About my New year's resolution...

There is a post on resourcefulness on moneysavingmom.com that I really like and has everything to do with resourcefulness. Click here to check it out if you are interested.
The Brazilican Learner

The sweet experiment - Resourcefulness resolution

As promised, here is the experiment that won't gross you out.

For my American friends this is probably not something new, but it was to me as a foreigner. Still trying to follow my resolution I came across the ingredients to this cute "acorn" in my cabinets: Nutter butter mini bites, chocolate frosting, Hershey kisses with almonds and chocolate chips... and that is it, only four ingredients!

Here is the recipe for my Brazilian friends: Spread the frosting on the mini cookie (and I wonder how peanut butter or nutella would work) and, on one side press on the Hershey kiss and on the other the chocolate chip! Simple, easy, cute and yummy... way better than the soupy Spam :)

The Brazilican Learner

Eating from the pantry in January - Resourcefulness resolution

Good January, y'all!

Here I am to show you some of my experiments that came from my New Year's Resolution. In case you missed it, read about it here.

So, I thought about my New Year's Principle Resolution and I decided to start in the kitchen in January... by eating from what I already have at hand in the cabinets, freezer, fridge and pantry. So yesterday I searched there and this is what I found:

Cottage Cheese to expire, half a box of Couscous, half a can of Spam (my dad bought it when he was here and ate only half of it), 3 packets of noodle soup mix, one whole wheat tortilla and half a bag of tortilla chips... (the porcupine is there just because he is cute). So, what to do with them?

The noodle soup reminded me of ramen noodles (Miojo for my Brazilian friends) and the cottage cheese of laughing cow cheese wedges (Polenguinho) and I like to eat those together (I know, my husband always tells me about my weird combination with food) so why not cook the soup mix and couscous together?

 And then we can cottage cheese... It can't be that bad, right? (It turned out awful, but we'll talk about it later)

And then I thought of carbonara pasta, which is basically an Alfredo Sauce with bacon and then you know Spam and bacon are of the same color when cooked so....

I fried it in olive oil, cut it and added it to the mix (at this point my husband was saying Nooooooo with the "what in the world are you doing?" expression on his face) :

And that is it... ready to eat, but...the taste was DISGUSTING!!!! You know when you can still taste the starchy water from the noodles and then the grease from the Spam together... yuck!
Soooooo, to cleanse my palate (yeah, right!), I did the one thing you can do to dignify a tortillla...spread Nutella on it and... well, you know :)

In conclusion, my experiment was a disaster then. Later on I made it edible by adding Queso sauce and some Cheddar cheese to it. At this point you may be wondering if I have burned all my tastebuds, but it did actually improve the taste, plus I got to use something else I did not want to go to waste (although my husband would disagree that Queso or cheese would be wasted LOL).

The bright side of it is that I am following my principle resolution! No waste! It feels great!

Now, for those of you who got traumatized by this experiment, I promise that the next post will be about something sweet that won't gross you out (unless you don't like peanut butter or chocolate).

The Brazilican Learner

New Year's Resolution: Resourcefulness

Every year is the same for some of us, we make a bunch of empty promises of how our life will be different just to realize by February that nothing has changed. Or, if you are like me, you don't even bother to make resolutions. That can be because you are actively changing your life and not waiting for a certain date to start, or because you don't think you can change your life. If the latter is true, life is the same and the same mistakes are made over and over again.

In order to actually do something different, this year, instead of trying to do a list of resolutions, I decided to have a "principle resolution", based on Crystal Paine's idea. The idea is simple, choose a word that will guide how you act throughout the year. I want to experiment with that, and so my word for this year is RESOURCEFULNESS. I want to develop the ability to use and/or make the most of what I already have at hand.

I have been following some blogs and been amazed at what people can do with certain "useless" things and keep thinking "how do they come up with that?". And then it dawned on me... first you have the need for something and then, instead of going shopping, you look around your house and see what you can do with what you already have.... sounds simple, huh? But...not to some of us.... sooooo I will try to do that this year, I will try to see how I can use what I already have at hand. And I will be carrying you guys along the way, posting about how I am doing, or asking for your opinion on what to do with the "useless" stuff I have around the house. After all, this blog is about lessons, right?

I would love to hear from you, too! What are your New Year's Resolutions? Would you like to join me in a "principle resolution" challenge? If so, what word will you choose?

The Brazilican Learner

What is a lesson after all? - Part Three

If you missed one or both posts on this series, click here for part one and click here for part two.

It's been almost a week since my last post, so let's review the first two posts hehehe...

First, we stablished that, in a learning environment, the need of the learner is what will ultimately determine the topic of the lesson, what I'm calling "the something to be taught". Then, we discussed that the defining attribute of a learner is their willingness to move forward, to advance, to learn. Today, we will be talking about the teacher. What makes someone a teacher?

(Before I start let me tell you that this post will be longer than the others, just like the third movie in a trilogy hehehehe... There are just too many ends to tie...)

I started the second post on the series stating that anyone could be a learner, but the same is not true in the case of the teacher. Let me, hum, rephrase that... Anyone can't BE a teacher, but anyone can BECOME one. Ok, let's take a look at that distinction.

When I say anyone can BE a learner, I'm implying that the attributes of a learner are already in the person, that is, everyone has lack of knowledge and a need to advance, improve. All that is left in order to be a learner is a change of attitude, of heart if you will. Basically all you gotta do is be willing to learn and that's it, you are a learner. Now, there will be hard work along the way, but the change of heart is what really makes someone a learner. The hard work will bring you the knowledge you so desperately need, but you will only actually do the work if you are willing to learn.

BECOMING a teacher, on the other hand, requires more than a change of heart. It requires acquiring knowledge, abilities, etc. and that's why I'm using "becoming" instead of "being". It requires hard work, effort, dedication, among others to become a teacher.

Let me see if I can make my line of thought a little clearer: BEING involves a change of heart since you already have the other defining attributes, whereas BECOMING involves not only the willingness, but also the hard work in order to acquire the defining attributes (qualifications and abilities, just to quote a few) needed for the job.

So I guess that, by making that distinction, I introduced some of the defining attributes of a teacher. By all means, let me clarify that what I'm about to discuss is not a comprehensive list of attributes of a teacher, I'm just going to touch on a few of them.

The first thing someone needs to become a teacher is knowledge of the topic at hand. How do you acquire this knowledge? For us humans a commitment of time and hard work is the answer. Now, when you actually learn something, does that make you ready to teach it? When you think of some of the nerds out there who know a lot, I mean, a LOT, but can barely interact with other human beings, the answer becomes obvious. No, you are not a teacher yet. Pretty humbling, huh? But that's the topic for another post hehehe....

So, anyways, you got the knowledge, what do you need next? You need the ability to teach that knowledge, that is, teaching techniques, and how are you going to learn that? Yes, that's right, more time, dedication and hard work... Tired yet? Me, too! But guess what? You are NOT a teacher yet!

Now comes the fun part... You must be thinking "I have the knowledge and I have the techniques, what do you mean I'm not a teacher?"

Let's resort to a teacher's best friend... No, not the dictionary anymore, but Google hehehe... I googled "teach definition" but the best search result I could find was the one provided on top of the links, check it out here. It reads "Show or explain to (someone) how to do something". So, besides knowledge and ability you gotta have "someone" to teach to. I will go further and say that not only you need a learner, but also you gotta understand that person, how that person learns so that learning can actually take place. 

And how do you acquire that? No, not hard work this time, but experience... Lots and lots of it, with lots and lots of different students... And then, only then, you can hopefully say that you became a teacher, but only until you have a new student that you can't reach and then the process starts all over again... That, my friends, is real teaching... Or should I say real learning?

Sometimes it is frustrating to think that, no matter how hard you work, you are never going to achieve the status of "perfect teacher". Because there will always be a new challenge awaiting for you, as long as you keep teaching.

So why bother? I see two reasons. First, every person who became a teacher is first of all a learner, and therefore willing to learn. Second, the learner. Every real teacher sees the need and willingness of that human being in front of them and is deeply moved to help that person in whatever possible way.

For length and maybe boredom purposes I need to finish this post. So, to answer the question at hand, a teacher is basically someone who has knowledge, teaching techniques, a deep understanding of learners and willingness to improve in order to make learning happen. And that's not easy and definitely does not happen overnight.

What is a lesson after all? - Part 2

Inspired by the trilogy fever, I will let you guys know that the "What is a lesson after all?" series will be divided in, guess what, 3 parts, hehehehe...

If you missed part 1 and are interested, click here to catch up. Quick recap (this old teacher's habit of reinforcement in the beginning of a class was stronger than the blogger in me ;-) ) - We discussed that a lesson involves a topic (something that will be taught), a learner and a teacher. In part 1, we talked about the topic of a lesson. In part 2 we will focus on the learner, and in part 3 we will talk about the teacher.

Without further ado, let's get to it. The learner. What qualifies someone as a learner?

Well, basically anyone can be a learner, all you gotta have is ignorance LOL. Since the word ignorance can be a word loaded with different meanings, especially in Brazil (sometimes used to describe extreme or violent actions), I decided to bring the definition from this source. Ignorance is defined as "the state or fact of being ignorant: lack of knowledge, education, or awareness". In a nutshell, you don't know something. No, you are not dumb, LOL, you just don't know it... yet (basic teacher's reply to discouraged but hard working students hehehe). It may take a long time to learn it, or it may just be a piece of cake, but in most cases the learner learns. At their own pace and in their own timing.

Now note that I wrote that anyone CAN be a learner. Just because you are ignorant about something it does not automatically mean that you are a learner. In the last post, we discussed that the topic of a lesson is defined by the need to advance, to move forward in an area of expertise. But the fact that you have that need and that you lack "knowledge, education or awareness" in order to do so does not imply that you are a learner.

So, what makes someone who has a need and a lack of something be a learner? The defining attribute of a learner is their willlingness to learn. In my classes in Brazil, I had tons and tons of students (a rotation of about 120 new students every six months) for about 14 years - you do the math, I teach English :-) - but not all of them were learners. They all came to class, endured me and my classes at times, but some of them got in and out unchanged, untouched, "unlearned" if you will (yeah, I made that word up hehehe). Why? Not because they didn't have the need to advance or abundance of knowledge (their level of English was accessed and someone was paying for those classes so whoever that was believed those people needed to move forward so much that they were willing to pay for that to happen), but because they didn't want to learn. Period. For whatever reason, they'd rather be somewhere else, with someone else, doing something else. And so they shut off during class and let their minds wander to wherever they really wanted to be.

So there you have it. The need to learn something is stablished and also the lack of knowledge, now the question at hand is: Are you willing to learn? It will most likely hurt and steal your free time, so are you willing to pay the price to reach the proverbial next level? Are you willing to be a learner?

I am. And so help me God :-) .

The Brazilican Learner

What is a lesson after all? - Part One

The whole idea for this blog is to share lessons learned from a teacher's perspective. So that got me thinking, what causes a lesson to happen? I mean, if you can read this, that most likely means you have had some sort of formal schooling, so you know what a lesson looks like, but does that lesson really start at school in room 101 at 7:30 am?

The obvious answer is no, it doesn't. Let's see... I guess first we need to discuss what a lesson is, and what it entails.

Flashcard time, hehehe... When you think of learning, this image may be what pops up on your head...


Classic, huh? Apple on desk, distracted students, boring looking teacher, puzzled kid, nerd... But why is this lesson taking place, or better put, why do we go through that? No, it is not because teachers can't do it, so they teach it instead LOL (saying I learned here in the US).

Ok, so let's get to it, or at least start discussing it (after all by the title you figured I won't finish it in one post). I will be stating some obvious stuff here but bear with me, I promise there is a purpose to that.

A lesson involves something to be taught, at least one student and a teacher. Let's focus on the topic of the lesson on this post. So, what is that something to be taught? And why does it have to be taught? 

As a teacher, the first few interactions with my students were used to determine their level of English and their needs in order to advance. And then, using that information, I would decide what was to be taught. 

Similarly, in a lesson, what is to be taught is determined by the needs of the learner, and the reason for that lesson is to adequately equip the learner with the skills to master that subject. You can't be a mathematician without knowing numbers, for instance.

If you are in the middle of a hard lesson right now, it may be helpful to remember that, in order to advance, to move on to the next best thing that is awaiting for you, you need to learn that lesson. That life situation is right in front of you for a reason, and that reason is that YOU NEED IT, whether you like it or not. When you are new to a topic, the basic lessons come first. When you master that basic knowledge, then you are ready to move on to harder topics.


The Brazilican Learner