PastxPresent

More often than not I have been talking with friends and colleagues about this crazy world we live in. Only now did I realise I have this wonderful tool (blogging) to hear from more and more people. Am I alone or do you also feel the days, the weeks, the months, the years have been passing way too fast? It is scary, IMHO. I still perfectly remember what I did last December for Christmas and we are now in mid October!!! Remember the good (??) old days?? It would actually take for ever from one Chritsmas to another. I could mention all the other events - Carnaval, Easter,Mother's day...our blessed vacations... What's going on?? I have some explanations which I have gotten from my religion but I do not want to influence anybody's opinion. The only thing I cannot help is adding a song - awesome, IMHO to help you stop, take a deep breath and reflect. I'd love to hear from you all. Now...enjoy Sarah Brightman /Bee Gees (it can't get any better than that).

Lessons to be learned

I have already said Barbra Streisand is my favorite singer. I have used many of her songs throughout all these years in the classroom. I usually choose those songs that lead to some reflection, discussion - some food for thought. This song here has always been succeful. I remember sending it to a group of students I prepared for the ECCE Examination from the University of Michigan. I knew some of them would not be successful but even after having a very sincere talk with them they insisted they wanted to try. I got home and started to think how frustrated they'd probably feel if they really had to face "failure". Well, to make a long story short again, in the middle of the night this song came to my mind and I sent it to the group. It proved to be really helpful as I got a number of emails thanking me for the support and specially for the song. They really got the message and realized we do learn from our mistakes if there is such a thing because as Barbra puts here "there are no mistakes...just lessons to be learned..." How about you? Is there any personal experience you would like to share? A "mistake" which turned out to be a good lesson to be learned. I'd love to hear from you.