Changes are good

Hi everybody! Today’s topic is about something that affects our learning experiences, I am talking about changes! Because internalizing concepts and memorizing things is useful for specific purposes does not represent learning completely.

Notably, from early stages of our lives we learn a lot of things which we internalize and remember for decades in a specific way, but what happens when we face changes in those things? What about being the change of a concept, an idea or an object? Not necessarily an improvement but other perspective that can surpass the ordinary view of it.

Thus, transforming experiences and ideas into something else is a skill that everyone should try at any moment of their lives. For instance, you cannot cease an unstoppable force, but that does not mean that you cannot change the trajectory in a different direction, this means that you are able to create things new based on an element which seems inflexible. Additionally, your own perspective shapes the way you perceive things and how you interpret/reproduce them afterwards. Although there is no individual with the exact same characteristics that you have, others can understand what you think in their own personal way and create new interpretations/ideas of the same topic which in the end is like a huge tree with millions of ramifications that never ends. In the same way, some people need others to inspire themselves, there are individuals who rely in the environment to obtain inspiration, and in the end everything is connected somehow!

Finally, if you do not like how one thing is evolving, do something to change it! You can make the difference, or in the worst scenario inspire others to create an alternative, this applies in everything that surround us.

I could not find a video that represents what I think about this topic or that can explain this in an alternative way, but there is a simple piece of music with a few words that actually inspires me just by saying “everything changes” and “life”, simple words with a deep meaning. Thank you for reading and I will see you guys next week!

Re-learning/deconstructing some concepts/definitions

Hi guys! Today I prepared a special entry about one thing that bothers me a little bit, is the fact that we tend to assume that we know a word because we can define it in our own words or use a synonym to describe it, but actually it is just a perception and not necessarily the whole meaning. I am not trying to imply that we should be dictionaries remembering every single definition by heart, however as members of a community we must be critical and conscious of alternative definitions in order to create an environment which is not completely biased and to avoid misunderstandings.

We are aware that language is a very powerful tool. In the same way, we also know that many words are polysemic (have multiple meanings), for example in English we can use the word “bitch” referring to a female dog, but at the same time that word also has an informal meaning referring to an unpleasant woman.

Here a few emblematic examples that I think are pretty common in our society:

Discriminate

Prejudice - Prejuicio (in Spanish)

                   

I decided to put the Spanish definition of "prejudice" because I found negative connotation of the same word in some online English dictionaries (you can click the name above the image to go to the source if you cannot see it properly).

Here is a very interesting video about those 2 examples in a specific context. The definition in the video says: "Prejudice: prejudgment (this means that is made previously getting to know something or somebody), an unjustified, typically negative, attitude toward an individual or group".

Personally, I liked the video and how they present the way we process our ideas regarding this topic, but I would like to mention some things that might be interesting as well: Treat discrimination always as something negative is to restrict the ability of a person to establish order, because it is a basic ability to discern between things and people, and is the first pillar to build conscious and critical individuals. When you discriminate a group of people it does not always mean that you are looking down on them, you might be arranging their characteristics because they are tall, fat, short, thin, read certain books, listen different bands, like various TV shows, etc. Furthermore, you can differentiate something or somebody dangerous/harmful that you consider is not worth to include in your life.

Finally, I would like to say that sometimes is important to analyze what we already know, simple things such as definitions can create conflicts in your social life. In my opinion, re-learning concepts/ideas is something underrated. Anyways, Feel free to disagree with my point of view if you are not in favor of it, explain me your reasons I would be glad to read them all!

Every mistake is a lesson!

Hello readers! This week entry is related with something that I assume everybody had experienced at some point in our lives, yes! I am talking about failures. They always have been part of our learning process and is moment to talk about it!

First of all, something that probably all of us know is that we cannot win or be successful at everything we do, especially at the first try. This is not to demotivate you, on the contrary! Sometimes it takes a second try to understand deeply what are you doing or the objective, additionally, you can be better than the person who succeeded at his first try!

Secondly, errors are important to grow as a person and one of the best part of them is that we can learn from the errors of friends, enemies, teachers, relatives, strangers, and even fictional characters! I have really good memories of avoiding negative consequences by remembering what somebody told me, or what I saw in another context! Moreover, certain situations can leave some physical or iconic scars which remind us that we should not make the same mistake twice.

Consequently, I want to list some things I have learned recently as the result of other people’s mistake and of course the ones I made as well:

“Tradition is the corpse of wisdom”

“The more confident you feel about understanding something completely, the less you actually can still learn from it”

“Do not underestimate the complexity of anything no matter how simple it seems”

“Never lend money that you would not have given for free”

“Teachers should take a complaint from his/her students in the same way that they take it from a supervisor”

Here is a video in which we can appreciate some worthy ideas related to failure

Finally, as a reflection after reading and watching material related to this topic, I would like to add that usually we tend to see as a failure the fact that somebody cannot perform certain tasks while others are able to accomplish them. There are several readings with theory that include biodiversity, mental processes, affective factors, and even more that explain why those persons are having problems and not respecting them pace is a mistake. Thus, comparing individuals is not helpful, and teachers should know this, not only with students but with their own pairs. To finish this entry I want you to tell me "what is the last thing you have learned?"