Zerebria

I’ve always watched closely the things that appear in my mind for no apparent reason, (more…)

My life standards improved dramatically the day I discovered that most of my rage was, in fact, defensive. (more…)

Recently I realized

that most of the people around me (more…)

There is a rising new way of understanding consciousness. It’s been around for quite a long time, but now it’s ripe. Let’s hope for the best because Humanity needs massive access to this wisdom as soon as possible, before things can start to (more…)

Commercial logic wants everything to be all-white or all-black for storage purposes; but nature works in a different way. We all, biologically, hormonally, are both (more…)

Today Nadia Jones from Online College brings us this interesting post about films that illustrate alternative teaching styles. I hope you enjoy it, and make sure you visit Nadia at www.onlinecollege.org

The summer is about to end which can only mean one thing for educators: school will soon be back in session.  But while some disenchanted teachers may dread returning to their classrooms filled with little know-it-alls, misfit teens and or underachievers, these featured films listed below prove that by no means should a teacher ever “give-up” on their students: the guidance, support and personal relationships an educator strives to achieve with his or her students in the classroom can really play a significant role in a young person’s life.  With that said these movies demonstrate that while it may take some unconventional teachings to reignite a student’s passion and outlook on life, an educator should never doubt his or her power to inspire, motivate and encourage students to reach their goals and make good decisions long after earning their diplomas.

5.  Dangerous Minds (1995): Featuring Michelle Pfeiffer, George Dzundza and Courtney B. Vance

This mid-90s flick featuring Michelle Pfeiffer tells the real-life story of Louanne Johnson—a divorcé ex-marine who takes up a temporary teaching position at a poor, inner city high school. After being ill-received by the ultimate “rejects from hell,” Pfeiffer’s character is forced to resort to using unconventional and unique teaching methods such as martial arts, analyzing Bob Dylan lyrics, and using candy bars as “rewards” to get through to her rebellious students and help them see their potential.  Despite their initial disinterest in education, this movie is the perfect example to demonstrate the impact a determined teacher can have on a classroom of socially rejected and uninspired teen.

4. Stand and Deliver (1988): Featuring Edward James Olmos, Lou Diamond Phillips, Andy Garcia

Also inspired by a true story, this film focuses on the story of Jaime Escalante— a Latino math high school teacher who desperately tries to motivate his dropout prone students to not only learn calculus, but to also pass the AP calculus exam to earn college credit. To earn the students’ trust and get them serious about learning math, Escalante uses a variety of unique teaching methods so that his Latino students can relate, such as teaching “Finger math,” using apples to explain fractions, and using the students’ personal romantic relationships when writing math problems for comedic value.  Despite the fact that the students have to fight the accusations of cheating because they all coincidentally receive  high calculus scores on the AP exam, this movie explains how one great role model can build up a classroom of low self-esteem teens and encourage them to aim for higher goals.

3. The Great Debaters (2007): Featuring Denzel Washington and Forest Whittaker

This movie, which Denzel Washington both directed and stars in, tells the story of real-life Professor Melvin B. Tolson and his journey to inspire a group of underdog all-black debate team to rise against prejudice and segregation in the early 1930s.  Despite Toloson’s harsh and aggressive teaching style, his “tough love” methods eventually prepare his debate team to only stand up against  the all-white Harvard debate team but social injustice as well. This movie truly demonstrates the power of words.

2. Good Will Hunting (1997): Featuring Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Robin Williams

This late 90s film is about a troubled 20-year-old MIT janitor named Will Hunting who is blessed with an extraordinary intellect to solve intense math equations and recall historical events solely using photographic memory. After discovering his gift, a big shot professor promises to help Hunting resolve his legal issues as long as he promises to meet him once a week for math sessions and undergoes therapy. Through his mentor’s teachings, Hunting learns the importance of humility and understands that being “smart” is not just about regurgitating facts and numbers; life’s experiences play a major role too.

1. Dead Poets Society (1989): Featuring Robin Williams, Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles

This film, which also stars Robin Williams, is about a teacher’s attempt to revamp the mundane attitude a group of students at a prestigious all-boys preparatory school have towards education. In the end, the student’s instructor John Keating inspires his students to see the world from a different perspective by standing on top of their desks, introduces his students to poetry and ultimately teaches them to “seize the day” in all endeavors of their lives.

Movies that almost made the cut: Freedom Writers, We are Marshall, Remember the Titans, Mr. Holland’s Opus, The Miracle Worker, Lean on Me, The Renaissance Man, and Music of the Heart.

Author Bio:

This is a guest post by Nadia Jones who blogs at online college about education, college, student, teacher, money saving, movie related topics. You can reach her at nadia.jones5 @ gmail.com.

There is a very beautiful and profound scene in ‘Things you can tell just by looking at her‘. The police detective Kathy Faber (Amy Brenneman) is at home one night washing her teeth, lost in her thoughts. Then, at sudden, she notices herself in the mirror. Slowly, (more…)

In the beginning, journalists used to gather all the information and analyze all the data. Then, according to their experience, they discriminated the truth from the rumors, (more…)

This post comes as a spin off from this other post on dreams, so please read it first if you haven’t yet. A lot of issues rose from that post, and many ideas that did not find their way out (I started to feel alarmed when my reply to Raul’s comment became longer than the post itself!)

About Jung

Carl Gustav Jung has been mostly misunderstood by the dumb ones, and censored by the wicked ones. Unlike other psychoanalysts like Freud, Klein or Lacan, he was a scientist. His system of thought was not something he ‘figured out’, but the result of wide research and comparison of results on a world basis.

For example, his archetypes are not a list of ‘characters’ he took out of his head on an inspired morning a la Tolkien. They emerged after comparing myths from all ages and places. If a Ukrainian tale from the XIIth century and a fable from Australia’s bushmen have the same narrative elements, and you can discard the possibility of any communication between those two peoples, then you have a pattern. If you can repeat that pattern N times, with N different peoples who have not had the least possibility of transmission of information, the conclusion is that those elements are universal to every human, that are conditioned by the way we humans are wired. And we can decipher them and learn from it.

I have heard a lot of people who haven’t read Jung saying a lot of stupid things about him. Read ‘Man and His Symbols‘, the compendium of his works compiled short before he died. There is nothing wicked about Jung. He was a wise and humble man, and our human kind would be in a better place if it paid more attention to his researches (again: not erratic mumblings half invention half wishful thinking like in other psychological schools, but actual research with facts and evidences).

Dreams – A perspective

Dream is nature’s bunker. It’s like it says ‘OK, today you’ve been fooled, you’ve lost your path and done a lot of stupid things. Things that go against your own interest, against your health, against your sanity. No problem, that’s why you have free will to choose after all. Now I’ll heal you, and I’ll have my say so you have a takeaway for the morning’.

Our unconscious acts in a compensatory way, like a thermostat. I like that definition of dreams that goes ‘the part of reality that happens during night’. Dreams are not less real than our actual awaken life.

As I mentioned in my previous post, dreams can work with whatever elements you give them. They convey their messages using things we can recognize, elements from our day life. But they turn them into symbols. For men, a female character in a dream has the meaning of a counterpoint of his personality, and the reflection of the ‘Natural force’ called Anima in Jungian theory (or Chi in Taoism, or Holy Spirit by Christians, or Universal Mind in the law of attraction, or ‘the force’ in Star Wars, etc etc etc…).

The same happens with women dreaming of male characters (there are some differences in the way they show up, but I don’t want to go into too much detail). The natural force in this case is called Animus (male termination – a complementary).

But, again, everything that shows up in a dream has value as a symbol only; it is not literal. That is very soothing, for example, in that kind of dreams when someone of your family dies. Rest assured that there is nothing wrong with your father or your daughter. Within the dream logic, they both are are you, parts of you in struggle, growing, or complaining they feel fat or exhausted, doing their best to gain the attention of your conscious part.

Nature does things for a purpose: growth and stability of the whole. Sceptics say that dreams are only random discharges of the nervous system, but if such discharges had no object they would have been reduced and then eliminated along evolution, and the energy they consume saved or put to work for a better purpose.

So pay attention to that part of yourself. First only limit yourself to listen, do not call it ‘nonsense’ or ignore its warnings. Nature usually knows better than we do (see here). Avoid to make judgements, remember that the rules in there are different. But do listen.

I would like to add that this conception of dreams does not exclude the possibility of lucid dreaming (the first part of Raul’s comment put me on the track of such possibility). I haven’t ever experienced it, but after all it would only mean that we impose to our unconscious the means it must use to express its message. You feel like surfing? Then you do your lucid dreaming thing and surfing will appear in the dream. But your mind will find a way to make its point using surfing boards and the like. The message will come in anyway because our conscious part has only 0-80 years, while the unconscious accumulates 500,000 years of experience, the age of the whole human species. Personally, I’m not much interested in that kind of experiences: I like being surprised, and I’m more interested in the contents than in the shape the dream takes. I don’t have the need to control everything. I mean, what will be next? Taking care of your own digestion with a pick and a bucket?

I hope it is not a taboo if I ask you what’s your relation with your dreams. Do you dream often? How do you see dreams? How do you relate to ‘that part of reality that happens during night’? Do you practice lucid dreaming and think that I don’t get it? Gently let me know in a comment

• Why do we need for our daily work a box that requires a fan always on? It means that, whatever you do, you are causing energetic consumption. If you think about it, it’s pretty surrealistic. (more…)