THE HIDDEN WHOLENESS: PARADOX IN TEACHING AND LEARNING

Palmer writes that we are trained to “think the world apart,”dissecting it into either-ors, but we need to learn to “think the world together,” embracing opposites and appreciating paradoxes.The principle of paradox can guide us in thinking about classroom dynamics—and in designing a teaching and learning space that can hold the community of truth. 

In what ways have you experienced “suffering” as a student teacher? Has your suffering had any redemptive quality to it; that is, has it made you heart larger? What would help you deepen the redemptive quality of the suffering your experience in your work?

In my experience as a teacher, I experienced few "suffering" as a student teacher if so can be called because all the teachers have bad experiences in their classroom not all the time but when we have bad experience. We don't have to be negative, we have to think that we can learn and we can overcome a bad experience. I think that one of the bad experience. It was, one day I went to the school, I prepared all and when I started the class, I say "hello, good afternoon" and they didn't pay attention, It was like I was not there and I talked and talked and they don't care, I think, it was difficult but in that moment I thought that I had to do something so I stopped to talk and right away, I turned to see them and they left to talk and laugh. After I talked with them and I asked them what the problem and what I could do for that they pay attention in class and we talked and together, we resolved the situation. I think all the bad experiences have a solution and we can not say that it is a suffering because always we're going to have difficulties when we are teaching and I think that I as a teacher, I have to be strong and able to resolve all the situations and  with our mind and our heart have to work together for have a good resolve in each bad experience.

Name some of your key gifts or strengths as a teacher. Now name a struggle or difficulty you commonly have in teaching. How do you understand the relation between your profile of giftedness and the kind of trouble you typically get into in the classroom?

some of my strengths as a teacher are: I am creative person with my material because when I am teaching, I like to call the attention of the students, another It is, I am a friendly teacher with my students because sometimes my students don't understand something and I like to explain to them. and one of my difficulty, it is that when I am writing in the board I don't write well and sometimes I change some words by other or sometimes I write the letter "a" in one word and I have to put other letter, so it is difficult sometime for me, I have to be care when I am writing.

giftedness, it is when some students are very smart and their minds are often go ahead of their physical growth, and specific cognitive and social-emotional functions can develop unevenly but in the classroom, it is possible that we have some students with an excellent intelligent and they cannot demonstrated good levels of achievement due to the bad circumstances like the bad environment in the class, the poverty, discrimination due to motivational or emotional problems and sometime when the teacher don't have the enough capacity to teach gifted children.

In our class, we have different minds and some of our students are very intelligent and others have a normal intelligence and sometimes as teachers, we have problems in our class with gifted children because they often learn quickly as a result they soon get bored and they are easily distracted and they pay attention in other thing that captures their attention, so  there are children who demonstrate high performance, or who have the potential to do so, and that we have a responsibility to provide optimal educational experiences to fully develop talents in as many children as possible, for the benefit of the individual and the community.

Describe a moment in teaching when things went so well you knew you were “born to teach” and compare it to a moment in which things went so poorly you wished you had never been born! Name the gifts that made this good moment possible—not the techniques you used or the moves you made, but your qualities.

I remember one day that I had to go to the school, that day, I prepared a wonderful game for my students and I was ready for give my class, and it was a wonderful class because It was the first day that I felt the security and the trust in the classroom because I could handle the classroom and the students learned and they worked in their activities and if I asked them something of the class, they answered me so in that moment I thought that there was a possibility and I could teach and I had the potential to teach but when I began the teaching practice I have some problems for to maintain the control into the classroom. Some students didn't stop to talk. It was difficult for me because I was a shy person and I didn't speak loudly, so the students didn't pay attention but one day one, I got tired of that they didn't not respect anything  when I was talking.

It was frustrating for me, but I thought that I had to be positive and I had to find some solution for to resolve the problem so I talked with the teacher and she gave me some advice for to maintain the control in the class, but I never lost the hope for to improve my weaknesses in the teaching.

Palmer discusses six paradoxes of pedagogical design. Choose one to focus on. Share examples of teaching environments you have experienced where this paradox is honored. Have you ever been in a classroom where only half of the paradox was honored while the other half was ignored? Describe what that classroom was like.

I choose the space should invite the voice of the individual and the voice of the group because one experience that happened when I began the teaching practice, it was that some students didn't like to participate in the class and I wanted that the students tried to speak English and when the students don't try to speak during the class, they don't learn to express their ideas.

Other experience, it was that some students were very shy to speak and some case they didn't want to participate in the activities. So that as a teacher, I had to find some solution for the students could participate in the class and then they could express their ideas, emotions and their questions.

I remember that one teacher likes to talk and talk and he didn't like that the students gave their opinion and when he talked and when he asked us something, we had to answer him, so we didn't have the opportunity to express our ideas and the class was boring. In that case, we could not develop our skill to speak English. The teacher had to change his methodologies to teach because the most important, it is that our students have a good learning.

What questions are you living at this stage of your life—from “How can I get up in the morning? To “How can I become a good teacher? Are the questions you are now living the ones you want to live? If not, what questions would you like to be living? How might you hold these questions at the center of your attention?

Now that I am study I always ask me "How can I become a good teacher?" I always think in this question because I do not want to be a bad teacher, I want to be the best I know that It is difficult for me but I is not impossible be the best teacher in English. I don't want that my students learn English only by learn, I want that my students understand and enjoy the English and that it is an important tool their life and another question it is that "How can I improve every day?" because I don't want to be the same teacher every day I want to improve every day, I want to be at the forefront, thus I will can help my students and they will learn more and more every day because the teaching will change and the teacher will need to change, too.