EXPERTS

We had a class pet, a little hamster called Pon. When I arrived to school he was already there so they explained me that when he died, they bought another just like him because the children became very sad every time he died. It seemed to be a good idea but, hey, stranger things have happened.
One day Joaquín, a 5 years old child, came to school very sad and her mother warned me that his dog had died. From time to time he cried and told me that if Lala (his dog) had eaten the same as Pon the hamster she wouldn’t have died.
So I am not in favor of "reviving" the hamster, that means to deceive children and that's not good.
Here I leave my opinion.

One day I was walking down the street with my daughter and we passed a man of color. My daughter started screaming, "look, mom, a black man!!!" I was embarrassed and the more I tried to make her be quiet, the more she screamed. This made me think that we talked about multicultural education but there are children who are really far from the topic. So I prepared an activity I found on the internet about values education at AMEI, particularly on Tolerance and told my kids in class about the different races with pictures from internet. I hope no mother will feel as embarrased as I did.

I have been working as teacher for more than 40 years, but I could say that I have been a teacher all my life because when I was young I looked after my neighbors’ children for some coins. I did it by vocation, something that is disappearing. I’m retired now, and when I look back I think everything has deteriorated significantly because new generations have lost precisely what made me take care of my neighbors while my friends went to the park to hang out: the vocation.
Government employees have lost it: steady job, good pay, tedium, vacations, good timetable and above all the safety of having a secure job. Children will change, but the public teacher remains. In private education it’s different, working conditions are not as good and stability either. Deep down it doesn’t matter, they have lost their vocation.
As a professional in primary education, I reflect by telling my story. I remember my teacher Maruja who sang songs for us. The children nowadays will remember something called Sony, who plays the music in DVD. Technology can not replace us.
I'm not one of those who think that any past time was better, and I’m in favor of the logical evolution of society, but we lost the values along the way, values such as respect and admiration for teachers who have helped us to learn and become what we are today.

I have a concern I would like to share with you. We are working in class with a method (I prefer not to say its publishing company); in every school I've been are also working with a publishing company method, but I get the feeling that these methods require too much from the children, especially in the primary school, from which children are frequently absent and do not have the necessary psychomotor development. I have asked my colleagues if they have the same feeling as me, and they do.
I can’t remember having used activity books or notebooks when I was a child, like children nowadays. Can you help me with your experience? Which one have you worked with? Do they use methods like these in other countries?

This week I’ve been asked by a father if it is true that we have it in for his child. If we have it in for his child?!!! But how can he ask that? Well, how can he even think that?

We also use videos in class, especially when it rains and we can’t go out into the yard. I have read on the website of AMEI that another study has revealed that when the TV is on the parent speaks less. The study shows that the less talk time a child has, the poorer his/her language develops.
The American Association of Pediatrics (AAP) warns that the media have negative; and no positive effects are known for children under two years, and encourage pediatricians to talk with parents about how to prevent and limit video time to NO MORE THAN TWO hours a day for children under two years old.
I understand that everything is good or bad depending on the use of it, but I do not think they will become "dumb" kids for being in front of the TV for a while a day, far from it, it entertains them and they can also see things they can’t see in everyday life. I don’t know, if any pediatrician reads this, he/she may guide us. Thanks for reading this!

Hi everyone, I read on the Internet that, according to one study, DVDs for babies may delay early language acquisition. Every hour of daily exposure to DVD / videos for babies was associated with a reduction of 17 points in the results of a test of language development called Communicative Development Inventory.
I use DVDs, we put them on TV in the common activity room and they entertain them very much, but after reading this study I don’t know what to do. It seems to me that having a child all day in front of the TV can’t be good but two days a week in class is something different, I believe it stimulate the imagination, it stimulate the senses for colored images, sounds, songs, children's voices, etc. We put the Cantajuegos, children's series such as The Little Mermaid and SpongeBob, for the youngest we put the Teletubbies or Mickey’s house in English. You should see their eyes, the way they try to move and dance.
DVDs are used in every nursery I've been but now I doubt. Do they use videos as a teaching resource in other countries?
 

 Hello everyone, every year the same thing happens to me, we start on September the 1st, and we are told to program the 1st quarter. How I can program the 1st quarter if I still don’t know the children in the class?! They say: use the last year planning and adapt it to the new project... What project?!

Amigos, comparto con ustedes una noticia que he leido en internet muy curiosa "Los motivos de la amnesia infantil". Estaba intentando acordarme de mi primera infancia para poder compararla con el tipo de educación que estamos dando a esta generación, y este artículo me parece muy enriquecedor. Es de la Revista Quo, sacado de su web (quo.es/index.php/ciencia/salud/memoria_infantil). Les hago un resumen.

“La mayoría de la gente no recuerda nada hasta los dos o tres años, y lo que tienen hasta los cinco años son, como mucho, bosquejos. ¿Por qué? Dos grandes estructuras están implicadas en la creación y almacenamiento de la memoria autobiográfica: el córtex prefrontal y el hipocampo. Se cree que el hipocampo es el lugar en el que los detalles de una experiencia se consolidan en la memoria a largo plazo. Y aquí es donde radica el problema. “Solíamos pensar que el hipocampo y los córtices que lo rodean se desarrollaban a una edad muy temprana”, dice Patricia Bauer, quien estudia el desarrollo de la memoria durante la infancia en la Universidad Emory, en Atlanta. Pero las últimas investigaciones han dejado claro que una pequeña parte de esta región, el giro dentado, no madura hasta los 4 o 5 años. Este área actúa como puente para que las señales procedentes de las estructuras circundantes alcancen el resto del hipocampo, de modo que hasta que el giro dentado no está preparado, las experiencias tempranas no se asentarán en el almacén a largo plazo, según Bauer.”

Espero que les haya resultado tan interesante como a mi. Ahora entiendo porqué no soy capaz de recordar historias de la más tierna infancia.