I’ve marched in!

After more than 4 years working for a school that has been through major changes, has laid me off and rehired me twice, has seen a complete change in the methodology and has chosen to disregard its employees as invaluable assets, I happily announce that tomorrow, 9 December, is my fucking last day!!!

The decision of leaving the school was made much earlier this year, but “the fear” always prevented me from doing so. The questions about how I would make it through the month and pay my bills inevitably kept me sitting in that office for a longer time. Also, we teachers tend to think in terms of, well, terms, meaning that we wouldn’t leave a place in the middle of the semester, so we always make plans like: ‘I’ll quit after July’ or ‘I’ll wait until the end of the semester’. The end of the semester has come and I saw no more excuses to postpone it.

It’s been sad seeing the organisation that once was respected end up the way it has. You know when you can see the rock bottom from afar? That’s what happened and I honestly don’t want to be part of it when they hit the ground. I guess the whole decision process started after seeing the following TED Talk over and over again (I’d been showing this presentation in one of my classes I teach) and sharing my frustration with two of my (then) co-workers, now my two partners in our enterprise.

So, we basically got tired of giving the owners of the school all of our time, knowledge, life and money and decided to eliminate the middle man and do everything on our own. From now on, no more reporting to anybody, just making collaborative decisions, enjoying what we do and, hopefully, making a difference.

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After many weeks of being Fox News-free, I had a relapse this morning and watched  Fox & Friends as I was preparing to go to work. I watched this piece on shortage of prescription drugs and people who need the medication being affected by it, some people have even died. At some point, Steve Doocy makes the case of why the government isn’t stepping in as the companies claim they might have problems with production or whatever. I was SHOCKED! Government stepping in? On Fox & Friends? Doocy??? Of course government should step in, but doesn’t this argument go completely against everything these guys have worked for every morning since Obama took office?

So, government stepping in and regulating what goes in what people eat and what is thrown into the air they breathe is outrageous. But if the same people need medication for diseases that may well be caused by what they eat and breathe, that’s ok???

News in 2010

After a few months of really hard work and insomnia and not meeting deadlines, I finally got a few days off. No big plans for these days, apart from catching up with some studying and watching some news. News…

So, this morning I was watching Fox & Friends and they showed images of an apparent riot at Moscow airport because people have been stranded there for days because of weather conditions, as have folks in the US and Europe. You can see the Euronews report here. Of course people are pissed off, nobody likes to spend even one hour waiting for an airplane. The problem with Fox & Friends was that, as they were showing the images of people protesting in Moscow, the hypothetical questions started and they were something like: ‘could we see something like this in NYC? People have been at the airport for three, maybe four days here, so could this be a possibility? If the situation continues, people might start doing the same…’

I saw the same story on CNNI, they showed the same images, but instead of coming up with hypothetical things and making audiences think, ‘uh, this WAS President Obama’s fault, he should be shoveling snow off the tarmac right now!’, I actually learned what was going on there.

This is something that really pissed me off this year: the hypothetical news, the passionate-blogger news, the no news-value news. And they’re everywhere.

I’m a big fan of Twitter, for me it’s the best way to compile all the organizations or people you want to get news from, but I guess in the urge of producing more and more content you can see stuff that, well, should be left unsaid, like when our local newspaper Correio do Povo reports something like: “Beach vacationers enjoy the day walking along the shoreline”. If you knew what the shoreline really looks like in my state, you’d be running like hell from it. (Oh, so maybe THAT’s the news! People enjoying themselves on the awful beach shore!)

Photo taken in Imbé

This year was definitely Jon Stewart’s year. Having a comedy show, it’s obviously easy for him to make fun of the absurdities that politicians and pundits say, but the different thing about him is that the show researches and checks facts before putting something on the air and one of his biggest trademarks is the sound bites shown to contradict what somebody is now saying so passionately on TV (this is now being used by AC360. Couldn’t have he done this before?) Anyway, one of my favorite moments was the ‘republicans will ride in the “back of the car”/”back of the bus” thing’. In the failed attempt to get people to vote in midterm elections, Obama said he wouldn’t give the car keys back and GOP would have to sit in the back of the car. Well, guess what Fox News reported…?

They simply progressively replaced “car” by “bus” and this obviously became a racial issue. The whole Jon Stewart segment can be seen here, really worth watching!!! What makes me angry is the progressive change, you know? Slowly and subtly during the hard news, and then boooom! Obama wants to send all Americans to concentration camps. In the back of the bus.

But I think one of the most outrageous passionate-blogger pieces of news was Obama’s trip to Asia last month. It all started with this Michelle Bachmann’s interview on AC360:

And it all turned out to be complete bullshit spread by those talk radio guys that for some reason have millions of listeners. That piece on AC360 actually generated comments on the NY Times, basically saying good job for the fact-checking.

It’s unbelievable that now pieces on good reporting are not given to Watergate-like articles or war stories, but to reports that straighten out fake/not fact-checked ones.

Students as customers

I got up this morning to find myself without water in the house. None, zero, all dry… With my beautiful morning face, I went downstairs to check out what was going on, if they were cleaning the water tank and hadn’t let anybody know. Obviously, the only good-looking guy in the building was going to work and had the privilege to see such beautiful image… Well, I contacted the guys in charge and they’re still figuring out what happened. In the meantime, I called the school and said I was stranded because I just couldn’t go to work as I were! No shower, no-show.

Alright, working from home then, which isn’t so bad because I’m watching the World Cup, England’s playing Slovenia and I do hope the boys win! You already know how I feel about who should be the World Cup winner!

I read this fascinating article yesterday in the NYT about university teachers in Texas having a “contract” with students and abiding by that contract. Also, the implementation of teacher evaluation based on student’s feedback. This is all wrong, man…

I’ve been a teacher for seven years now — there was the year-an-a-half break in London, but I was a student there, so still in classroom — and I can’t help wondering what’s happened along the way. I do a different job now but whenever necessary I teach, I prepare classes and I research material. In fact, I’m coming up with all the activities for the winter workshops the school is offering… Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is that I couldn’t help thinking about our situation at the school after reading that piece.

When our school had a change in management — a hostile takeover perhaps — teachers became mere puppets, having no control over the material and the classes. I was in their shoes up to a year ago and can tell you that the situation is brutal. All teachers now have to treat the students as customers and they (the teachers) are evaluated by the number of people that come back for another term. Tough situation… So, the difficult part here is getting teachers and students to meet halfway. While teachers try to get them to communicate and put into practice what they’ve studied, the students don’t seem to be willing to help, because they think that showing up for class means they will learn automatically and further practice outside the school isn’t necessary. So, obviously the lack of SOME dedication will reflect in their results. Students really get mad and blame the TEACHER for their poor results. And the fact that there are language schools popping up everywhere isn’t helping either, because teachers go to class having in mind that if they aren’t just what students want them to be, if they don’t do just what students want them to do, they run the risk of losing these guys to other schools that promise people they can be fluent in English in just six months. I’m sorry, but the only way you’ll be able to speak English in six months from scratch is by going to England (or Canada or U.S. or whatever other country) and living there for six months and having no contact with Brazilians whatsoever. And I still have my doubts whether somebody would be able to pull it off in six months…

So, the “contract” is that in six months, or one year and a half in most cases, the student will be an advanced speaker of English, even though their writing is laughable and their speaking is just a frustrating translation from Portuguese into English, which can sound really weird in most cases. But what’s the teacher supposed to do? If they tell students that they’re not making any progress, the students go look for another school that offers what they want just to find out that in six months they haven’t learned anything for the same reasons they didn’t back in the other places. If teachers DON’T tell students that their English sucks and just keep allowing them to advance to the next level, the students will find out about it the hard way, in a job interview or when they travel abroad and figure out that they can’t communicate with native speakers or foreigners.

The question is: is it OK for the student to be a customer? Should we keep them happy so that they come back the next semestre or the next month in order to keep our based-on-results jobs? Or should we treat students as students, working on their weaknesses, pointing out their strengths and assisting them, not worrying if you’re being funny or not?

I’m just glad that the guys I teach are a little different and I still have some freedom to prepare my classes…

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Comedy show Fox & Friends is the gift that keeps on giving! Unfortunately I missed it today trying to figure out what had happened to the water in the building, but I’m glad that Time magazine made the highlight available online. Basically, according to Gretchen Carlson, being the president is just like being a TV anchor. Yeah, I can see the similarities… But that isn’t as surprising as seeing that Fox News is actually defending BP and slamming the government over the 20-billion-dollar escrow fund. Or is it really surprising?… Media Matters explains.

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Another TEDTalk available in Portuguese. I’ve translated this great talk by Brian Cox where he shows the importance of space exploration and the investment in this area, accompanied by great images! The reviewer was Fernando Marinheiro and the talk is available here.

P.S.: England qualified!!! This is the year! It was actually the first time I enjoyed watching a game during this World Cup…

Cheer up, Keanu!

When I read this in Time magazine I just couldn’t believe it. Yesterday was the official Cheer Up Keanu Day after this picture of him was taken recently. He does look pretty miserable…

Obviously, the thing went viral and we can now see him together with:

Forrest Gump

'My name is Forrest, Forrest Gump.' 'Who cares, dude?'

Construction workers in 1930’s NYC

'10 more hours to go...'

Bear

'No, it's my sandwich!'

The Thinker

'It stinks here...'

the Lost crowd

but this one has got to be my favourite…

'Please say yes...'

Well, I can give Keanu a few reasons to cheer up:

1. He doesn’t make the shitty money I do;

2. He doesn’t have my bosses;

3. He doesn’t have a prick mother fucker living down the hall;

4. He doesn’t live out of his overdraft limit;

5. He doesn’t know what ‘CALA BOCA GALVAO’ means.

So, Keanu, baby, cheer the fuck up already!!!

I was able to get up pretty early this morning, which means that inevitably I’ll turn on the TV on Fox & Friends and see if I can have a couple of laughs before going to work since Fox & Friends is, you know, a comedy show, right? Anyway, as I expected, they were talking about the Obama’s Oval Office address last night and, when interviewing Newt Gingrich, Gretchen Carlson asks if “some people” might think that President Obama’s remarks were disingenuous because he doesn’t go to church on a regular basis (Obama asked the nation to pray for the country during his address, Media Matters explains).  Now, these folks have got to be kidding (I told you it was a comedy show…). One day I’d like to see them actually disclosing who ‘some people’ are. Who are “some people”? Where do “some people” hide? How can “some people” give interviews overnight and have so specific things to say about the president and have all their views “reported” on a 6am show?

Two TEDTalk translations available in Portuguese. The first, translated by Fernando Marinheiro and reviewed by yours truly, is the absolutely amazing talk by Simon Sinek on how great leaders inspire action. He explains that almost all of us — companies or individuals — know exactly what we do but not so many know why we do it, and believing in the why is the key point if you want to be successful. Simply great, riveting talk. The second one, translated by me and reviewed by Francisco Dubiela, shows politician Omar Ahmad saying that the best way to get through to someone in office is not by writing thousands of e-mails or trying to contact them by phone. You might get a chance of being heard if you go old-fashion: by writing a letter.

We Feel Fine: “I sincerely hope you make the decision to ask for help There is no shame in asking for help if you honestly feel that you can’t do it on your own” (18 min ago)

Arizona bills shameful

Next week we’ll have the last immersion with two people, then just one more week with one student and that’s it, so much for Immersion Program 2009-2010. I’m guessing I’ll have a relatively ok couple of months ahead of me until it’s time for another Corporate Assessment, meaning basically two trips to Santa Cruz, correcting writing tasks, doing interviews over the phone and writing down the results. Last year I assessed 52 people between July and August and maybe 15 more until December. At some point, you don’t know what else to write. Usually the first 10 assessments are the ones that serve as models and as people have more or less the same needs depending on their command of the language, I adapt it to each employee. Otherwise I guess I’d be prepared to write the book “101 ways to write a corporate assessment”… Anyway, what surprised me earlier this week is that I was able to organise the schedule in ONE DAY! I don’t know how I could pull that one off… Well, I guess it’s because of the help of all other teachers, a couple of exceptions, but most of them helping out big time.

And the battle Stewart/O’Reilly-Fox News seems to continue. Last night, Bernie Goldberg was back on the O’Reilly Factor for a rebuttal to Stewart’s response to Bernie’s comments on Stewart’s “F*ck yourselves!” and… what? Who’s telling who off here? It reminds me of that Friends episode where Phoebe and Rachel discover that Monica and Chandler are together and Joey is in the middle, trying to keep secrets other than Hugsy, his bedtime penguin pal… “They know that we know? Oh, but they don’t know that we know they know we know…”

In politics, the bill that was passed by the Arizona Legislature about illegal immigrants is just absurd. It allows police to stop people on the street and ask for proof of identification, otherwise they can go to jail immediately. However, the question is who will be stopped on the street other than Latinos — it’s Arizona, for crying out loud –? Representatives say that only people that the police “suspect” are illegal will be asked for ID but this is vague. Plus, who’s to say that folks won’t start saying things and pointing fingers passing on information about immigrants? This is major retrocession, as big as the other bill passed by the same state of Arizona — what’s the problem with those guys? — that now the candidate that wants to be in the state ballot for presidential election or re-election must produce their birth certificate. The Republican representative Cecil Ash was on AC360º last night and said this was just another way to show a candidate’s qualification for the job, but nobody has ever asked the 43 former presidents to do such a thing, why right now? As AC360 said “the birthers are back” and it’s fucking ridiculous, and it even promotes some crazy bastards and their delusional thoughts. It was an interesting interview last night, by the way.

Yesterday was a holiday and got to stay at home and do some stuff. However, I woke up not feeling so well. Major sore throat and feverish. That reminded me of the talk I’d had with my co-worker on Tuesday. I was at home, getting ready to go to work when I received this text from my colleague, saying he’d had a dream about me the night before and that I wasn’t well healthwise. Needless to say I started looking for lumps and feeling tumors growing in my brain. A little later we bumped into each other at work and I told him I was fine as far as I knew but had now grown suspicious of it. He said it wasn’t his intention to raise any alarms but the damage had been done. Well, 24 hours later there I was, waking up not feeling my best. I DO hope that’s the connection with the dream…

Anyway, not feeling 100%, what I did was to stay at home and catch up with the news. Watched some CNN but then decided to turn to Jornal do Almoço, a couple of months after having convinced myself it wasn’t a show worth watching at all, maybe the weather forecast only, but still pretty lamely delivered. I watched the programme for some 20 minutes and it had NO news value whatsoever the entire time. First, they spent a few minutes talking about football and giving the same information that would be given half hour later, during the SPORTS show that follows! Then, there was this interview with Marcelo Dourado, Big Brother Brasil winner and, frankly, a douchebag. After, there was another interview with a psychic that is in the state touring cities and probably giving some psychic advice to the psychos out there. I must tell you that watching that programme was as painful as watching Fox & Friends in the morning.