History and Tourism

Blog Activity

My experience in the blog was a new one. In this class is where I made a blog for first time. I had to looking for in YouTube for the instructions to make one. I think that the way of creation of this was difficult. But after all, I can do it.  Fist seem curious to me in the first entries that we put our personal information, the objective of the blog and how we will run this. This blow activity is a creative way of teaching.  Each student has a purpose in their journeys and a different trajectory to follow. Every day we open new ways and we learn new thing. This blog journey is our book of life.

Each student’s blog is characterized by his theme. My topic is my adventure in Puerto Rico. I don’t write all my experiences, just some of them.  I wrote about the some of the best places of Puerto Rico. There is beaches, national forest, our customs and many other. Apart of this this blog is guide by our teacher class. We discuss a lot of lectures and we analyzed it. We wrote our personal thinking and our opinions about the lectures.

Finally this blog is an educational one. It talk about us, our feeling, our thinking, our cultures and opinions. We develop a way of learning by this exercise.

 

Happiness is a Number

Netherlands 

I found very interesting the chapter Netherlands about the happiness. As the chapter says, happiness cannot be measured. I really liked all research related to happiness: the stress, sex, stimulate the mind, comparisons with other countries among others. In my opinion happiness it is relative. For example: I can be on the beach and for me that makes me happy. But another person can be on the same beach than I and that does not cause happiness to her or him. For this reason I believe that happiness is built by ourselves. We built it with our attitudes, our thoughts, our desire and our behaviors.

 In chapter mentions the following: want to experience unhappiness, or at Least leave open the Possibility of unhappiness, in order to truly appreciate happiness”. I am totally agree with this statement. There is no human on earth who can be happy all days. . That's impossible. Live happy a lifetime is a utopia. When we live unhappy moments we see all those moments of happiness that we leave everywhere, for this reason, after living a moment of unhappiness, we will cling to find the path to happiness. I think that happiness and unhappiness are part of each of us. It's interesting because with unhappiness we learn to seek happiness and with happiness do not seek unhappiness but sometimes happiness is such that makes us unhappy.
As I mentioned according to chapter there are some countries more happier than other. But that's a cultural thing. In Netherlands is legal prostitution, drugs and cycling. The author of the chapter said: If I Moved to Holland, you'd probably find me a few months later, engulfed in a cloud of Moroccan hash, a hooker under each arm. That means, the country can give you happiness, but it does not suit you as a person. He prefer to be at home and be happy with the things he has. This brings me to analyze the following:We humans got used to our culture and our values. We can find happiness in different places and in different ways, but happiness that is in another place or country does not mean it will have the same meaning to a person of a different country. Happiness is not a destination, is a state of Being. 

Video:

Teaching English

 

The problem with the English language is caused by four reason: Political status, family responsibility, the educational system and the teachers. Puerto Rico is a colonized island by the government of the United States.  This colonization affected our culture and political status. The arrivals of the military government of the United State change our customs and our style of life.  This union with the states make that our government is tied to a greater control. Since 1950 we are having problems with our status languages. The PNP said that English should be our first language and the PPD said that should be our second language. This controversy with the languages has brought many problems with the puertorricans. This decision has affected the educational systems. Suddenly has affected the schools and family. Everything comes from this decisions.

The status of languages has affected the way of living in Puerto Rico. Before 1950 everything was in Spanish. After the invasion of the United States, all has changed. Now he have English TV programs, if you going to the social security office all the instructions are in English. This change of political and language status has affected and confused the people. Right now we have many people that speak Spanglish. They do not speak well the English and Spanish language. Also we have other percent that speak a good English.   And finally we have another percent that just speak Spanish and do not understand the English languages. We have a heterogeneous language society.

The educational systems also has been affected but do not means that affected all the systems. By my experience I can talk about the public and private systems. In the public system I had teacher that they talked everything in English and they do not explain nothing in Spanish. In my private school also the teacher talked and teach in English. The different is that in the public I never use a book to practice and for read short stories. In the private school I had a book that explain me everything. That book has short and long stories and questions about the stories. We read novels, poesy and many other literary genres. . The big difference is that in private school the student are in more constantly practice.

Finally the teacher also are a big and important part of this cause. In the case of public school the systems bring them a guide to follow. And that is the problems. I think that teacher have an academic preparation and they can give a class without a systems guide. I would say that system moor them and they can’t teach what they want to teach. . In conclusion we a have a heterogeneous English society and is difficult to make change that get better all the students. But right now in this era, the English language is very important to us because if we know it, we have bilingual and we will have many opportunities to get jobs. So I don’t know that is the solutions for this problems but I know that every puertorricans must be disciplined and practice the English language.