A teacher's rebellion

It is a common belief that young people are best suited to question set ideas, to challenge the status quo, to long for the revolution that will bring everything down and build the world from scratch. Maybe so.

However, I feel that no revolution can compare to the informed one, the revolution of those who know where they come from and what it is they are rebelling against.

Do I feel rebellious? I certainly do.

As a teacher of a few decades, having spent long hours with children of 7 to 17, I feel that almost all  the exams for obtaining  language qualifications do injustice to the different talents and abilities of students.

Think, for example, of all the research into language acquisition, of all the different methods which will allow people of different intelligences to approach a foreign language in a way that will help them assimilate structures and words. On the other hand, think of all the exam materials available for preparing successful candidates.

Now try to figure how much fun and how much real learning exam requirements enable. Am I the only one to think that nobody will be asked to write a film review in real life unless they pursue a career as film critics?

Am I the only one to think that completing two writing tasks of about 300 words each in 1 ½ hours is pointless and does not really allow the candidate to focus on either. Nor does it give the examiner a better understanding of the candidate’s proficiency in the language than just one would.

Am I alone in getting frustrated when two totally mismatched candidates try to interact in a speaking test and only succeed in ruining each other’s chances? What is the point in interaction if one has not made sure that the two candidates fulfil some basic requirements? And what is wrong with individuals examined separately?

When I work with dyslexic people and try to catch up with them trying out so many different answers in their heads—sometimes aloud too-- so they can get to the right one, I am at a loss. I couldn’t process half of this information so fast. Is some extra time thrown to them for accomplishing the tasks going to even give the examiner an inkling of the effort and the thinking process at work?

Please do not ask me what is to be done and should we do away with exams. I only know this one thing; I have reached this point in my teaching career where I feel an irresistible urge to rebel, to join ranks with my students.

Time

Pebbles and Words

It is summer – at least in one half of the world. Depending on one’s origin and residence, summer means as many different things as people around the world. Born and having eventually settled down in a place in Greece where the sea is only a stone’s throw from home, summer to me means pebbly beaches and boundless seas.

In the long hours of sea-gazing one cannot help becoming rather philosophical if, for no other reason, in order to while the time away. I am susceptible to such bouts of introspection.

What follows is the –somewhat processed —outcome of such activity:

(The above is the result of personal summer tinkering)

To my mind words are very similar to pebbles: pebbles come in a motley of shapes and colours that nature has carved and imprinted on them. Likewise words carry all kinds of meanings – present and obsolete—and different emotional loads for each user.

 Words are age-old like the rocks from which the pebbles were chiselled off by the patient force of the wind and the rain before depositing themselves where they are currently situated.

Words, like pebbles, are dynamic, broadening or narrowing their meaning, rising or falling in popularity similarly to pebbles which are here this moment but perhaps elsewhere the next.

Both pebbles and words are at anyone’s disposal; all one needs to do is pick a few and start creating with them – images or texts, simple or more complicated. In different arrangements and structures, they can take on innumerable forms and meanings. 

Pebbles are hardly loved by the masses. Only a few romantics still observe them noticing the tiny cracks in them – wounds that the passage of time has left on them – or the marks etched on them in their scrapes against a myriad of obstacles in their erratic path. Words also bear the scars of their use or abuse.

Finally, in the same way that pebbles constitute the traces of the workings of nature since time immemorial, words are the evidence of the evolution of mankind.

Pebbles and Words

It is summer – at least in one half of the world. Depending on one’s origin and residence, summer means as many different things as people around the world. Born and having eventually settled down in a place in Greece where the sea is only a stone’s throw from home, summer to me means pebbly beaches and boundless seas.

In the long hours of sea-gazing one cannot help becoming rather philosophical if, for no other reason, in order to while the time away. I am susceptible to such bouts of introspection.

What follows is the –somewhat processed —outcome of such activity:

(The above is the result of personal summer tinkering)

To my mind words are very similar to pebbles: pebbles come in a motley of shapes and colours that nature has carved and imprinted on them. Likewise words carry all kinds of meanings – present and obsolete—and different emotional loads for each user.

 Words are age-old like the rocks from which the pebbles were chiselled off by the patient force of the wind and the rain before depositing themselves where they are currently situated.

Words, like pebbles, are dynamic, broadening or narrowing their meaning, rising or falling in popularity similarly to pebbles which are here this moment but perhaps elsewhere the next.

Both pebbles and words are at anyone’s disposal; all one needs to do is pick a few and start creating with them – images or texts, simple or more complicated. In different arrangements and structures, they can take on innumerable forms and meanings. 

Pebbles are hardly loved by the masses. Only a few romantics still observe them noticing the tiny cracks in them – wounds that the passage of time has left on them – or the marks etched on them in their scrapes against a myriad of obstacles in their erratic path. Words also bear the scars of their use or abuse.

Finally, in the same way that pebbles constitute the traces of the workings of nature since time immemorial, words are the evidence of the evolution of mankind.