THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME

ACTIVITY FOR MY BELOVED STUDENTS OF 2E
This is the PDF of the wonderful novel we are reading by Mark Haddon.
Remember that you can also see the play at Teatro Marquina in Madrid.

ANIMAL FARM

Activity for 2 BACHILLERATO.
We are going to read Animal Farm in March.
This is the pdf taken from the internet:
http://www.huzheng.org/geniusreligion/AnimalFarm.pdf

Here you are!

OSCAR WILDE

Activity for 4ºESO sección & 2º Bachillerato
This week we a re going to start dealing with Oscar Wilde. We are going to know about his life and works. Then we will real a play by him and a short story.
This website has very useful information about the author:
http://www.wilde-online.info/oscar-wilde-biography.htm
 And this is the DIDACTIC UNIT I did in a course and we will work these days:
https://app.box.com/s/p77fgu28q3lpzet4unn7atlcnj4wawce

CHRISTMAS STORY

This is my favourite Xmas story. It is written by Paul Auster, the great American writer and it appears in the film Smoke, in which Auster wrote the script. I wanted to share it with my 4ESO E students, as I promise you:

http://www.xtec.cat/~dsanz4/materiales/auggie_wren.pdf

And this is the scene in the film. Superb story, magnificent actors (Harvey Keitel and William Hurt), lovely music:

And this is the song Innocent when you dream by Tom Waits:

I hope you liked it.
And, at last HAPPY XMAS, my dear students!!!!!!

A NEW STAGE

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players"
 William Shakespeare

I love this quote. It's so true. I know it has been long since the last time I wrote here. The end of the academic year is always hard but last year it was even harder. It was my last year at the CEPA Joaquín Sorolla, where I had been the Head Teacher for four years and where I left almost all my energy. Then I was obliged to be a member of the board in the competitive exams for English teachers and then I tried to enjoy my unforgettable  Summer in Ireland with my family and my Irish friends for more than twenty years.

My professional life has changed lately. The destiny has brought me back to the high school where I studied a long time. I am a teacher this time an I take part in the bilingual programme for Secondary education, which sound so exciting. I need aims to give some sense to my life, I need to follow a lighthouse. Teaching Literature and working in this project is an interesting goal that makes me feel alive.

This is a new stage in my life. I am ready for that but the memories of those four years there and in other schools since I started teaching in 1996 will be with me forever giving me strength and wisdom.

Hook lighthouse, Ireland

WORLD BOOK DAY

We celebrate the World Book Day today. The UNESCO chose this day, when theoretically both Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare died in 1616. We organize varied activities at schools and there are events like the reading of El Quijote at Círculo de Bellas Artes by many people all day long. You can buy books with a discount this week in many places. At el Sorolla we have filled two big boards with books recommendations by teachers and students and we have done the 1 book 1 euro market.
In Ireland and the UK people drive on the left!!! and they celebrate the World Book Day on the first Thursday in March!!!, which is St George's Day, in order to be different, I suppose.
Anyway, whenever people celebrate reading is always a pleasure and a gate to learn. It is very good for our brain and soul.
And this is all. I'm sorry. I have something to read now : )

THE JOY LUCK CLUB BY AMY TAN

We, philologists, are a kind of people who like rereading books over and over again. It also happens to other people and not ony with books but also with films, art shows and so on. This year, when I was teaching my Acceso students in class,  I remembered the beginning of a novel that was an impact for me when I read it for the first time in 1993 in Massachusetts: The Joy Luck Club by the Asian-American writer Amy Tan. So in the next class I gave them the text and we worked it together. The power of her words full of meanings evoking the past and far away lands as well as expressing the inmense love of  mothers to  daughters and the the hope of a better life in the land where the dreams can come true is overwhelming in that text. Here it is if you want to read it:

https://app.box.com/s/twbq4tufm9o8wwemqqkf

 After reading this I decided to read the novel again and I found  it  superb. It is the story of four mothers born in China and for daughters born in the US and we can see the cultural contrasts and the bonds between these women written in a sensitive poetic style.
Amy Tan dedicated her first novel : To my mother and the memory of her mother" and she adds these deep words: "You asked me once what I would remember. This, and much more" and the novel starts like this filling he reader with great expectations.
Amy Tan is an American writer who was born in California in 1952. Her parents were immigrants from China. The Loy Luck Club is her first novel published in 1989 and she has published other well written novels such as: The Kitchen God's Wife, The Hundred Secret Senses, The Bonesetter's Daughter, The Opposite of Fate and Saving Fish from Drowning . All of them are translated into Spanish. If you read any of them, you will hook up, I'm sure.
She has beautiful quotations, among them I choose this: "Writing is an extreme privilege but it's also a gift. It's a gift to yourself and it's a gift of giving a story to someone"

INTERNATIONAL DAY OF WOMEN

EMILY DICKINSON would probably be happy if she lived now.
Today, let's have her words in our mind:
"This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me..."
Emily Dickinson, American poet. Massachusetts (1830-1886)

SNOW

It's snowing in Madrid today!!! At last!!!
Sergio was looking forward to seeing the snow this winter and I suppose he is also seeing it in Sierra de Gredos, oh my Goodness!
Whenever I see the snow I think of the unforgettable winter I spent in Massachusetts in the academic year 1993-1994.
I took several courses of Literature and I read a lot  of books written by new American writers. I read How the García Girls Lost their Accents by Julia Alvarez. It is a beautiful novel about a family from the Domenican Republic who started a new life in the US following the American Dream. There was a beautiful chapter in the novel  entitled: Snow about how Yolanda, one of the sisters, saw the snow for the first time at school and described it. It is a lovely text, which I have found on the Internet and I post for you.... Beautiful!!
Enjoy the snow!

https://www.box.com/s/8hi61d94xzf0kroxxcrj

LA VIDA ES SUEÑO

I have seen some ads in the underground about a new performance of La vida es sueño by Don Pedro Calderón de la Barca, God, what a play!!! I love Segismundo's story since the first time I read the play. I've seen several performances and it's impossible to forget Pedro Mari Sánchez playing one of the most important roles in Literature. I have had a look at the text today and the story is never outdated. That's what makes it universal. We learn that we can change our destiny, that we mustn't judge anybody without knowing the reasons and we learn that education is essential for the development of human beings.

When Segismundo says that life is a dream there is a deep thought behind. Sometimes, when we don't believe what is going on, we  escape from that pain thinking for a short time that it is a dream, a bad dream, a nightmare. La vida es sueño is a perfect story to describe our present society. Now, let me quote those wonderful words:

"Sueña el rico en su riqueza,
que más cuidados le ofrece;
sueña el pobre que padece
su miseria y su pobreza;
sueña el que a medrar empieza,
sueña el que afana y pretende,
sueña el que agravia y ofende,
y en el mundo, en conclusión,
todos sueñan lo que son,
aunque ninguno lo entiende.
Yo sueño que estoy aquí
destas prisiones cargado,
y soñé que en otro estado
más lisonjero, me vi.
¿Qué es la vida?, un frenesí;
¿Qué es la vida?, una ilusión,
una sombra, una ficción.
y el mayor bien es pequeño;
que toda la vida es sueño,
y los sueños, sueños son."

I don't know why but when I think about the famous dialogue of poor Segismundo, I always think about Macbeth's honest definition of life:
"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his our upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing"

Perhaps Calderón and Shakespeare are not so far: Is life a dream? Is it fiction? Is it theatre? Is it a tale told by an idiot with no sense? I think that these quotations are very appropiate nowadays, unfortunately. And I think that Literature is a need in every culture. There is much to learn from Literature. Thanks, Don Pedro. Thanks Master Shakerpeare.

TEACHERS

These are hard times for our profession. I've been a teacher in our public Educative System since 1996. I have worked in almost 20 high schools in the region. I have lived experiences of all kinds & I have learnt a lot of my students & my workmates. I'm very proud of many teachers I've worked with. They have helped me to LOVE this job & believe me, teachers are not only people that "work 20 hours a week" & "have 2 months holidays". Many teachers are psychologists, confessors, clowns, police-officers, judges, parents, detectives, nurses, actors & guides apart from giving lessons about their especiality (which have studied for 5 years & have passed a hard competitive exam among thousands of candidates).

I can't mention here all the people who have tought me to teach & live teaching but here are some of them: The 1st time I worked in El Sorolla in 2000 I met excellent professionals: Dori, Delicia, Carmen. This year I had the honour to work with Marian, Lucía, Lola, Rocío, Mar & Patxi. In El Jovellanos Olivia & Gema de Jaén made me forget my worst students ever. I worked in El Palomeras for 4 years where I shared good & bad moments with Amalia, David, Pierre, Esther, Susana M. & José Alberto, my twin soul in teaching (& travelling!). Last year I suffered Chinchón with Mª José putting together her sense of humour & my experience to survive. I had very interesting talks about education & life with Fabián (who risked to travel in my car!!), Enrique & Raúl (who risked to take me in theirs!). I also have neighbour teachers, Gema & Óscar, with whom I have spent several evenings solving the problems of our educative system in our pool.

We are TEACHERS. We wear a green T-shirt sometimes because we believe in our work & we WORK FOR OUR STUDENTS & we want to get the best of them. That's our only fault.

Whenever I feel down about the sense of my work, I think about this poem by Celaya, which is more than a therapy for me: Educar... This is for all of you & others. "May the Force be with you".

EDUCAR
Educar es lo mismo
que poner motor a una barca…
hay que medir, pesar, equilibrar…
… y poner todo en marcha.
Para eso,
uno tiene que llevar en el alma
un poco de marino…
un poco de pirata…
un poco de poeta…
y un kilo y medio de paciencia
concentrada.
Pero es consolador soñar
mientras uno trabaja,
que ese barco, ese niño
irá muy lejos por el agua.
Soñar que ese navío
llevará nuestra carga de palabras
hacia puertos distantes,
hacia islas lejanas.
Soñar que cuando un día
esté durmiendo nuestra propia barca,
en barcos nuevos seguirá
nuestra bandera
enarbolada.
Gabriel Celaya