This is England

This Is England: a portray of the transition between childhood and adulthood.

This is England is the story of a summertime school holiday.Those long weeks between terms where life-changing events can take place. It’s 1983 and school is out. Twelve-year-old Shaun is an isolated boy growing up in a grim coastal town, whose father has died fighting in the Falklands War.

Over the course of the summer holiday he finds male role models when those in the local skinhead scene take him in. With his new friends Shaun discovers a world of parties, first love and the joys of Dr Marten boots. Here he meets Combo, an older racist skinhead who has recently got out of prison. As Combo’s gang harass the local ethnic minorities, the course is set for a rite of passage that will hurl Shaun from innocence to experience.

(Filmeducation.org)



To understand the social background of the story you must pay attention to the opening sequence. It is important in representing the social, historical and cultural context of the film (the early 80's).

The sequence moves from trivial clips of Roland rat, Space Invaders -the first computer game- hairs styles of the the ‘new romantic’ group Duran Duran, the wedding of Charles and Diana, then this becomes increasingly serious with anti US air base protests, the miners strike, a National Front March, and race riots. The sequence ends with news clips from the Falklands/Malvinas war showing injured soldiers. Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is a constant presence throughout.

Words that are underlined are relevant for the vocabulary of our last term.
Leave me your comments about the movie!

Globalisation videos. Citizenship unit 4

Unit 4: Globalisation. 

To understand what globalisation means, here we have some videos about it. 

Firstly, you must write down the advantages and disadvantages of this process in two different columns.

Secondly, you should listen to these videos carefully to get some ideas about our global world.

Ethics and Citizenship - 2nd TERM DATES-

 ETHICS


-4th March (4ºA) and 5th March (4ºB): Exam of unit 3. Review  vocabulary,  ideas, readings, dilemmas and Steve Jobs video.


CITIZENSHIP 
 -27 February: Deadline for handing in the portfolio about the Elephant Man.

- 6Th March.:exam of unit 3 and unit 4 (globalisation). Review vocabulary, ideas, videos, Elephant Man reading.

Ethics Unit 3 Activities. Our life path

 In this unit we are learning what ethics is.  One of the  ideas is the fact that we must always choose and, sometimes, we should cope with  hard situations called moral dilemmas.

We have read that even every little decision builds our life path.

Here, we have a speech by Steve Jobs in Stanford University. Listen to it carefully, copy and answer the questions below.

1 When did his life begin?

2 What does the first story teach us about our life?

3 The second story is about love and loss. What did he find and what did he lose?

4  What does "don't lose faith" mean? How can we be satisfied with our jobs?

6 Explain this expression using your own words : "Don't settle"

7 Regarding the last story, why does he say that Death is the single best invention on life?

8 What does he want to mean with the final sentence: Stay hungry, stay foolish.

Here is the same video with Spanish subtitles.

The unexamined life is not worth living. 4º ESO

 Now we are learning what ethics is by  using Socrates life as an introduction to unit 3. For those who want to do an extra or optional actvity, I suggest this one:

 "The unexamined life is not worth living" is a Socrates famous sentence. Write eight questions that you use to examine your life like:
- What kind of person I would like to be?
- What are my ethical values?
- What is the purpose of my entire life?

 You can give me the task in a separate piece of paper.

Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus

Se acaba este primer trimestre un tanto ajetreado y complejo. Os dejo algunas recomendaciones para estas fiestas:

En 2º de Bachillerato, descansad para volver con fuerzas al segundo trimestre en el cual nos esperan Descartes, Hume y Kant.
En Psicología hay que ir contestando a las preguntas sobre la película que vimos en clase.
Students from the bilingual program:
-2º ESO: you must start to read The Elephant Man, I will give you the guidelines for the portfolio after holidays.
-4ESO: an optional task that consists on explaining the underlined sentence of the reading Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus ( we didn´t finish the reading in 4º B and we couldn´t read it in 4º A)

 Para todos esta maravillosa carta sobre Santa Claus. Consiste en la respuesta que el periódico New York´s Sun  publicó en 1897 a la pregunta de una niña de 8 años sobre la exitencia de Santa Claus. Constituye una de las editoriales periodísticas más repetidas en libros, películas, posters...

"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.  Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. "Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.' "Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus? VIRGINIA O'HANLON. "115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."

"VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood."

Ethics 4º ESO: the story of Genie.

 Our first unit is aimed to study human beings and, for that purpose, some relevant cases of  feral children -the story of Genie- will help us understand the necessity of living in society. This feature and,obviously, rational thought  can define humans beings, as Aristotle pointed out many years ago.

                       

Therefore, we are reading these cases and watching a video about the issue. Here you have some excerpts and the whole video we have seen in class.

" On  november 4, 1970 a girl was discovered. She had been locked in a room alone for over ten years. She was tied to a potty chair and left to sit alone day after day. At night she was tied into a sleeping bag which restrained her arms(...) Genie was rescued and put in Children,s Hospital in Los Angeles..."
"A team of scientists began working with Genie. They wanted to find out what they could about how humans learn. Did Genie have a normal learning capacity? Could a nurturing, enriched environment make up for Genie´s horrible past? Would it be possible for Genie to recover completely?

Pictures: covers of two books. The first one  about feral children in general, the second one focused on Genie and written by S. Curtiss-a foremost member of "Genie Team".

Optional task: Look for information about the film "The Wild Child" (director, themes, awards...). Use a chart to present your information.

What are human beings?

This week we are studying the first unit called What are human beings?
As an introduction to it, we will read the poem If is this a man written by Primo Levi  after the Second World War. Within a few months of liberation from Monowitz, one of the many smaller camps attached to Auschwitz, P. Levi produced his first collection of writtings. This poem was published in 1947. Levi´s text became overwhelmingly successful and was translated into eight languages and adapted for radio and theatre.


If This Is a Man

You who live safe
In your warm houses,
You who find, returning in the evening,
Hot food and friendly faces:
Consider if this is a man
Who works in the mud,
Who does not know peace,
Who fights for a scrap of bread,
Who dies because of a yes or a no
Consider if this is a woman
Without hair and without name,
With no more strength to remember,
Her eyes empty and her womb cold
Like a frog in winter.
Meditate that this came about:
I commend these words to you.
Carve them in your hearts
At home, in the street,
Going to bed, rising;
Repeat them to your children.
Or may your house fall apart,
May illness impede you,
May your children turn their faces from you.

OPTIONAL TASK

Read this P. Levi´s text and answer the questions in a separate piece of paper.

"At that time (1947) people had other things to get on with: buildings houses, looking for jobs. There was still rationing, cities were in ruins, the Allies were still occupying Italy. People didn´t want to  hear (about the camps), they wanted other things, to dance, to party, to bring children into the world. A book like mine and many others that came after were almost like a discourtesy, like spoiling a party."

1 Why does the author use the expresion "like spoiling a party"? Review the information that we have read in class to answer this question.
2 Why didnt people want to hear about the camps? Was Levi right to dwell on the past?

Curso 2013-14. Ethics

Se acabaron las vacaciones pero todavía quedan días de verano para empezar a pensar en la tarea que tenemos por delante. Días en los que disfrutar mientras nos preparamos mentalmente para el nuevo curso.

  El cuadro  se conoce con el nombre de Sol y sombra (1872), de Winslow Homer, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.
 Este curso empezamos con una novedad en el Departamento de Filosofía. Además de impartir Ciudadanía en inglés como se ha venido haciendo los dos últimos cursos, ahora incorporamos la materia de Etica de 4º de ESO en inglés para los alumnos de la Sección bilingüe y del programa avanzado.


Como ya os he dado las líneas generales de la materia de Etica, os dejo el trabajo para la próxima semana.

ETHICS 4º ESO
Homework for 4ºA -  4ºB to be corrected next week.

As we have read in the introduction to the subjet "To be interested in ethics is to be interested in life"
You must write a paragrah (60 words) explaining this sentence. Take into account these suggestions:

-Ethics is about Goodness, Hapiness, Justicie...
-Ethics deals with questions  about values, rights, rules...
-Applied Ethics study some actual problems: mass media, fair trade, environment

Importancia de la Filosofía en Francia

Dejo aquí un artículo de la BBC en el que se explica la importancia de la Filosofía en países como Francia. Puede ser útil para reflexionar acerca de  la eliminación de la Filosofía en la nueva ley LOMCE  y para entender porque Spain is Different, para mal casi siempre.

Renoir: Le pont-Neuf (1872)  National Gallery of Art. Washington


Aunque está escrito en inglés no resulta complicado. En líneas generales:

-parte de la experiencia de una madre que se asombra de como su hija prepara un examen de Filosofía.
- comenta que en el Bachillerato se estudia Filosofía, especialmente en el referido a Literatura- 8 horas a la semana de Filosofía.
-supone que los estudiantes conozcan  temas como : conciencia, sociedad, felicidad y ser capaz de hacer referencia a autores como Heidegger, Kant, Sartre...
-¿por qué se otorga tanta importamcia a la Filosofía.? Se dice muy claramente, a saber, completar la educación de las personas y permitirles pensar.
- finalmente reflexiona sobre el beneficio del estudio de la filosofía para su hija: el descubrimiento de un mundo y el entusiasmo por algo.

El enlace para leer el texto completo es: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22729780

 Examen Pau

Los autores del examen son 12: Platón, Aristóteles, San Agustín, Santo Tomás, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Rousseau, Marx, Nietzsche, Ortega y Gasset y Wittgenstein.

Ahora bien, como texto, no entrarían ni Rousseau ni Wittgenstein. A pesar de ello  podrían ser elegidos en la 3ª y 4ª pregunta. Por ejemplo si en la 3ª se pide explicar el problema de la sociedad en un autor de la Epoca Moderna sería válido desarrollar ese problema en Roussseau.

Por otra parte, tened presente los cuadros con los cinco problemas,  las épocas y los autores que revisamos estos últimos días. En caso de que no lo tengais, intentad, al menos, hacerlos vosotros por épocas, por autores...como os ayude para tener estructurado todo el temario.