Paradoxes

These past two weeks have been hell on earth to me… I ran between work, university and my personal problems; I didn’t have any time to do anything at all. I feel like being overcrowded with work and study and I don’t have any more time to even talk to my friends and this situation has been taken the worst of me during this time. I think that I don’t have enough time to fulfil my obligations and I’m falling behind with the things that I have to do. Somehow this situation has been dragging me down the whole time, but today there was something that in a way cheered me up.

A few months ago, it was announced that one of my favourite bands “Las Pastillas del Abuelo” was going to come again to San Luis to present their new album called “Paradojas”. It will be the first show of their tour and they will present the album HERE, and with every ticket you will have a copy of the album. I have the privilege of having the 12^th ticket to be there and I’m going to go with my best friend the 31^st of October and watch them as closely as I did the previous three times I went to see them. So as of now you can think, and you will be absolutely correct, that I’m quite excited to go and see them.

Today, the 23^rd of October, the album is now available in stores, and I already downloaded it fully and I’m listening to it while I write this entry. I feel the joy running through my veins. Even if these weeks had been hell to me, the music sets me free and I enjoy listening to the lyrics and the rhythm. It takes me back; back when I was this little child playing in an imaginary world, far away from this real world… filled with rage, sadness, death… Their music, like music from many other bands, transports me to a different world, one in which I don’t have to worry about anything. This music makes me realise that there are many things in this world that are better than those pessimistic feelings that fill our world. Music is one of my anchors to earth, but most of all, it’s what made me overcome these two weeks.

What defines you?

"Privato di un'ala,

L'uccellino ha chiuso gli occhi in silenzio.

La sofferenza è svanita lontano:

Ora l'uccellino non piange più."
Byakumu no mayu (ricordando il passato) - Akiko Shikata

#Don't stay in school

Today I’ll be talking about a Boyinaband and you might be thinking “Hey, Pablo, isn’t it “Boy In A Band”? Why did you write it all together?” Well, that is because Boyinaband is the name of a YouTube channel which 8 months ago uploaded a humongous controversial video called “Don’t stay in school”. I’m leaving the video so you can watch it right away before reading my reaction to it. I don’t want to influence you, so watch it and let your imagination run wild.

 I saw this video a couple of weeks ago, in another YouTube channel called “REACT” (which I highly recommend you). In that episode, The Fine Bros (The owners of the channel) made Parents react to this video. I highly suggest that you also watch it if you are interested. Their reactions give a clear insight of how a parent sees education in general because they were students and now they have children studying. The video of the reactions is the following one:

 I have to say that at first I thought “Okay, this dude is totally right! I agree with every word he said” But when he uttered the final phrase “Don’t stay in school” I said “Okay, let’s go back and analyse everything”. I continued watching and what he preaches is that those “useless” subjects shouldn’t stay in school, not that children should quit studying.

I’ve been in both sides as well, but in a different way; I was a student (and I still am, we never finish studying, right?) and now I’m the teacher.  As a student, sometimes I questioned the contents but secretly; I’ve always been a good student and I've never complained about anything (now I complain a lot in the Institute, LOL) but you have to be a lot older and wiser to start thinking about the usefulness of the contents we are taught. A recurrent joke between students is “What is the purpose of learning equations, if we are not going to use equations when we go to buy vegetables?” and they are totally correct about it; what is the use of equations in real life? Why is it important to learn facts about our history or to know the surface of the country? This is a very clear problem we as teachers (and not only English teachers) have to face: “The meaningfulness of the content we teach”. The video caused uproar because the message was misunderstood, but at the same time it raised the question of what teachers are teaching and how. Why are these contents becoming irrelevant in our society?

I think the answer to these questions lies in our actions. We have to ask ourselves: “What is the purpose behind learning for example, present simple? The teacher should give a clear purpose to EVERYTHING he/she teaches. Otherwise students do not know why they are learning that. But I also believe, as the Boyinaband, that we, as a society, should revise the curriculum of schools. What are we teaching? How are we teaching it? Why is it relevant? Students, and speaking about adolescents, are not interested in learning about biology or history. They are one step from going into this crazy world of social problems, politics, having to work to feed the family and they don’t know how. They are not trained to go outside and be citizens in this cruel society that will probably devour them (not literally). They are not prepared. I wasn’t prepared… and now I struggle to learn about how society works. I have no idea about taxes, about economy in general. I have no idea how to shop food for my family. I don’t know what things I can do in a bank. I don’t know how medical insurances work. I don’t know anything. And I believe that’s partially the school’s curriculum fault. I want to finish quoting a teacher that last Friday gave us a workshop and she told us a very interesting phrase to analyse and consider. She said that we have a 19^th century school curriculum, with 20^th century teachers, and 21^st century students. I think we should seriously reconsider what we are teaching and what we are learning as soon as possible.