Wonders of Nature – February 4, 2013

            This long weekend I had a ton of homework for almost every single class which took me a lot of time to get it done. You can imagine how I ended up at the time that I was just missing only this journal entry: frustrated, tired, annoyed, and grumpy. To tell you the truth, at that moment in time, I didn’t want to go into nature or anything related to school. Nevertheless, I finally convinced myself to start thinking about this journal entry (Wonders of Nature).

At first, I didn’t know where to find nature in Torreon. The idea that I had of nature was a tropical rain forest with all these beautiful unusual animals and plants; however, I couldn’t think of a place in Torreon which could be similar to that idea. After some time, I even got more frustrated than before, so I decided to go into my garden which has grass, plants, trees, and fresh air in order to think again, where could I find nature in Torreon.

Let me confess that I can get distracted easily, and this time wasn’t the exception. I started to hear the birds beautifully singing and the branches of the trees moving along the soft cold breeze of the day. That moment became the most tranquil that I have had in months. All the past week I was so busy that I never had actually time to think of my feelings, emotions or thoughts, but now, I had time for it. By that point, I knew that nature had found me. All of a sudden, I almost wasn’t stressed out, nor angry; I really felt mysterious of how nature was washing all my dirt (stress, worries, pressure, fatigue, etc.) off me. I also knew that this was one of those miracles that usually happen to humans.

I understood that you don’t need to be surrounded by a tropical rain forest in order to feel nature. In that hour of being in my garden, my senses had changed. My ears became sharper that I could even hear a faraway bird singing as if it was beside me. My eyes found an animal shape to all the clouds that were passing by. With my touch, I felt some small ants going over me as if they were a troop trying to get rid of me: a gigantic monster. My nose inhaled the fresh air that I was surrounded of which passed deep into my lungs, and it exhaled both the air and the dirt; I smelled pureness.

After one hour of being in nature, I felt completely refreshed and more alive than ever. Believe me or not, I felt happy, for no specific reason. I truly don’t remember the last time I felt happy without a specific reason.  Most significantly, I had time to restore my values and personal thoughts about life and nature.

I had escaped from my chains of stress. In that point on, I was ready to continue working whatever it was necessary because nature had given me the force. Having a place for escape is very important because it lets you relax and free yourself from the chains that get us trapped away from nature. It’s inevitable that an innumerable amount of times in life, we are going to feel depressed or stressed, and it’s our own personal escape place that fully recovers us. Next time that I feel stressed, sad, tired, angry, etc. because of any reason, I will go into my garden and quietly I will feel nature and let it wash my dirt.

Personal Topic: CAT – Following instructions since 1950 – January 3, 2013

            Although Colegio Americano de Torreon is one of the bests schools in Torreon, its students lack the ability to think freely. I still remember when in 10^th grade, Mr. G made us to write a free essay (no specific structure, topic, nor length). Most of the students kept asking how to do it because they were used to following instructions. For that reason, the students with the highest grades, or the ones who are best at following precise instructions, got low grades.

            Students’ lack of thought doesn’t include just essays and literature material, but also math. I remember a math teacher three years ago that only accepted one way of solving a problem when there were plenty of different ways. Furthermore, all the math teachers that I have had, just give you formulas for solving specific problems but they don’t demonstrate the proof of why they work. For instance, if our current math teacher gives us a wrong formula to calculate something, no single student in the class will ever notice until maybe much time after. There are two major reasons why math teachers should give explanations to formulas given: 1) it’s important to be sure that the formula will work, or at least know when it won’t work, and 2) so the student can fully understand how the formula functions and therefore be able to manipulate it in order to calculate other things (thinking outside the box).

            Another thing that most of the schools, including CAT, should improve is not forcing the student to feel something. Albert Einstein mentioned, “To me the worst thing seems to be a school principally to work with methods of fear, force and artificial authority. Such treatment destroys the sound sentiments, the sincerity and the self-confidence of pupils and produces a subservient subject,” which clearly shows that forcing the student to think or feel something, isn’t a good approach for learning (destroys the joy of work). Several studies mention that almost every single person in the world enjoys poetry, so why the students keep complaining that they don’t want to learn about poetry? The reason is that students shouldn’t be forced to read or make poetry when they don’t feel inspired for poetry. When a teacher forces a student, they are just bringing the feeling of hate of the student to poetry. One solution can be that the school should put projects of different specific subjects such as poetry, with faraway due dates, so students can complete it when they feel inspired for it. Einstein said, “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge,” which shows that the teacher should help the student to enjoy the class, not to simply pass it. One way to make students enjoy poetry is taking them out into nature in order to appreciate the beauty and mystery of what lots of poems talk about which will make them feel identified with the poets.

            No school should influence a student in their thoughts nor feelings. The ultimate goal of the school should be to motivate and encourage the student to think freely which will most probably will make the student enjoy the subject. Especially teachers of literature and math should make students think outside the box because in those subjects, students are the most close minded. It’s important to mention that thinking freely is required for a person’s self-realization which will motivate the student to enjoy what he or she does. If students don’t start thinking by themselves, who is going to tell them what to think and do the rest of their lives?

Children – January 27, 2013

Last Sunday, when I went to church, I stopped by a garden full of vegetation and trees. It seemed a completely different world that what I was used to. I saw three young children of about 4 or 5 years old playing around with a small dog. I decided I would just sit near them and contemplate the scene for a while without telling them a single word.

After five minutes of watching, I could almost guarantee that the three children were very innocent. I found plenty of innocent signs of them; for instance, when one of the boys was asked if he had poop himself, he honestly answered that yes. As a child there’s no reason to manipulate the truth or to lie. Also, I heard them talking about how great is school and how they can’t wait for the next time they attend to it. That’s so innocent because they don’t know that later on they will most probably dislike it because how hard it will become. Another example of their innocence was their vulnerability; at any moment someone could easily go and alter them both physically and emotionally. Moreover, one of the boys was showing off his new shoes with lights that Santa brought him; they all loved Santa. When I was observing them, I soon remembered The Catcher in the Rye because they were not phonies at all; every child was unique in its own way and didn’t want to be someone else (as we adults often do). Last but not least, another sign of innocence that I found was that they didn’t know anything about how dangerous is Torreon and how they can’t go outside anymore; they thought everything was perfect.

Something really interesting happened at the end; one of the children’s mothers came and tried to leave with his son. Nevertheless, the boy didn’t wanted to leave, he begged his mom so he could stay more time. The children loved to be near nature, it was as if the children and nature were just one as a whole. Both of them were so pure, I mean, there is no other age in which your feelings are as pure as a child. As a child you are happy for no specific reason, rather than as an adult in which you are happy for superficial things like money. I think that when you are a child, you already found your self-realization, but when you grow up and lose your innocence, you need to try to find it again and to discover who you really are. Also, both nature and the children produce a nice strange feeling in any person, perhaps of pureness or peacefulness.

It’s a shame that there is only one way that I’m still a child: I don’t want to be someone else. Nevertheless, I lost all my innocence by now; I don’t feel that connected to nature as they do and of course, I also lie as every other adult does. When I was observing them, I really felt the responsibility of catcher in the rye. If someday I have the opportunity of being 3 year old again, I wouldn’t hesitate it. Being a pure child with no worries is better than a dirty teenager with lots of preoccupations. That feeling of being connected to nature, purity, and true happiness is what everybody has dreamed of. Besides, recently I have been having trouble with my self-realization that it would be great to don’t be altered mentally just as a child. We as adults should try to imitate this kind of children qualities that we tend to forget of and try to keep the pureness and innocence of our children.

Civil Disobedience – January 26, 2013

            Civil disobedience is currently a very misunderstood term. The word disobedience has a negative connotation and therefore, most of the people take for granted that civil disobedience is wrong because it’s against the law and “has no benefits”. The truth is, civil disobedience is the strongest tool that has changed the world in order to achieve equality, justice, and liberty. One of the most known examples is that civil disobedience was essential in Martin Luther King Jr.’s fight for equality among black and white people in the US.

            Maybe you are asking yourself, “If civil disobedience is so great, why protests aren’t part of our everyday life?” There are two major answers for that question. The first answer is that depending on how you protest, it can get dangerous. The reason for that is that usually you are indeed breaking a law so the government, or the ones affected, will try to force you down. David Thoreau was put in jail, Martin Luther King, Jr. was put in jail and later assassinated, Gandhi was assassinated, 1968 UNAM students were massacred, etc. As you can see, there’s no doubt in why people actually fear civil disobedience. It’s important to highlight that although someone protesting can be breaking a law, it can be for the common good (e.g. Rosa Parks refusing to give her bus seat to a white passenger gave motivation in the civil rights movement).

            The second reason is that schools don’t let you have be free minded (this topic is deeper discussed for CAT school in another journal). Schools often manipulate students in order to make them think what the school wants. For instance, racial segregation in the US took one whole century in which nobody was able to stop it; moreover, most of the people even agreed with racial segregation. People agreed with it because they couldn’t think by their own if it was morally right or wrong, they were just influenced by the government. The point is that there are plenty of reasons for protesting nowadays; however, we tend to be influenced by our superiors’ ideals that we often don’t see why something is unfair or morally wrong. Also, if we are the benefactors of an unfair act, we aren’t honest enough to make it fair.

            People nowadays are full of fear; all their other feelings are suppressed by a superior force. Every single time that you feel that your emotions or your rights are being neglected, you have the responsibility (not an option) to peacefully protest (civil disobedience) for the good of the common people. You have a duty to yourself to never letting your emotions or thoughts to be erased, which are the ones that define who you are. We simply can’t let our spiritual center of the universe and individual thought be altered by exterior forced ideas; if you let it to be altered, your self-realization will be almost impossible. I know this would seem like chaos but the peaceful pursuit for a better society is more important than almost anything. I would rather live in an unstable free minded society than in a routine society that doesn’t let you have your own emotions nor think by yourself. And… what do you prefer?