2007/09/22

DIA DE LAS CULTURAS

October 12 is Dia de las Culturas in many of Latin American countries - Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico, Costa Rica, Chile and some others. And in Spain.

Here we also have Day of Russia - June 12.

It is interesting how these day is celebtrated in these countires, what the people's attitude to it is, if it is the same day as we have in Russia.

Here is what I read about This Day in Costa Rica in www.amcostarica.com (Oct 12 '07):

"In Costa Rica, the holiday has been renamed the day of the cultures to honor all the groups that make up the Tico population."




2007/09/19

THE INTERNATIONAL DAY
OF PEACE

September 21



1) The students' essays "Films: Path to War or Path to Peace"

see at http://jovenes4ma.motime.com/post/678422
and here in the "Comments"

2) The students' essays on the films about the war
"Lost City" (Cuba) and "El Salvador"
see on our Project Website at
http://www.acr.scilib.debryansk.ru/ruslat1/index.html





How the others celebrate Peace Day see
http://culturainglesaudi.blogspot.com
(wonderful Slide shows)

2007/09/17



European Day of Languages
September 26

The European Day of Languages aims to draw the public's attention to the importance of language learning, raise awareness of all the languages spoken in Europe and encourage lifelong language learning. 

Here
http://www.cilt.org.uk/ed/

http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/lang/awareness/day_en.html

you can read about what it is and how it is celebrated.

Have you ever celebrated it?
What would you like to do for that?







2007/09/14



Teacher’s Day in Russia
October 05


In Russia since 1965 The Teacher’s Day was celebrated on the first Sunday in October.

But since 1994 by a special order of the President of Russian Federation this red letter day has been October 5.

Some links where you can read about the holiday:


http://www.solnet.ee/holidays/teacher.html
calend.ru/holidays/0/0/160
http://www.ronik.org.pl/holiday.htm
http://www.ei-ie.org/en/index.php

Posters: http://www.davno.ru/posters/collections/propaganda/poster-05.html





Was there any special reason to make it on this day?

What do you know and think about this holiday?

How is this Holiday celebrated in other countries?

Today I was all ears to hear congratulations on the radio, on TV - congratulations of our government or other VIPs upon this holiday - The Teacher's Day.
On the Radio-Russia they only mentioned in passing what holiday we had today.
On www.vesti.ru - where I usually read about the recent events - nothing at all caught my eye that could be related with today's holiday...

And they SAY being a teacher is the most important profession!?
And they SAY it is the greatest problem of our society!?
No comments...

We celebrated the occasion watching the film "Emperor's Club".

Below and  in the Comment are the students' opinions about the problems raised in the film.


My impression of the film “The Emperor’s club”
Sveta Shashkina

I think that if you’re sick and tired of Hollywood blockbusters and B-movies with violence, a lot of special effects and action you should watch “The Emperor’s club”, a sincere movie that deals up with the relationship between a teacher and a pupil.
The central figure of the film is William Hundert, a professor of ancient history at St Benedict's. He is a principled professor, who is passionate about his subject and believes the history of the Greeks and Roman is more than just a lesson about the past. He also believes that the role of a teacher is not only to educate a pupil, bur to mold the pupil’s character.
But his world up-ends with the arrival of a new freshman – Sedgewick Bell, an arrogant, selfish son of senator. Mr. Hundert’s firm moral standards and unshakeable integrity are challenged by Sedgewick's behaviour, but the teacher believes he could change this young man while maintaining his integrity. In order to inspire him Hundert fudges the results of the exams, involving Sedgewick in the school's annual Julius Caesar contest, which is staged as an intellectual tournament. However Sedgewick doesn’t win the competition and the teacher realizes the pupil he believed in was cheating. For William Hundert the fact that he couldn’t help the boy to change for the better was a grievance that is not really resolved, even 30 years later.
Thus we see that Sedgewick’s motto is “The end justifies the means”, which contradicts his teacher’s principles as well as the notion of integrity. The film arouses the problem of choice: every person decides what means to use to achieve different aims. For some people like Sedgewick Bell it’s quite normal to break the principles, to lie and to do everything to win, but they should realize that sometimes they would regret and it would be too late.
Watching this film we can’t help thinking about the rewards and challenges of teaching. We also begin to think of a role of a teacher in our life: thus Mr. Hundert is not only obsessed with teaching his pupils Greek and Roman history, but he also strives to inspire his students to live rightly, he tries bring out the strong and true character that he believes to be at the core of every student At the beginning of the film we found ourselves wondering: what should pupils learn ancient history for? But then we understand that Mr. Hundert wanted to show to them that eternal values, passing through a centuries, don’t lose their meaning.
I liked the film very much, because it makes you think. I think Cavin Kline did the most of the role as he gave a superb portrayal of William Hundert. Also in this film there are a lot of movie scarlets who created true-to-life images. “The Emperor's Club" is a very good, thought-provoking and philosophical film.

My evaluation of the film «The Emperor’s Club»
Maxim Jackubowski
Having watched this film I realized over again that the profession of a teacher is of enormous social importance. In this movie William Hundert is not only a scholar of Antiquity but also a person of utter integrity and high moral standards. He does not simply impart knowledge to his students because he is supposed to, he feels dutiful to “mold” their characters, to inculcate in them love for antique culture and traditions, which, to my mind, is an indispensable part of moral upbringing. At lessons of Classics Mr. Hundert acquaints his pupils with proceedings of Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, Julius Caesar, Heraclites thus enriching their morality, extending their knowledge of moral principles, making them wise and veritable patriots of their fatherland.
I believe the key idea of the film is to focus the viewers’ attention on the importance of moral upbringing as a component of education. Michael Hoffman, the director, means to inspire that schools must make children strong educationally as well as morally, which he manages excellently. Michael Hoffman provides a dignified portrait of a principled but very humanу teacher, William Hundert, who condemns the ideology to believe that success is more important than honesty, and that greed and lack of principles became an accepted norm. It seems evident that Hundert’s concern for his boys took up a great deal of his energy during his time. He tried to redirect their lives, hoping they would somehow see the lessons of history and discover their own potential for ethical living, avoiding the negative influence of Sedgewick Bell. And in the end he does not change the boy, which truly amazed me. Most of the time in films like these, we see the free-spirited kid become proper and respectful. But 25 years later Hundert realizes that in those years when Sedgewick attended his class, he ignored the other students who were trying - and actually cared - about what they were doing. Only then does the teacher realize how deeply he is mistaken.
On the whole, the film is well managed and all the actors are cast to advantage. I hope their careers will continue after this film. At the end of the movie, I like the subtle differences in years. In the 1970s, a group of boys travel across a lake to flirt with girls from the school nearby but the nuns chase them away. 25 years later, as Kline's character walks towards his schoolroom, we see boys and girls walking around and studying together. In 28 years society has changed, and it is amusing to wonder if that group of boys from the 1970s ever thought that in 28 years, what they were paddling across a lake for would be right next to them.



ОТКУДА БЕРУТСЯ ДЕТИ Родители сплюнулись, и получилась точная копия - детенок. А говорят, сперматозоиды, яйцеклетки! Слюни! ⠀ Так чт...