A Teacher Writes

I started classes for a new group today. Excellent group! Very pleasant and amusing people. Well, mostly they are here in Colombia. The great thing about this group is that it's relatively advanced and the members really enjoy talking, and don't have any problems with shyness or embarrassment and simply find the way to express themselves. The group consists of three gentlemen and one lady. I'll call them C, J, G and V for now.

First class I introduced myself as an education economist, presenting my masters thesis briefly and initiated a conversation/debate concerning private schools vs public schools for the poor. Since it's a quite controversial topic the discussion was interesting to follow. C told the story about his own education back in the days when teachers used to hit the students with rulers, contrasting this to todays situation with complete lack of discipline in many schools, although in no way implying that the old days were better. J mentioned that the different opinions in the school of his children, where some argue that small children in the age of 5-6 should be able to do whatever they want, whereas others argue that guidelines and rules need to be reinforced.

V had a funny example with her 4-year-old niece who invites her instead of her own mother to children's parties since the mother is too strict. On the other, hand with the freedom of her aunt she goes crazy and seems to act totally without control. The different philosophies of child education and up-bringing is highly interesting and the topic really deserves to be studied before practiced.