Third Thought: Horse Rider

Let me get obsessed with narration. I feel I can argue well enough, but I am not good at retelling events. So I´ll try. I´ll use the past participle and the past continuous in order to paint the past simple.

Last week, I discovered a great tool that will make me a better father: storytelling. I was in my bedroom, with my son, a wonderful 3-year-old. It was our play time. We had been waiting for that moment; me at work, him at home. In my bed, where he listens to daddy read out loud to him, I told him I was going to tell him the story of a horse. I like to make up stories for him. Suddenly, I began jumping like a horse, and baby boy kept laughing; he was having fun. I continued acting out for him. I gave him a role: the horse rider. He became part of the story. He could make choices, good or bad. The good ones, I applauded them. The bad ones, I showed him the inconvenient consequences. If he hit me, I would neigh and get away from him. But if he treated me nicely, I would say to him how much I loved him. Horse and horse rider would also learn daily about the world. 

Knowledge and morality come alive when kids are given the chance to make mistakes in safe environments where nobody would get "that hurt." Through acting, in a fake or the real world, character is built with virtues or vices. Virtues are the good habits, vices the bad ones. That is why, as teachers, we must help students, routinely, face situations in which they have to make good and bad decisions. Progressively, bad decisions will disappear as reason and negative consequences come into play.  

Second Thought: Intellectual Awards

I am a teacher. I must decide whether students get awarded. My choice is they should not; instead, they will feel awarded when they contribute to a bigger personal or social goal. That is, their moral actions are means to an end.

When I was in college, I was assigned a book, "The Stranger." I did not feel like reading it, of course. I could not see how reading it would benefit me. But I was part of a class and I had to explore the book, for a grade. I had no intrinsic motivation but an extrinsic one. I was expected to get awarded. And I did. I got a 4 out of 5 on the assignment. I was satisfied. I contributed to my goal of graduating. Besides, I began looking at life in a different way, for I deeply identified with the main character of the book, the stranger. And he believed in his own ideas, not society´s. 

So, learning happens when there is an award at play. Award=means; learning=end. Furthermore, learning is the means to a moral and meaningful life. This contradicts my first paragraph. Lesson learned; Let it be known I am a constructivist. To reason well, it is effective to begin with a narration. In the end, a short story is full of facts, and they pave the way for a strong conclusion. 
  

My first Thought

I´ve been writing, not blogging. I´ve built a relationship with my notebook, one that I didn´t have back in high school. Back then I knew I liked putting my thoughts down on the paper, but I didn´t see the need. I had better things to do. 

I would watch music videos instead. Some other times I would just...I forgot now. If only we, as students, were taught to keep our thoughts written. Our lives would be more coherent. Memory limits the way we make choices. 

Anyway, what I mean is that I´ve found writing to be very meaningful to me. It´s helped me questioned my actions and others´. It´s made me a better thinker. Actually, that´s what I want to do as I write; I want to reason. However, I also want to narrate and make comparisons. It is these three thinking strategies that I want to start using when expressing myself. There are more, obviously. I explored them while teaching in the states: using figurative language, relating details to a main idea, identifying theme and others.

I´ve gotta review those. 

By now, let me start.