Zerebria

When I found that freak club, I thought my problems had ended. (more…)

The other day I had an appointment, and I decided to leave home like 2 hours early, so I became a time millionaire. (more…)

I have recently completed my experience as a ‘guinea pig’ for one of the sleep techniques featured in Eric Watermolen’s upcoming ‘Set Your Sleep On Autopilot’, an experience that has provided me a lot of insight and hints about the always mysterious ‘wall of sleep’. (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.

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There is a beautiful, inspirational story in Peter Brook’s memories, ‘Threads of Time‘, about the need of listening to life’s patterns, its highs and lows, its silences which are also part of the music, it’s hidden messages. (more…)

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This humble blog of mine has just been awarded for the second time in its existence, this time with the ‘Versatile Blogger’ Award, conceded to blogs that are focused on multiple issues. Receiving a prize like this a double pleasure for me, because I think extreme specialization is very unhealthy, and I combat it with all my strength.

The ‘guilt’ for the concession of this award goes, like with the ‘Cherry on Top’, to Raul Ojeda, from Alien Ghost. Now, what can I say. There is a theory according to which all you need to achieve success in any field is having, I don’t remember the number, I think it was 9 faithful and loyal followers (the idea is they open the path for others and then the snowball goes on by its own). Well, I certainly have one part of that formula in Raul, but successes apart, what feels really good in this weird world of us is knowing that something you do really makes a difference for someone (I would even say that is my definition of personal realization). So thank you one more time in a long long list, Raul, I’m glad you’re there.

(And btw thanks also to anybody else who takes the time to read this, I know you’re there even if you’re a bit more invisible )

Now for the rules of the award. This time there are only two:

1-Telling 7 things about lil’ ol’ me so the audience gets to know me better.

2-Passing the award to another versatile blogger.

So let’s start. My real name is Loretta. Hahaha. Um, no, seriously:

1-I once got almost killed by a bull

I had gone to the country for a nice day of nature all by myself. After some time walking along a road, I got tired of it, so I jumped over a fence to explore the wonderful green fields on the other side. After some time, I found a rocky formation, and spent a good part of the evening there, reading and thinking. Then I got prepared to return to the city.

I was crossing the field again, approaching back to the road, when I noticed in the distance a cow that seemed vaguely watching me. Peculiar, I thought, and kept walking. I looked at the spot again, and I saw the cow was in fact really interested in me; forgotten the grass, it had risen its head and seemed kind of alert. I kept walking. When I looked there again, it became evident that it was not a cow. Impossible to forget that 400 kilos bulk as it bumped with its four legs in the air, running directly towards me in the distance. A swiftly decreasing distance.

I never knew I could run so much. It was a very animal, very primal moment. I had not thoughts, no expectations, I was only my own running. I reached the fence safe and sound, and made the rest of the way home gasping like a moribund. The thing is, considering our respective speeds, in fact I should not be here writing these lines right now. Why I got saved? My guess is: as there was a small valley between me and the bull, perhaps, when it reached the bottom of the valley, it lost the sight of me and forgot about the whole thing (not a very informed interpretation, I’ll admit it, from a city guy who mistakes cows and bulls ).

2-I once got a cake thrown in my face

It was my friend Gabriel’s birthday party. We were having the typical snacks, and someone proposed we played ‘making laugh’. It was my turn, Gabriel had to do things to make me laugh, and I had to keep myself serious as a gravedigger. Gabriel was trying very hard; at a certain moment, he took the birthday cake from the table and made some movements as if he was going to throw it in my face. Then I said: ‘You don’t have the guts’. Then Gabriel took the candles out of the cake, and that is the last thing I remember.

Saying that in front of all the guys, what was I thinking?. I guess there is a takeaway for those with teenager children: don’t you tell them something like that. Ever.

3-I was going to be a geek, but something went wrong along the way

I was on the verge of studying IT, but then I headed for psychology in the last moment. I have spent a good bunch of years stuck to a computer screen, but then one day all of a sudden I lost all interest for the issue for fifteen years.

Now I’ve returned a bit to the old habits (because Linux rules!), but it’s like when a broken bone welds, and you know you can use it again, but you know it’s not the same as before. This semi-metamorphosis of mine has some advantages, and problems too: real geeks get kind of disappointed when I fall off the wagon in the middle of their explanations, while non-geeks find me sometimes too abstruse (I must say I have this kind of ‘middle way’ situation in many areas of my life).

4-I shave my head periodically

My hair has always been a pain in the ass, because each area grows in a different direction and I don’t really have the time to focus on that. To my own relief (and the hairdressers’), I’ve found a perfect solution in periodic 2′ shavings. The truth is there is one additional, more ominous reason for this: I belong to a long dynasty of bald men. Shaving one’s head periodically is the less painful way I know of entering baldness. Oh, and there is yet one more reason, more recent: as a symbolic gesture of admiration towards Buddhist monks. There is definitely a monk side inside of me.

5-I’m a fanatic of literature

I’d dare say I’ve read all the important authors from all the important literary traditions (i.e. English, Spanish, French, German and Russian), besides, of course, many others. As a very auditive person, the right book at the right moment has the capability of sometimes taking me to states that I would dare call ‘possession’. You’re not the same when you return from one of those moments. Gee, I love stories. I love poetry.

Sadly, this area seems to be in a ‘fallow’ period now -maybe because of yesterday’s excesses-; I don’t feel compelled to read fiction as much as I used to, and I don’t want to force it because it MUST be a pleasure. It’ll come back when it will. In any case, I still live with all those books I’ve read, I carry them around, there are sentences that accompany me wherever I go like tattoos.

6-Being angry or being sad?

Sad, no doubt. Sometimes there is even a certain voluptuousness in being sad. And anger is usually caused by fear, so in a way it is sadness in disguise, so plain sadness is at least more sincere. (Of course this kind of generalizations are always dangerous; sometimes, a good punch on the table, at the right moment…)

7-How would you like to be remembered?

I wouldn’t. I wish to be forgotten quickly. I mean, what’s the use? Maybe it is because I always feel I’m the weird one in the party. No matter what I do, it seems people notice me. I try to be like the others, a portion of the mob, but it just don’t come out easily. Sometimes I don’t mind, but sometimes it becomes very tiring.

BUT, notwithstanding that, I do wish to leave behind me a solid work of some kind, something helpful and simple, that improves the life of other fellow humans in my planet. Something that, when they look at it, people can think ‘a human did this’, with a feeling of pride.

Wow, what a fortissimo ending. This is what happens when you oblige someone to write that much. Couldn’t it have been only 3 or 4 things? And I still have to choose my versatile blogger…

I have the same problem as the previous awarded; most of the blogs I enjoy share this versatility (like I said before, I find specialization is very good for screws, but not for humans). I’ll choose Susan Deborah’s Meandering and Reflections, because the name of the blog itself is a declaration of intentions in favor of variety, some of her interests are very close to mine, and I like the brave way in which she faces uncomfortable or politically incorrect issues when she feels she must, without trying to disguise or embellish things.

That’s all, my friends, thank you to those of you who have reached this far in this long long post, and we’ll see each other along the way

Eden Journal, Eric Watermolen’s blog on personal development, has been lately through major changes, the biggest of which is that the blog is now opened to massive collaboration by other writers. As a long time reader of Eric’s blog, (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

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