My Experince of Writing II

The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible. ~Vladimir Nabakov


Six months after recounting my experience of writing in the prof, I dare to say that I find myself at a different stage of the process of writing and this is due to:

First, I have written different types of texts such as articles, profiles, biodatas, tales and both opinion and for and against essays. This experience of writing different types of texts is both challenging and motivating. Challenging because I had to learn how to cope with these texts and respect the structure and motivating because I believe that if I had spent the whole year writing narratives I would have lost interest in developing and improving this skill. Variety, without a shadow of a doubt, is essential to keep students motivated.

Second, I consider incredibly fruitful the process of writing different drafts and having feedback from my peers and tutors before having my writing graded by my teacher. I have learnt to pay close attention to range, register, style, organization and content which I had never acknowledged before. Every person in my process of writing has been of great help. What I most value of all of them is that they didn’t clarify my doubts by just correcting grammar or lexical mistakes, they made suggestions, put questions to me so I could reflect on them and reach an answer on my own.

Third, writing used to be a real time-consuming task for me. I could spend days trying to write a narrative. Along the year, I have managed to write diverse texts in less time. In hindsight, I think this was possible because of the structure of the texts. Besides, even though I still disapprove of writing any type of text in a final exam, this year, when I had to write an article and an essay in class-which is similar to writing in a final instance-I didn’t feel under pressure. These experiences were much more gratifying since I had the tools to write, I knew the structures, the topics had been discussed in class beforehand and I knew I had to focus on certain features such as content, range, register and so on.

In a nutshell, though I still believe that I have to work on improving “My third eye” and the layout, I consider it has been a successful experience. I don’t feel panic when facing a blank sheet of paper with a title. I learnt how to catch the reader’s attention-the introductions were the strong points in my writings- and what characteristics a skillful writer should develop.

Discrimination in the classroom

Discrimination is so ingrained in our society that we tend to ignore it or even worse, we tend to neglect it. Though school is a place where discrimination shouldn’t be allowed to enter; where teachers and administrators should guarantee a safe environment in order to achieve their aim, that is to say, to promote learning, very often we can see teachers discriminating against students or students discriminating against their own classmates.

As a teacher, I had the opportunity -or misfortune- to witness discrimination at school. “It is difficult for them to learn because they come from the lower class” or “They can’t even speak in Spanish and you expect them to speak in English”. This is what many pedagogists call “labelling”. A label is like a tattoo on your skin, a mark which is difficult to get rid of. Hence, it is one of the worst crimes that a teacher can commit. Teachers who really believe that their students can’t learn, who expect nothing from them, won’t encourage their students to do their best in order to succeed and achieve high-quality work. Therefore, they will condemn their students to failure. Besides, students are not dumb. They can detect the teacher’s attitude easily. The message that students receive is that the teacher “doesn’t care about them”, which destroys their self-esteem and their self-concept.

What happens when students discriminate against their own classmates? Who is to blame? Most of my students come from Bolivia and, as you may know, the Bolivians are the perfect target for racists. In my class, I’ve heard comments such as “callate boliviano sucio”. I strongly believe that a child can’t reproduce such a comment without having heard it before from his or her family. Children do not discriminate by nature, they learn to do so, either at school or at home. So we adults, are always to blame. In such situations, the role of the teacher is extremely relevant. If the teacher turns a blind eye, she or he will probably contribute to increasing discrimination in the classroom. However, if she or he takes part in the problem, the result can be completely different. Taking part doesn’t mean telling off your students, it implies talking about this issue with them and explaining to them why they did is wrong.

All in all, my advice is: Next time you hear someone discriminating against somebody else, do intercede. No matter if he or she is a teacher or a student and ask your students to tell you if they ever feel discriminated against. To be a good teacher, first we must be a good person.

SCs&AWRs