Celebrating Dicken's bicentenary

Even though I’m not very good at writing poetry

 I’ve tried this acrostic poem with Dickens’s Great Expectations in mind.

Sometimes it may be confusing or lacking sense

 But I’ve tried to have rhythming pairs at the end of each verse

Glorious days may be coming

Radiant as the past ones and glaring

Endless nights for someone’s fun

Anxiously waiting for the sun

Twisted with pain in the twilit, the swan.

Eager for a glimpse of sunrise, we waited

X-ray eyes staring at us with hatred

Proudly swinging our own hips

Entwining our minds, the incoming tide rips

Chaos, disorder, confusion and then, the silence

Tormented by remorse, by our own inner thoughts

Attached to the material world, hence

“Tick, tock” … echoing in the distance

Isolated in our grief, we have no chance

Oblivious to our surroundings, to dangers

Nothing more to think, nothing more but strangers,

Simply making us suffer beyond endurance.

Dicken's recreation of Great Expectations

Great Expectations

My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.

I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his tombstone and my sister - Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father's, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, "Also Georgiana Wife of the Above," I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside their grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of mine - who gave up trying to get a living, exceedingly early in that universal struggle - I am indebted for a belief I religiously entertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands in their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this state of existence.

Being an innocent infant, I only learned about my father that he was a carpenter, just a plain ordinary carpenter. Reasonably honest, though. As honest as you could expect a man to be in a world where the whole class drift was upwards and there was no reason to suppose it would ever stop being so; where money could buy education, accent and fine clothes – all attributes of a gentleman; and where the cruel and hard order of commerce prevailed over all the things on Earth; and - who knows? - maybe over all the things situated at the other end of my own existence, too. I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly significant about this matter of affairs.

 

There is no doubt whatever about the fact that my character was also affected by being grown up solitary in the Marshes – a funereal, drab, flat, wet country, intersected with numerous hillocks, gates and dikes and with scattered cattle feeding on it; and right beyond me the deep dark winding river; and further away in the distance the immense, wild, rough, menacing sea. For good or for evil, I had nothing before me. And from the beginning it was a clear fact that I was destined to be unlucky in life; and that I was privileged to see the ghosts and spirits of my dead parents and brothers; both these gifts inevitably connected, as it was believed, to all unlucky infants of either gender, born orphans.

a little bit of walking

Have you learnt all the verbs Emilio gave us? If your answer is yes, I'm sure you're ready for more. Ready, Steady, Go! If you go to this other link, you will find more activities and resources about the topic of ways of walking. Hope  you like it!

Here you have some activities to practice verbs of walking.

Looking for some more activities I found this beautiful poem. It's worth reading.

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

The ABCs of Walking Wisely

Illustrates how people walk in streets like the alphabet. Shows among others the G-Walker, who doesn't look where he's going but says 'Gee, look at that,' the Y-Walker, who says 'Why walk when you can hitch a ride' and the familiar J-Walker.

The Ministry of Silly Walks.This video is also really interesting. And if you're desperate for some laughing this is what you need.

The surprising truth about what motivate teachers

What really motivates us?  Once basic money is off the table (i.e. get enough to buy the basics), there are really three main things that drive us:

1. Autonomy:  We like to be self-directed.  Pink says employers should realize their employees probably want to do something interesting; they just need to get out of their way.  

2. Mastery:  It is fun and satisfying to get really good at something (i.e. learning the guitar, working on open source software).
 
3. Purpose:  We want to feel we are doing something important with our lives. Additionally, when the profit motive is not aligned with the purpose motive, bad things happen - a common problem in healthcare!

What consequences does this have in education?

I think these apply very well to a teacher’s life, and explain why we will push ourselves very hard - we enjoy our autonomy, we enjoy mastering our skills, and our high level purpose is fulfilling.   However, what we don't like is when others try and tell us what to do (i.e. Junta de Andalucía, politicians, other teachers, parents, students), when we are told to master something we don't particularly enjoy (i.e. not all teachers love doing millions of continuous formation courses especially when they are really useless), and when we start feeling like our purpose is to fill loads of papers - bureocracy - instead of focusing on students.  

As for students, I think this theory helps explain why we fail so often at helping them.  They need to feel they are doing it themselves (autonomy), they need to find something they enjoy mastering (a lot of students don't like homework), and they need to see a tighter link between their actions and their ultimate "purpose" (which is likely to pass their tests).

So as we talk about further doing continuous formation courses, changing constantly our methodology, reforming our educational programmes again and again, and changing the very nature of teaching... let's remember both students and teachers are still human, and will be driven by these old motivations.  In other words, when making a change... think deeply about how you can best align autonomy, mastery and purpose - and you will clearly improve your chances of success!

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” (George Bernard Shaw)

The 1931 Constitution granted suffrage to women

The Second Republic (1931-1936) generated important legislative work and women were granted many new rights of which they had been hitherto deprived. The 1931 Constitution granted suffrage to women. Spain was therefore one of the first among South European states to enfranchise women. In 1932, laws on divorce and civil marriage were passed. Women were accorded full legal status; abortion was legalised, the crime of adultery was abolished and legal measures ensuring women's equal access to the labour market were taken.

The Second Republic: The conquery of women’s vote

Women’s vote was given in the context of the reforms introduced in the legislation of the Spanish Second Republic (1931-1936). The political coherence of politicians self-called “democratic” forced a revision of discriminatory laws and the concession of women’s right to vote. The process was a complex one. It was common ground for both left and right wing parties that most women, with the strong influence of the Catholic Church, were deeply conservative.

Some important feminists such as Margarita Nelken (on the left) and the radical socialist Victoria Kent (on the right), who had been elected MPs for the Constitutive Parliament of 1931, rejected the concession of women’s right to vote. They thought women were not yet ready to assume the right to vote and if given, their vote would be in the benefit of the most conservative forces.

Clara Campoamor

Clara Campoamor, also MP of the Radical Party, assumed apassionate defense of feminine vote. She argued at the Parliament that individual rights required an equal treatment for both men and women and democratic principles had to ensure the writing of a republican Constitution based on equality and on the elimination of any discrimination based on sex. According to a decree passed by the provisional republican government in May 1931 men over 23 were given the right to vote. Women and priests had no right to vote, but could be elected to Parliament. Clara Campoamor and Victoria Kent were the only elected MPs among 465 members in the Parliament. Margarita Nelken entered Parliament by the end of that year.

The debate in the Republican Parliament

The debate which took place in the Republican Constitutive Parliament regarding women’s vote is one of the most interesting of the period, due to the alteration of the classic division between right and left. Left wing republicans, radical socialists and radicals were the political groups which opposed most to the concession of women’s right to vote. The central idea of their perspective was

the belief that women’s vote would be a conservative one. However, within the debate some droll arguments slipped in: that women’s vote could turn into a source of disagreement for couples; that women were not capable of voting as they were mainly dominated by emotion and not reflections; women lacked

intelligence and drive etc. To avoid these women’s incapability some MPs proposed to limit the right to vote to women over 45, or it was even considered

to pass an election law that allowed women’s vote provisionally– it it was discovered that women’s vote was mainly for the most conservative parties women’s vote would be suppressed again!

The result of the debate

In the end suffragette thesis won 161 to 121. Socialists voted for women’s right to vote in coherence with their ideological principles, with some relevant exception as Indalecio Prieto who even stated that women’s vote was a ‘tab against the Republic’. Some small republican groups and the right wing parties also voted for women’s right to vote. The right wing parties led by the idea -later proved to be wrong– that women’s vote would be massively conservative. The fact that in the 1933 elections, the first ones in which women could vote, the parties of the right won made many state the feminine natural tendency towards voting conservative. The 1936 victory of the Popular Front came to deny such ideas.

The 1931 Constitution

The 1931 Constitution meant an enormous advance in the fight for women’s rights. Not only did it include in its text women’s right to vote but everything related to the family was legislated from a perspective of freedom and equality: marriage based on equality between husband and wife, right to vote, parents’ duties with their siblings...

The Divorce Law (1932) also meant a milestone in the attainment of women’s rights. Very advanced for the time the law was passed after a great controversy in which the Church threatened not to administer the sacraments to the divorced who remarried. Despite the absence of a powerful feminist movement, the Republic was placing Spain in legal aspects at the same level of the most evolved

countries concerning equality between the sexes. In this aspect, the 1936 military rising and the Civil War put an end to this evolution. The division of Spain in two opposing and belligerent societies had an immediate reflex in women conditions.

Historical events

Here you have some possible explanations for these sentences

King Mansa Musa, emperor of Ghana, goes on pilgrimage

Musa's pilgrimage to Mecca became famous. He began it in 1324. His magnificent journey through the Egyptian capital of Cairo was long remembered with admiration and surprise throughout Egypt and Arabia, for Musa took with him so much gold, and gave away so many golden gifts, that 'the people of Cairo earned very big sums' thanks to his visit. So generous was Musa with his gifts, indeed, that he upset the value of goods on the Cairo market. Gold became more plentiful and therefore worth less. In the cities of Cairo, Medina and Mecca, the sudden influx of gold devalued the metal for the next decade. Prices on goods and wares super inflated in an attempt to adjust to the newfound wealth that was spreading throughout local populations. To rectify the gold market, Musa borrowed all the gold he could carry from money-lenders in Cairo, at high interest. This is the only time recorded in history that one man directly controlled the price of gold in the Mediterranean.

A river of blood crossing the ruins of Bagdhag

Before his death in 1227, Chinnggis Khan, pillaging and burning cities along the way, had reached western Azarbaijan in Iran. After Chinggis's death, the area enjoyed a brief respite that ended with the arrival of Hulagu Khan (1217-65), Chinggis's grandson. The Mongols under the leadership of Hulagu, the Mongol ruler, from the far east swept west and gained control of the land, he marched on Baghdad with two hundred thousand Tartars.

al-Musta`sim Billah's army and the people of Baghdad jointly faced them, but it was not in their power to stop this torrent of calamity. The result was that the Tartars entered Baghdad on the day of `Ashura' in AD1258 carrying with them bloodshed and ruin. They remained busy in killing for forty days. Rivers of blood flowed in the streets and all the alleys were filled with dead bodies.

Hundred of thousands of people were put to the sword while al-Musta`sim Billah, the last Abbasid caliph, was murdered, trampled to death under foot. The Mongol (Tartar) left the countryside the way they left many other countryside's, totally ruined. While in Baghdad, Hulagu deliberately destroyed what remained of Iraq's canal headworks. The material and artistic production of centuries was swept away.

The surprising map of Piri Reis

The Piri Reis Map, shown below, is the oldest surviving map to show the Americas. It is not European, surprisingly, but Turkish. It bears a date of 919 in the Moslem calendar, corresponding to 1513 in the Western Calendar. It is in the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, a fabulous museum and the locale for a truly awful movie in the late 1960's. (I've been there - the real place bears no resemblance to the place in the movie.) The map was lost for a long time and only rediscovered in the 20th century.
Apart from its great historic interest, the map has been alleged to contain details no European could have known in the 1500's, and therefore proves the existence of ancient technological civilizations, visits by extraterrestrials, or both.

Centaur Gods arrive in the City of Gold

Cortes was unaware of the spiritual implications that surrounded his expedition. His arrival in the Americas coincided perfectly with the predicted return of the Plumed Serpent named Quetzalcoatl, the Aztecs main god, credited with creating Man and teaching the use of metals and the cultivation of the land.
The expectation among the Aztecs about the return of Quetzalcoatl was considerable. Cortes’ armada arrived at Veracruz on Holy Thursday of 1519. Moctezuma Xocoyotzin II contemplated how to approach the strangers, one of whom could be Quetzalcoatl. Ruling Tenochtitlan from 1502 to 1520, Moctezuma was devoutly religious and well-read in the ancient doctrines.
Moctezuma sent envoys to greet the newcomers, and the Spaniard fired shots to intimidate the greeting party. Reports went back to Moctezuma, saying: "The noise weakened one, dizzied one. Something like a stone came out of their weapons in a shower of fire and sparks. The smoke was foul; it had a sickening, fetid smell." Another message characterized the visitors as people with "very light skin, much lighter than ours. They all have long beards, and their hair comes only to their ears"
The envoys also described the visitors, who traveled on horseback, as beasts with "two heads and six legs". Montezuma decided to meet Cortés, who ultimately, aware of his superiority, conquered Tenochtitlán.

Playing the Great Game across the land of Asia

Afghanistan has both benefited and suffered from being strategically located. India lies over the mountains to the East, Persia across the deserts to the West and Turkestan (now Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan) over the Oxus river to the north. The Silk Road from China to the West passed its northern border, meeting a major trade route through Afghanistan from Persia to India. It is a mountains-and-valleys country which has sheltered many ethnic groups over time, and it is difficult to control centrally. Whoever controls Afghanistan controls more than its landmass: the Great Game concerns control of central Asian land-routes and whatever travels along them.

To the lighthouse: Virginia Woolf's voice and short video about her novel

 

This is the only surviving recording of Virginia Woolf's voice. It is part of a BBC radio broadcast from April 29th, 1937. The talk was called "Craftsmanship" and was part of a series entitled "Words Fail Me".
The audio is accompanied by a slideshow of photographs of Virginia Woolf.

Besides, I have found a great video related to "To the Lighthouse". It's very short and it can also help you with your reading.

Furthermore, there is a film about the book. Maybe if we find it, our reading will be more succesfull. Here you have a short extract. If you want to buy the film it's here.