad at all, it is actually what defines what it really means to succeed in life the hard way. How many times has someone complained about time going by too fast? “The party was fun but it went by so fast!”, “my vacations were great but it all seems like a blur now.” These are so typical and we’re all guilty of repeating them some time in our lives. Now a day I think people would pay to find the answer to living in the moment, if there was one, but that’s just it - there isn’t. We wait all week for the weekend and when it finally comes were suddenly already sitting in our first period class, Monday morning. So, how do we stop this continuous cycle before we blink our eyes and become grandparents? Everybody says the answer is learning to live in the moment, but how do you do that?
I maybe have been a little dramatic about being grandparents before we know it - but that’s really how I look at things. I am the QUEEN of not living in the moment and only thinking about the future. So as the queen of this topic, I definitely have enough experience to say this must STOP. I’m not referring to constantly thinking about the future, I’m talking about all these thoughts in general. This is our REALITY. Time goes by fast, yes we ALL know it, so let’s accept it. Two things that I think are key in life are ACCEPTING things for what they are and always having a POSITIVE attitude, no matter what the situation. Humans have a problem with not accepting things that they can’t control, and I’m not only talking about time - this goes for anything. I, for one, am extremely scared of airplanes. All these years I couldn’t figure out why I instantly think I’m going to die each time I step into an airplane. But after a lot of travelling, it’s clear to me. Due to being a control freak, I finally connected the dots. When your in an airplane, your safety is out of your control. You can’t just get off it when you want to, like a car. This terrifies me, but I have to learn to accept this. To accept this fear and to learn to enter the plane positive thoughts. So now I walk into an airplane, trusting the pilot, and accepting I have no control over anything that happens; and believe it or not, this truly reliefs me. Accepting something as it is makes all the struggle 10,000 times easier. Whether it’s a tragedy or an accomplishment, you must accept the situation. So, next time it’s Monday and you’re in your first period, don’t give into the voices in your head that are telling you the weekend is still 5 days away - accept them. Accept it’s Monday morning and try your best to have a positive attitude because that’s what enjoying life is all about. Think about YOU. Bill Cosby once said, “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.” You might be thinking this quote does not relate to you because you suppose that you do things for yourself but I wouldn’t be so sure about that. We live in a world where everybody is on a never-ending staircase. We distract ourselves with activities or work to avoid that moment of alone time where you can actually hear your own thoughts. You don’t like this moment because you can see everything in your life that you don’t even enjoy, you’re just doing it to get by. So there’s only one question left to ask, when does this stop? Immediately your solution is to find another distraction and hope to never be in a moment like that with yourself again, yet the funny thing is… the solution is you.
I am a person who has gotten very used to keeping her feelings to herself. I’ve always been like this so I’m used to it. The problem is, I am also very sensitive - these two characteristics don’t really go well together. Think of it like this: you’re having a really hard time with everything going on in your life but you don’t know why. You’re getting good grades, you have great friends, great parents…so why do you feel empty? Now imagine going through all of this alone compared with having a friend or a sister next to you. For me, my sisters are everything. I know I can trust them with any tiny problem I may have and that they won’t judge me no matter what it is. You need to find your person. Don’t ever think that nobody cares about what you feel because every single person on this earth has people that care about them, they just don’t want to admit it. We as humans are told to be generous and think of others, which is a great trait we should all possess, but we should never forget about helping ourselves. That silent moment you have with yourself will probably be the most important time of your day. It is crucial we come in contact with ourselves because if we don't, who will? Unfortunately, people do not yet have the power to read minds so don’t expect them to. Speak your mind and express yourself to people you trust. If you don’t, you will only live with regrets and the only thing worse than living with regret is living with regrets that you only know about. Do things for you - not because your parents are expecting you to and not because it will get you the success you need. It’s easy to forget what an amazing gift life really is. Our all-inclusive world is just a blue dot circling around a sun in a galaxy of billions of stars, which itself is just one galaxy among billions of more. Yet for one brief moment we get the chance to experience the wonders of our consciousness. Don’t be afraid to take that chance. Fear. Everybody fears something in their life. Some fear spiders, others fear disappointing people and some fear failure. None of these fit into my category. I fear uncertainty. Every night I get into my bed and before shutting my eyes I make a list in my mind. A list of all the reminders I have for the next day including homework, after school activities and something as little as reminding myself to put my cleats in my backpack the next morning. I always picture a good day as accomplishing everything on my list…and then I begin the cycle again. But, there is one problem. As a get into my bed ready to make another mental list I question myself. Was it really a good day? Then, why do I feel so empty? I being to wonder if I will live the rest of my life redoing this continuous cycle. The good part is that I’ve realized why I feel so empty. It’s because of uncertainty. From being so certain how my day will begin and end, I haven’t notice how much of a nightmare uncertainty has become for me. I need to know everything that is going on in my schedule and if something changes or goes wrong, I feel scared. I’ve come to a conclusion that this is a problem I have to resolve because life is full of changes that sometimes we can’t control. The trick is making an effort to accustom your self to those changes and identify your uncertainties.
In 9th grade I was chosen as one of the sixteen students in my grade to join the Innovation Academy. I didn’t really know how to react to this so I told myself to react happy because this was a really great opportunity. My first day in the IA scared me because for the first time in my school life I felt uncertain. I didn’t know if my grades were going to drop because of the different program. I didn’t know how long it would take me to get use to it and most of all I didn’t know if it was the right program for me. My doubts were clear though. I worried about how difficult it would be to transition into the IB program in 11th grade, if my english skills were going to get worse and if I wasn’t able to deal with the autonomy. So, without much thinking I asked Mr. Bonnici to meet with me because I was desperate for answers. He told me that from having me as a student in 8th grade he knew that I was a hard worker but within my work, I always turned to him for some kind of guidance. Again, this is my uncertainty. I was always self conscious about my work and too many times I convinced myself that I was doing it all wrong. So he told me that maybe it was all the freedom we’d be given that scared me. And not for a second did I disagree because every word that came out of his mouth was true. I was walking into the program feeling blindfolded and uncertain of what challenges would await me and that terrified me. I told myself to take a chance. Mr. Bonnici made me realize I needed to possess the value of independence. In life, I will not always have someone pulling me in the right direction or clarifying my uncertainties. I have to learn to deal with the changes given to me and use autonomy to resolve my worries. A voice inside my head told me the solution to my problem is the innovation academy. Honestly, I can say that I needed the program more than it needed any other student. Entry #1: Chapters 1-5 In the first five chapters of Free to Learn, Peter Grey introduces the idea of forced education that can be currently witnessed in the majority of schools throughout the United States. To begin with, this book is not one of complaint; it is a book about seeking improvement and hope for children’s education. I, for one, believe that so far (from reading the first five chapters) this book holds so much great information that I did not know before but there is a few things that I hold doubts about and definitely question, but do not necessarily disagree about. “We were so independent, we were given so much freedom. But now it’s impossible to imagine giving that to a child today. It’s one of the great losses as a society”, saids Hillary Clinton. Free play is the only time when children are able to make their own decisions and aren’t under constant adult supervision. That freedom allows children to grow and live new experiences that simply can’t equal to the negative energy school brings to kids. Referring to what Hillary said along with many other world-wide leaders who think similarly, I agree 100%. I remember my mother telling me stories about her childhood and how she always had time during the day to play outside with her friends. Obviously, times have changed and due to safety or any other reason, children do not usually play outdoors, but that still doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have the freedom or time for free play. We, as humans, are designed by nature to play and explore on our own, without constantly relying on adults. On the other hand, there are the hunter gatherers. “Hunter-gatherers’ sense of autonomy is so strong that they refrain from telling one another what to do.” Parents and adults (from hunter-gatherer groups) give their complete trust to their children. “…children were free to play from dawn to dusk every day.” Here is where I question myself. Were there any teachers present in these groups that taught something more educational like, mathematics? Probably not. They gained skills on hunting and food gathering but what about other educational subjects? However, after reading some more, I answered this myself. Hunter-gatherers don’t need the same education we need today because they lived a very simple life with very few necessities within their small community. The author isn’t telling us to live like them, he is simply giving a concrete example of the type of values we should take in counter in present day schools. According to the rise of protestantism and the origin of compulsory education, “the belief that young people are incapable of making reasonable decisions is a cornerstone of our system of compulsory, closely monitored education.” In the mid 19th century, only children from 8 to 9 had to go to school and they only needed to complete 12 weeks of attending school. Now a day, we have deprived children from their own freedom to learn and have taken their time of free play which is how, by nature, they are designed to learn. This brings in the story of Daniel Greenberg, a successful and intelligent professor that quit his job and moved to Massachusetts with his wife to build a new school with a different learning system. The school community was very similar to that of the hunter-gatherers, which was a truly democratic school. The school’ staff members weren’t called teachers because they were only there to comfort or give advice to any child in need of assistance; they never helped them too much because the point was to give them freedom and independence to figure things out on their own. To sum it all up, this system is overall extremely successful not only giving children a funner way to learn but it’s also great academically. This same school system is seen in over three dozen schools in the united states and in addition, from the interviews taken by the graduates of the Sudbury Valley school, a large percentage of them do not regret attending the school and presently, have very successful jobs that they love. “Through play and exploration, students discover activities they enjoy, become good at those activities, and quite often go on- still in the spirit of play - to make a living at those or similar activities”. I can’t yet judge these different ideas people are coming up with about children's education but what I can do is agree with the facts the author gives about student’s perspective’s on school. We all just try to ‘get by’ with each thing we do. We might cheat once in a while to pass a test, but only because we care too much about the outcome. We constantly compete with our classmates and feel way too much pressure from teachers and we feel forced to learn things that we know we hate and know that we will not pursue it in the future. I am excited to continue reading this book to finalize my thoughts and opinions and definitely feel intrigued to learn more on this topic. Entry #2: Chapters 6-10"Whenever children or adults bring imagination and creativity into their efforts toward discovery, they are combining play and exploration. In adults, we call that science." Wait, but isn’t science performing labs, creating a hypothesis, and writing a conclusion? Well, in the last five chapters of Free to Learn, Peter Gray proves us wrong. I personally, was surprised when I read that part in the book. For me, science has always been experimenting on something boring and reflecting on the results of that experiment. That’s basically how I look at school. I don’t really get the chance to explore what I find interesting and make my own discoveries. Everything is always given to me and I, obediently do what I’m told. But after reading this book, I now know us, children, don’t deserve to learn this way; it’s not really the most healthy way to learn, anyways.
“Play is activity in which means are more valued than ends.” When students play they have nobody expecting them to do their best or waiting for a final outcome. They don’t need to find the quickest way to finish a task because they don’t have one. While they play they enjoy every minute of it and use their curiosity to explore different ideas and ways to play. Play has structure and rules but these are all agreed upon everybody and are only there to provide organization to make play even more fun. Wouldn’t it be great to truly enjoy an assignment and use our curiosity to discover new things and not have to worry if our discoveries fit the criteria? In other words, wouldn’t it be much funner and educational to worry less about grades and more about the process? I think it would be. Ever since I was little, school had always been work for me. It’s not that I didn’t have fun, I definitely enjoyed myself various times but almost all of that fun seemed to wash away during the time I spent waiting for my grade and worrying if I had disappointed my teacher and parents or not. In chapter 8, the author compares informal sports (play) to formal play through 5 lessons. Within these five lessons he explains how when playing any informal type of play you need to keep everybody happy because everybody has the freedom or right to quit whenever they want so it’s important to keep everyone satisfied so you don’t lose any players. As you can see, during play, you work together with other people so everybody has the chance to have fun. You're not thinking about yourself and what YOU have to do to be better than everybody else. You don’t mind if your th best or not because you are part of a team. Of course in school there are always group projects, which are great because you learn how to collaborate with others and everybody contributes their part. But what happens when one student decides to complain about a group member to the teacher to try to make themselves look better? Or the fact that they know somebody in their group is doing something wrong, yet they don’t tell them for their own self advantage? I’m not saying this always happens in groups but these situations do exist. In my opinion, and from my own personal experience, school sometimes can make us crazy. For starters, most of the time, when there is just too much work to get done, you’ll do anything to just get by. You don’t really care how much you really learned or if you tried your 100%, you just want to finish and get the good grades. So sometimes you cheat, you plagiarize, etc. Even the people with the best grades are guilty of it because they needed the extra “help” to get into their dream college. This doesn’t mean at all that teachers should have more control of their students. I’m saying that, is it really right to call it education when most students get to a point that they don’t even feel like they’re learning anymore? Do we really need to obligate kids to learning something they have no interest in if they’re just going to cheat to get the answers? I can’t help but feel sorry for us students that are given so little freedom at school. Free age mixing is something that really caught my eye in the book. I have to admit it took me a while to really imagine same aged children learning together in the same class or activity because I was convinced all ages were at the same levels. “...the younger children can engage in and learn from activities that would be too complex, difficult, or dangerous for them to do on their own or only with others their own age.” Many kids feel embarrassed or stupid to ask a teacher or adult a question but usually with kids closer to their age, they feel more comfortable asking. I, for one, can totally relate to this because it is way easier to ask questions to somebody that has the same perspective as you, considering he/she is also a student. Learning by observation is a gift all children have, especially if your a visual learner. In my opinion, a simple action can say more than a million words. It is easy for young children to remember and copy what someone else does so this is how they learn and how their understanding increases when it comes to a specific skill or learning subject. And this as well benefits the older children because they can reflect on what they know on the way and might make some realizations as the younger children ask them questions. I can relate to this because about 3 years ago my little sister asked me to help her read a book they had assigned from school. As I read the book, my sister often asked me what a lot of words meant. I had to second guess myself after each of my responses because I really did not know how to define the words. That was my wake up call that I had to read more and increase my vocabulary. The last chapter of Free to Learn by Peter Gray surprised me. First because of the title: Trustful Parenting in Our Modern World. So, without much thinking, I read the chapter with my mother. The author separates three kinds of styles of parenting: trustful parenting, directive-domineering parenting, and directive-protective parenting. Trustful parents give their child the freedom to be independent and learn from their mistakes. They allow them to follow their passions and support them no matter what those passions may be. Directive-domineering parenting, is when the parents see their child as their own personal project. These parents believe that their child is theirs, meaning that they have every right to control and direct them to do anything they want. Directive-protective parenting, is when parents feel too emotionally attached to their kids which ends of being too much of an exaggeration. This can turn out to be too protective because these type of parents are depriving their children from their own personal freedom. While reading this with my own mother, we realized how important it was that this chapter was included in the book because we can both agree how stressful school can be and how crucial it is to have your parent’s support. I am glad I read it with her because I found it really cool to get my mother’s perspective, especially while reading this specific chapter that she can potentially learn a lot from. “Career success is not life success”. This part of the book really stood out for me and I’ll tell you why. In my school, starting in 8th grade we already are given talks about college, and when you get to high school, you feel like you should already know how your life will be in the next 10 years. All I think about during these talks is, when do we actually get to enjoy life? What about travel, culture and the fun part of life? When do we get a break, a chance to breathe and not think about our future career? I think were at the point in life where we should not know what were gonna do for the next years of our life, instead we should be trying different things out, discovering things on our own and making mistakes we can learn from. After reading this book I honestly have a different perspective on school education. I’ve never felt more eager to want to feel the desire to go to school. I wan’t to wake up in the morning and feel excited to learn new things I have strong interests in and hopefully use my curiosity to make new discoveries I can share and comment on with others. But like Peter Gray said himself, “I am optimistic”. For all I know, school systems will change and I will soon get that desire. For now, I am glad I read this book because all of the thoughts in my head that were all unclear are now laid out and I can finally see them. In other words, I know how I feel about school and can now imagine a different scenario where all is not work but play is also present. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
June 2016
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