It is necessary to learn from the past

English pedagogy

Culture and civilization I

Claudia Trajtemberg

Katherine Silva

Friday, 04 December 2009

Words: 781

It is necessary to learn from the past

Current society and Victorian Times’ society are not so different from each other. It is possible to prove this statement comparing present-day issues with others from the movie “Modern times”, which represents Victorian Times. The pedagogic use of this film can be useful during the teaching and learning process of (future) teachers because this movie allows understanding the reasons why current society is like it is. Besides, from this understanding do not repeat the same errors from the past and motivate (future) teachers to propose new methodologies or ideas in order to improve learning and teaching process of their student. For this reason, the present essay consists on demonstrating the described thesis from each part of it. The following paragraph is about similarities between the current society’s issues and the Victorian Times film “Modern Times”. The next one is related to the knowledge that present-day society can get from previous errors to avoid making the same ones. Then, it is going to be explained how “Modern Times” can be used to motivate (future) teachers to propose new methodology and ideas in order to improve learning and teaching students process.

Firstly, this movie can be useful to understand current society issues because “Modern Times” film mirrors them. This Chaplin’s production is about a factory worker, who flew into a fit of rage (due to his stressing job) and was arrested. He was really happy in jail because he was relaxed; he did not need to pay any bill and so on. However, unfortunately for him, he was liberated. At the same time, factory workers were on strike and protesting on the streets about their work conditions. Besides, during that period there was not enough work for everybody, so many people were unemployed. This was the case of a man, who had to look after his three daughters alone. Unfortunately, he was died suddenly and the police tried to take the girls to the orphanage, but the oldest run away. Then, when she was stealing a piece of bread, she crushed into Chaplin and as he was so happy in prison he said to the salesman he was the thief to be arrested again, however, a witness told the truth. So, he was liberated once more. As he really wanted to back to the jail, he went to a restaurant and ate all up he could without paying. When he was in the police car, he met the girl again, who was arrested too, but the car had an accident so they took this opportunity to escape and try to be happy together. About these issues, is it familiar to you stressing jobs, unhappy workers, unemployed ones and poor people, who have to steal to eat something? There are not enough differences between the Victorian Times and the current society.

Secondly, it is possible to learn from previous experiences. During this movie it is possible to see how people are losing their importance as persona. Work conditions did not worry bosses, they saw their workers just like machines, which had to work pretty hard and fast, it was the Chaplin case. From this point of view, students were considered as workers (machines) too. There was not difference between one student and another, in fact, cloth decreases differences. Considering students as a uniform mass it is an error that (future) teachers should not make because they have to be aware that each person is completely different from another. For this reason (future) teachers should consider all the information they have about their students to make more successful their learning and teaching process.

Finally, this film can be used to motivate teachers to propose new methodologies and ideas based on this period to change current society. This point is very close to the previous one because if (future) teacher were aware of errors already done in the past, they would ask themselves how they can change this situation. For example, if the error was thinking that all people are similar, maybe (future) teachers can propose using a methodology more focus on specific abilities or ways of learning that each student has.

To conclude, the “Modern Times” film mirrors perfectly errors that society has being repeating through the years until the present time. For this reason, the pedagogic use of this film on teachers’ education can be useful to understand better present-day society issues, to avoid making the same errors and encourage them to propose new methodologies and ideas, which can be helpful to improve teaching and learning process. It is necessary to learn from the past.

“Modern Times”

I think there is a huge influence from industrialization and Modernity at the present time. Industrialization and Modernity marked an after and before it.

In my opinion, the idea of industralization was to simplify chores, but unfortunately it had negative results. For example, a lot of people lost their jobs as we saw on film "Modern times". People were not happy being replaced by machines and losing their salaries. For the same reason, people were estressed like the main character of this film, who collapsed.They were forced to steal and do striks. However, from another point of view, modernity made possible the increase of the communicational technology and transport.

To conclude, changes are not good always, but they are necessary to the evolution of society and culture. In consequence, people have to be careful and try to act with a lot of wisdom to avoid destrying themselves. Remember that the environmental destruction is our fault, because of the industaralization.

The importance of the Elizabeth’s reign in the British History

I think to understand better the importance of the Elizabeth's reign in the British History is necessary to know the British context before her reign.

According to the movie, there was a religious division between Protestans and Catholics, and England and Spain had diplomatic conflicts due to the divorce between Elizabeth's father and the queen of Spain.

However, after Elizabeth's reign people were free to express their religion even they unified their believes in one church, also the diplomatic conflicts ended. The Elizabeth's reign was the most success one, for this reason, it was called the gloden age because of the abundance and peace.

To conclude, the importance of the Elizabeth's reign in the British history was the prosperity and diplomatic and religious peace that it gave to England.

what I thinkabout culture civilization and critical thinking

I think that there is or not a critical thinking because of the culture, and a civilization due to culture. however, One thing doesnt tyake you from one thing to another. I mean, the fact of having a culture doesnt mean your are in a civilization or being critical thinking. I Think that it is similar to psichology, because all depends. Being being a critical thinker depends on the different systems that surround you-micro, macro,meso,exo. however, I think something diffrent happens with being a critical thinker. somethink like a light turn on inside of our minds. what is the reason I do not know

“Natives & Immigrants”

I think it is possibly to summrize the interaction between natives and immigrants like the natural evolution of language by influences. I mean, the English that we know is a mixture between several dialetcs, which allowed the evolution of English in terms of meaning and function until how we know it, and I am sure that it will keep changing by other languages influence, for example, Spanish.

My expectations

When I was at high school, my classmates and me thought that all English teachers were stupid people, I mean, we knew that they were graduated from University but, unfortunately, they did not share their knowledge. However, then I understood there are all kind of people and no all English teachers are ignorant.

Why my teachers did not be cultured people? If they studied a language, which represent a culture why they did not know anything about it? Who is the responsible for it? Was their University maybe or themselves?

In my opinion people choose who they want to be according to the possibilities that they have in life and their own abilities.

To conclude, it is so important getting knowledge about world that surround us, for this reason reading all kind of book can help us discovering new ways of seeing. For this reason I hope to develop my mind looking for the teacher that I would like to be in future.