Other Experiences of an English Language Teacher

https://www.delibris.org/es/news/la-lectura-como-conquista-de-la-libertad  

  So we have agreed that on any person you can trace God, or you can find a trace of God on any person. We treat people, on a daily basis, we are not Robinson Crusoe lost in a desert island in the middle of the ocean, are we?  And those people are a mystery. I mean, man and woman are unreachable, not limited and confined to what we apprehend with our senses – each person is a treasure, even the disabled. And we teachers can confirm that statement on any regular day of classes.  You cannot reach all they mean. Their span in just immense. With no measure. And I believe that that is due to the spiritual part we humans have, and which we call soul. Well, also due to the body united with a soul.  A person may have thoughts which cannot be explained only if we are just bodies. There must be a spiritual part.  And that by considering that a person is unity – you can’t comprehend the body and the soul are separate: you know such and such persons, not their souls and the...

  Do you ever think of life sense or meaning? I mean, what are we here in this world for? I presume you do, you ask about that, for everyone does.  If you have a transcendent view of life, much better, and you’ll easily find that meaning, that Why are we here?  And we must consider God as our creator, and our father. And we have to behave well, for him and his glory, to please our father.  On every person you can think of finding a trace of God. Man and woman are a mystery ultimately. You cannot reach all they mean. Man and woman are unreachable ultimately. And furthermore if you consider their biographies. Man and woman are not just evolved animals. Something else. Much else.  To consider things that way may be helped by thinking. And reading good literature. Most classics are good literature. It’s what best writers have thought of. An example? The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni. Also reading good essays. If you’re a teacher I recommend Carlos Cardona’s Ética...

  I think we must be grateful. For we are alive. We can live. We have to be thankful for all that. It’s something poetess and philosopher Marcela Duque says on an interview to her I read few days ago. And I can’t be more in agreement.  We must have an awe for life. And we would have it if we respected and wanted silence. We live, in modern Western countries, so absorbed in a hasty lifestyle. We don’t have time for thinking. And is there anything as important as thinking?  Silence is so important. Not only do I say it, but also Cardinal Robert Sarah, Spanish writer Federico Delclaux, and psychiatrist, teacher, and writer Luis Gutiérrez Rojas.  We ought to love silence. At its time.  We do need silence to listen to our spouse, to our children, to God, to myself, to my conscience – God speaks to it. No silence, no ideas about what really matters in our life. Let’s switch off the music, because we do need that silence. Let’s take off our headphones.  Something ...

  I’ve just planned a lesson I have next week. An English lesson. I confess I like my work, though it takes an effort to carry it out. Well, I guess any job entails an effort.  And you may like your work, or rather not. Today I wanted to write on work, an activity that may take us quite many hours a day and our best energies.  If you don’t like your job, what can you do to carry it out and not die on the attempt? Can you carry out something you may like just a bit and at the same time you better as a person?  Well, let me tell you a couple of things. You can try and increase and foster your professional enthusiasm and eagerness, and also you can consider you are serving your … students and their families, your customers, clients, patients, etcetera.  My father says work dignifies you, and I can assure you I’ve learned a lot from him. Moreover, for a Christian, for a son of God, work may sanctify you, make a better person, a better son to God.  As well you m...

  We teachers have amply heard that motivation is important for our students, and it’s so indeed. But let me tell you something today, in case it may help you in class if you are a teacher.  We have insisted a lot on motivation, but also we can consider two more points that may help out.  Let’s be careful because we may have stuffed and crammed our children with toys and videogames and trifles, so they now cannot enjoy … their lessons too.  You know, when some kids – or adults alike! – get so engaged with what their dear teacher is presenting in class, well, then, they may work so nicely and with a great effort.  Moreover love is something that also pushes us forward to make an effort, to study, to learn, to strive to learn.  Do our kids know love at all? Love to their parents, to God, to their classmates, to their teacher. One kid with love to mom and dad may overcome his laziness and begin to study and do his homework in his room. Who has not met somethin...

  I was thinking of basic things about ourselves.  We are what we do. And what we think of. Man is free. Ultimately free. And we are the habits we try to accomplish.  Also we are what we read. It seems essentially good to read good literature. Classics. The ones in accordance with human dignity, so most of classics. And good literature, as I said.  And we ought to dedicate some daily time to reflecting. Basically we should do things in accordance with human dignity. To reflecting I said. And don’t tell me you don’t have time. We have the same twenty-four hours a day as everybody else has. Ultimately.  Once somebody asked Saint John Paull II if he had free time. All my time is free, he answered. Also one cardinal told a reporter that that Pope was a very dangerous man. And that journalist asked why. And the cardinal replied, “He trusts God totally”.

  When we watch some movie, with its pathos and music and the actors’ performance, we likely realize that man tends to happiness, and love, but firstly to happiness. And we human people aim high: we do not want to be confined and cooped to small limits: I mean, man tends to the infinite, to God. I said before that we tend to happiness and love. And thus what is happiness, but loving another person, loving other people? You cannot be happy if you do not love another person – there is not Me without You . This latter idea was taken from Ricardo Yepes Stork and Javier Aranguren. I think I’m getting some ideas from José Ramón Ayllón, who is an expert at ethics and at a wonderful view of man. This latter person is a teacher, philosopher, and lecturer.