Monalisa Smiles

Katherine Watson who is an art professor begins her teaching career at the all-female Wellesley College. The students are very advance in studies and In 1953, a time when women's roles were rigidly defined, free-spirited, novice art history professor Katherine Watson begins teaching at the... prepared to be a full time housewife. As a well educated person, Katherine has different perception towards woman’s role in society. In this movie, she takes up the role of a motivator to encourage students to be in the field as what they want. I find this movie interesting because as an educator, I realized that how important it is for a teacher to know the level of students and be prepared for lesson before enter a classroom. Professor Katherine, who is the main character is a strong woman where she believes in everything that she does and knows what to do, ignoring others view or opinion. She tried her best to make her students think creatively and critically by teaching them something beyond the curriculum syllabus because her students know anything about the syllabus. Therefore, she had to teach something new and interesting. She, in my opinion who is a motivator encouraged her student to be what they want to be, follow their dreams and not just to be prepared to be a housewife.

I personally feel that this movie is a good masterpiece for a teacher because many teaching techniques can be derived from it for our use in classroom. A teacher’s task is not only to educate students but also to prepare them mentally and physically for the future to face the outer world. Motivation is an important element of teaching that should not be neglected because teachers are seen as role models and respect us. By being nice and giving good feedback for every achievements will be able to boost the students’ self-confidence. This movie reminded me of one of my role model who is my teacher, Miss Chan. She is really good in English and has never skipped her classes. Most of the students in my class don’t like her because she always teach and teach and teach but some really inspired her enthusiasm and passion for teaching us. It made many students to get good result in English exam and one of them is me. When she knows that I have gotten into Teaching Institute for my tertiary education, she even spends her time and money to give me a treat and some piece of advice preparing me for future. This kind of teacher I wanna be in future. Her idea is always one, ‘you are studying for life and not for examination.” As a teacher’s duty is very important and needed, I am glad to be in this line.

Animal in every Human!!!

            George O Well is one of the great writers on planet and among his best works, there is one that I can’t stop reading it again and again. It is ANIMAL FARM. It is a story of animals tries to stand on their own leg which is good but end up in failure in the long run. The story begins with animals in Manor’s farm having meeting among them discussing on rebellion. As they wanted, they chased human out from the farm and they took full control of the farm. They then started to work happily as they got more food and had freedom. Napoleon and Snowball are among the educated ones who took over the crown for betterment of other animals in the farm. As everything was fine, one day, Napoleon chased Snowball away and took over the leadership. He started to develop human characteristics in him and started to behave badly than human does. All the seven amendments set initially was changed and social class was developed. Pigs work at the administration whiles other animals in the field. The rest of the story is about how humans can be animals.

            What captured my mind is that if we take a close look at this story, it is merely what human does. So, the educated animals are the one who rule out the farm. At first, everyone was equal but when pigs claim that they are educated, they do easy work that favour them while others had to work hard under the hot sun. Besides that, Napoleon had become a dictator and a tyrant in the sense that when he felt he had threat, he killed all the animals who had contacted Snowball. At the end, he sold Boxer as he was old to work in the farm.

            Secondly, when people are ready to follow commands, there will be thousands of dictators ready to dictate. In this story, no matter what happens, whatever Snowball and Napoleon say is right and that is what they follow. That is the scenario in our community nowadays. People can be easily deceived. It is not because they are innocent but because of their blind trust like what happens in this story. In conclusion, I personally think that this story is suitable to be taught in school especially when we are teaching about moral values.

Give a Hand... Please...

            Teaching Language is not easy as grammar alone would not gain students’ interest. Comprehension texts and literary text all the time also might be boring as again it involves reading. Teaching and learning through the use of good selection of songs would definitely grasp students’ attention. There are many songs with good messages and values that can be used in classroom. The song that we have chosen is ‘Pray’ by Justin Beiber.

            The reason for chosing this song is that this song highlights the difficulties and sufferings of people around us. There are issues of poverty, how innocent lives are being affected, sacrifices made by soldiers fighting for their country, living behind their loved ones. There is a way for us to change all these, we have to pray. We must believe in the power of believing and have faith in GOD. The purpose of Bieber singing this song is to instill hope on those who are giving up in life. We can see this from his visit to the hospitals, homes and soldier camps. We can also evidence it through the lines from the song; “Cause I know there's sunshine behind that rain, I know there's good times behind that pain”, “I close my eyes and pray”.

We can use this song in the classroom to create awareness among the students of how lucky they are. Most of us are not appreciating what we have. We often waste food, water and other necessities. We do not appreciate the love of our parents and we do not appreciate the beauty of nature around us. On the other hand, less fortunate people are craving for everything that we have been wasting. So, through this song, we can show the students how people are suffering, how happy they are when they get something that they really wish for. The students are also given a chance to use their critical thinking skills. They are given a chance to imagine something that they have never experienced before. This will make them realize how lucky they are to live a happy life.

            In conclusion, this song can be used not only for teaching moral values but also to for brainstorming sessions in teaching literature especially when discuss about nature.

Leadership is Made!

Churchill and Hitler were once great leaders. They have their own way in leading their respective territories. Yet, there are some similarities that any leader would possesses that these two leaders have possessed. First is the strong use of ‘I’ and later ‘we’. Both the leaders used ‘I’ at very first place to gain attention of the crowd. From the loud pitch and strong stress on the word ‘I’ catches their public’s attention and it shows superiority. People were not speaking a word when their leaders were giving speech. Later, the use of ‘we’ shows that the leaders were gaining the support from the public by uniting them. The second similarity is being persuasive. Both Hitler and Churchill has the skill to keep their people with them. For example, I have, myself, full of confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home… from We Shall Fight on the Beaches and in Hitler’s speech, We go into the new year with a fighting force armed as never before in German history. The number of our divisions on land has been enormously increased. Pay has been increased…

Another similarity that is clearly seen in them is the confidence they had while delivering speeches. In both speeches, there were no fillers or pauses and it shows that the speakers are well prepared. Besides, they stick with the topic being presented with facts as evidence. What made me admire them is that the way they delivered speech made no room for questions. It was well planned and delivered.

However, as every other leader, these leaders also condemned other country’s strength and ability in order to show how strong they were. This is something not to be followed but if I were in his shoes, I would have done the same things as his because of the needed support and for the support; we need to show how good we are by condemning others.

In conclusion, I learned how to apply these persuading skills in teaching students and also realize that condemning others will not help teachers in teaching lessons.