I can't clap cruelty

I can't clap cruelty nor do I like the cruel!
For the pleasure of them, I can't swear to my past.
If one insults to my ancestor, I will choke him.
If I can't, at least, I will dismiss him.

I can't do baseness behind several basterds.
In the name of justice, I can't let injustice even if they kill me.
I'm in love for freedom since my birth,
I haven't been in any illegal act nor have I committed such a sin.

If I'm an obedient person, who said that I'm an easy going sheep?
You can cut my neck, but never can you drag me.
When I see a blooding wound, I feel great compassion. 
In order to relieve it, I willingly take the risk of having been whipped.

I don't say ''O man, never mind it!'' but I do mind it.
I chew or be chewed , but, I always support the 'right',
I'm an enemy of the cruel but I do like the sufferings.
Is this the meaning of ''religious reaction'' in your accent? 
                                                                   Mehmet Akif Ersoy 
                                             (Zulmü Alkışlayamam, Translated by İSA ATAÇ)

My Teacher Case (Educational Studies l)

According to my teacher case:

Should the focus be on shaping innate human potentials or on modelling the pupilst through external influences?

In my opinion, teacher should help student on his/her innate potentials. Because because if innate potentials or abilities of a student are not recognised and developed, that child just from the beginning of his/her education life begin to have deep contradictions in his/her life. If one is not happy about what he is dealing with, he cannot be successful and enjoy his time. I all the time say my friend: Not only a students but any body, if does something against his/her innate abilities, that is to say, agains his/her spirit, mind and body; that person can say that “I am happy and I will be successful.” Here I define the term “innate human potential” as “the spirit, mind and body of a person”.  So, what a student deals with should be in accordance with his/her innate abilities or potentials. And most importantly teacher’s focus should behelping his student to use such potentials.  External influences only should be a factor which enables student to find or use his innate potentials. 

Is the best way to learn through practical experience or through academic pursuits?

According to me and maybe so many people, of course practical experience attracts attentions and in reality this is the fact. However, I cannot say that throug academic pursuits learning does not take place effectively. It depends on the features of a person has. But for me practic is much more effective.

Should the skills and knowledge that humans acquire through their upbringing be of use to the society or should they stimulate the personal development?

I think it first should be use of personal development. Then, if necessary should be for society. Because a person is like a member in the family of society. If that person does something good for himself, it is good for all society. I can give a simple lamp as an example. If we turn on a lamp in a room, it gives light to all corners of that room. Just as the same way, if a person develops himself very good, he can give lights to all of his society. Both he benefits and according to quality of his light the others. Perhaps all humanity.

 

Is knowledge something that we can observe and experience or something abstract that we can think our way through processes of thought?

My approach to describtion of knowledge is simply like the “light”. A bunch or ray of light, as everone knows illuminates its environment. So, knowledge, just as the same way, both illuminate the person who has it and the others. It is normally something abstract but If it yields good fruits it becomes something concrete. 

The Lesson Plan (Teaching Colours) Educational Studies I

Here is the lesson plan that me and Paula have made during the Peter's lesson of Educational Studies I.

LESSON PLAN
SUBJECT English	TOPIC Colours	CLASS 4th grade		TIME 1 week
KEY QUESTIONS 1.     Can you write, read and pronounce the colours in English? 2.     Can you say the colours of the classroom’s materials in English? 3.     What colour is this in English?
ACADEMIC AREAS Reading and Speaking about colours Vocabulary			MATERIALS Text Pictures Crayons
OBJECTIVES 1.     To write, read and pronounce the names of colours in English 2.     To associate colours with pictures 3.     To know what the main, secondary and intermediate colours are. 4.     To describe the objects by saying their colours.
ACTIVITIES FIRST LESSON: 1. We will show the flashcards in which the students will see a few things of the same colour and the English name of the colour under them. As the name of the colour is a stick, you can take it out and ask them to guess it (15 Minutes). 2. Students will watch a video related to the colours (5 Minutes). 3. We will distrubute some colourless pictures to the students, they will have to paint it according to teacher’s instructions. (20 Minutes) SECOND LESSON: 1. We will ask them to describe the colours of the pupils’ clothes (15 Minutes). 2. We will ask them to draw a box whit several columns. Students will determine one colour for each column, and write suitable things according to the colour. (15 Minutes) 3. We will show them flags and they will try to call their names in English (10 Minutes).                                                                                                                  (PAULA AND ISA)

We gave a presentation about Turkish Education System for the International Week in Roskilde

Me and my other two friends İlknur and Sıla have been called to give some information about Turkish Education System in Turkey for Internatioal Week in Roskilde Campus. We have been asked to talk about 6-16 years old child education in Turkey. So, we decided to prepare our presentation to give some brief and important information about primary school, middle school and high school educations. I have informed about primary school education. İlknur and Sıla talked about middle schools and high schools respectively. It was a good experience for me. Because, both I have learned so many things about our education system and had a chance to present it in a foreign country in English. I have learned many things about our education system because only last year the system has been changed completely and were many things that I did not know. So, with a deep investigation and study I had lots of beneficial information which will be usuful for me as an educator in future.

To give some basic information about our newly changed education system, I can say that:

Now, the mandatory education year increased to 12 years whereas it was 8 years till the end of last year. End the beginning of school age has been dropped down to 5,5 years from 7 years old. After graduating from secondary school, now, everyone has not to attend to high school classes. They have a option to study high school in open education as long as they give a garantee to finish. So, they can study their lessens at home while doing any other things. 

I think this change has been done because nowadays in Turkey we can see many developments in many aspects. For example the economy of Turkey is increasing and the life standards of its people becoming much better, too. So, Turkey wanted to change it education system for the better one. I hope this change yields good rusults and fruits in future. 

Democratic Citizenship -the clip that reflects the Anatolian People the best-

In my opinion the best clip which describes my countries all cultural aspect is a song that is prepared by a political part in Turkey. Actually I don't like to speak about politics. Because everybody may have a different political view. And because of that we should not break our hearts. We should be respectful to each others views and ideas. But this song attract my attention, because it shows people from very different cultural backgrounds in Turkey.

Shortly, even if it is a song belongs to a political party, I decided to choose it. For those who dislike that part I can only say that don't think about the part, but think about what the song says. I will also translate it into English below the clip.

and its translation into English:

We  walked through the same way,

We drank from the same water,

Our summer is one, winter is one,

We are the same wind of the same hill.

Our songs one, and ballads are one,

We altogether sing the same one,

Our halays and horons, all folk dances are one,

We are the same chord of the same instrument.

The hearts are one, and prays are one         

We are the same servant of the same God.

Our real garden is our home town,

We are the same rose of the same branch,

Come on one more time, one more time, one more time,

We sing this song all together.

Play the drum, one more time, one more time.

Both we enjoy and sing the same one.

Democratic Citizenship -our intercultural research assignment-

Our instructer Thomas gave us a task about an intercultural research. He said us to work with our school experience team. We were to analyse how young people with different ethnic backgrounds understand themselves in terms of culture and identity and how they describe it.

As Thomas gave us an option to use a camera and make a video. We decided to hold this reaserch making an interview with our school experience guide techer Linda. Linda is a professional class teacher working at the Isling school. She with us teach the 4th grade students. On many tuesdays and fridays we were with her. But, it was a luck for us that there were last two more lessons with her. So, we could make an interview with her. Why we chosed her to speak is because the students in her class can not speak English. That is why we spoke to her about our research.

We prepared some questions related diversity in her classroom such as:

1. Do you have students who belong to different ethnic backgrounds?
2. How those students who are
   • with different ethnic backgrounds understand themselves in terms of culture and identity and how they describe it?
3. Do you see if there is some differences about those students when they act in a Danish way?
4. Do you teach the students about different selebrations related to different cultures?
5. Do you feel about racisim in your class between the students?
6. Do you sing your national anthem in your school together with other students who are with different cultural background?
7. Do you have religion lesseon? If yes, what do you teach in this lesson? Do you only teach Christianity?  We tried to get answers to those question from Linda. She kindly helped us about this and sincerly answered to our questions. Here is our interview wit her.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Briefly to mention about our research result is that there is no so much cultural conflict among the students with different cultural backgrounds in Denmark. They live and study quite in a positive and compatible way. Sometimes some difficulties may happen, but this is sorted out easily said our guide teacher Linda. The thing that impressed me so much was that when I asked her if you sing a national anthem here. She said deffinately no. She said that we don't disturb the others singing something which belongs only our nation and culture. Even if the majority of the school is Danish, we do not apply such a thing she said.

From the respect the other receive from Danish make the others to be in good relationships with Danish. Maybe the most signicifent point lies in that respect.

Democratic Citizenship

Well, as like the other lessons, with the lesson Democratic Citizenship first we focused on culture. We tried to define it. Then, we dealt with identity. We discussed it in the class. According to me, the culture of societies is very important. Every one should learn his/her own culture and try to apply it to his/her life in accordance with the situation of the time. That is to say every one should be acquinted with what he belongs and should act accordingly in a way that is suitable to the needs of time and people. 

Then we discussed about identity. We discussed if identity of a person change or not. In my opinion, the identity of a person may change. However there might be some cores or principles that don't change. Other featurs of a man which can be described as his identity may change on the basis of those cores or principles. 

As for the term Citizenship, it is about our rights, duties, responsibilities and rules that we have to obey. Both we have some responsibilities to our countries as a citizen and our countries have some duties to do for us. 

Both culture, identity and citizenship define who is a man, what he belongs and what is his charecteristics. Gives information about him. They are like a mirror. If you reflect a mirror to something, you can see them in the mirror. Just as the same way, the culture, identity and citizenship of a man reflect his personality. They are all link to each other. In fact, we can't seperate them. 

Then we discussed about DIVERSİTY IN OUR OWN COUNTRIES.

Here is some information that we agreed on our diversity in Turkey:

Diversity in Turkey

In Turkey there is no cultural clash concerning immigrants. Because immigrants moved Turkey many years ago and they are a part of Turkish culture now. Therefore they don’t feel like immigrants any more.

We have a central education system in which everybody gets the same education and the instruction language is Turkish.
-Kurdish people want to get education in their mother tongue, but the government regards this as a problem for social cohesion.

-Religion lessons includes only one sect. However; the followers of other sects do not want to learn the religion in detail because they consider that these lessons teach their children different things than they believe and they want their children to be taught cultural aspects of religion in this lessons.

-Although the education system is central, there are also some private minority schools from primary to high school. For example: Robert College, Kabataş High School (France), American college, Private Pangaltı Armenian High School, etc.These schools give the education in the language that is mother tongue for that minority. The students graduating from these schools can easily attend every Universities in Turkey. Besides, the Turkish students also can have education at these schools.

To the end of the lesson we discussed about a text by Kevin Robins. It was about "Interrrupting identities". So, we have been diveded into two groups as Turkey and Europe. Actually it was a harsh discussion. Because in my group we could not agree on ıf Mustafa Kemal interrupted the culture of Turkey or not. According to the realities, he tried to kill the culture of both Turks and Kurts. But, some in my group did not accept this. I respect to their thoughts but, we should not ignore those what happened. We have to be honest about it.