My thoughts about Education Humanities, Technology and Digital Culture. Interested on social media tools in educational contexts and
gamification in education.
Spring is back! But after two or three days, Winter came back. Cold, wind, snow and rain. So I can't think to publish a poem about Spring. Perhaps a poem about Easter? Let's see if I can...
The cold earth slept below; Above the cold sky shone;
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Today April 19 is Saturday alleluia. Just a day to Easter Sunday. Easteris the most important Christian religious holiday and widely regarded as the second most popular holiday in general after Christmas season.
The students and teachers got some days as school break of Easter in the most countries in Europe and elsewhere.
In addition to the fun and candy, Easter is also a time of reflection for many, with traditions that commemorate the significance of the holiday for Christians around the world.
Easter 2025 is the coldest and stormy weather we've had in many years. Nothing comparable to previous years.It's so sad to kids and families! Impossible to do the traditional host of Easter egg hunts outdoor.
via Google Images Archive
But there are other activities inside. The studentswho stay in town with their parents, they have good choices to have fun and learn a bit as well.
I would like to share with you a message of hope. Planet Earth is complaining for all the bad things human kind are doing. I believe in the new generations, Let's continue our green education.
Life can toss us down and make us fall out of the blue, but the hope inside us will pick us up again and again!
We do not lose heart when we fail in life, a storm can't shoot us down, Must be positive.
We must be grateful! We have our home isn't it ? Stay positive ! Always !
Who knows tomorrow, Easter Sunday we will present us a sunny day ?!
For the International Little Prince Day, a donation of 5,000 books was made thanks to the editor in favor of associations to promote reading. Wow! Excellent! It's so important to read since young age. This will encourage kids to love books and reading.
Nelson Mandela International Day 2018 marked 100 years since the birth of Nelson Mandela (18 July 1918). The Centenary was an occasion to reflect on his life and legacy, and to follow his call to “make of the world a better place.”
"Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It's an act of justice."
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela devoted his life to the service of humanity - as a human rights lawyer, a prisoner of conscience, an international peacemaker and the first democratically elected president of a free South Africa.
Education:
“I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve."
Nelson Mandela Literacy is one of Mandela's legacy. Literacy is the most important skill for an individual to acquire and develop. An empowerment tool that gives access to further education and new opportunities. And digital skills or digital literacy complete the education in our days, absolutely necessary in the XXI century jobs.
Students in Europe and some other continents are enjoying summer holidays. But Nelson Mandela Centenary can be include into school curriculum next back-to-school, in August or September.
There, teachers will invite students to take action and inspiring to Be the Legacy by celebrating a "Mandela Day" at school, a Freedom racing or a Freedom Rugby match. Why not?
Include all the activities into a cross-curricular Civics project.
Teachers must doo a pre-selection of all those resources preparing their lessons to the next back-to-school.
Level: All levels
The resources and activities will be adapted to the level educators are teaching.
Other resources:Biopics
Mandela Long Walk to Freedom (2013)
A chronicle of Nelson Mandela's life journey from his childhood in a rural village through to his inauguration as the first democratically elected president of South Africa.
Beginning in a jail cell and ending in a rugby tournament- the true story of how the most inspiring charm offensive in history brought South Africa together. After being released from prison and winning South Africa’s first free election, Nelson Mandela presided over a country still deeply divided by fifty years of apartheid. His plan was ambitious if not far-fetched: use the national rugby team, the Springboks-long an embodiment of white-supremacist rule-to embody and engage a new South Africa as they prepared to host the 1995 World Cup. The string of wins that followed not only defied the odds, but capped Mandela’s miraculous effort to bring South Africans together again in a hard-won, enduring bond.
Level: High Junior Schools; Secondary education; Further education (film & book)
The 250 prison letters selected, Mandela wrote most of these long, thoughtful pages in the knowledge that few were reaching their intended recipients: his wife, Winnie, his children, or old friends and comrades.The philosophy of “living in truth” is more readily associated. The letters were not a reflection of prison world, they were his escape from it.
“As a prisoner doing hard labour, I am experiencing considerable difficulty in preparing to write four subjects in one examination, and any concession you can offer in this regard will give me a fair chance of showing competent knowledge in each subject I offer…”
Nelson Mandela, The Prison Letters
You can read the review of the book here Level: Secondary education; Further education
Poem: Invictus by William Ernest Henley
(...)
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
William Ernest Henley, Invictus The poem that inspired Nelson Mandela in his 27 years of prison can be read on Poetry Foundation here or eared (podcast) here. Students can learn more about the British poetWilliam Ernest Henley.
Level: High Junior School; Secondary education; Further education
Mandela Doodle:
In July 18, 2014, Google celebrated the anniversary of Mandela’s birth with an interactive Doodle. Starting with an illustration of the former leader, young students can click through a number of his most well-knownquotes, coupled with illustrations depicting stages of his 'Long Walk to Freedom' by Doodler Katy Wu
“Mandela – story and games” was a picture book biography of Nelson Mandela, especially for kids/pupils, developed by digiSchool for free. An interesting app that has been retired. Each picture represented an important part of Mandela’s life, which were presented by a narrator.
However the video above could be include into primary school curriculum as suggestion to talk about Nelson Mandela - his values and resilience - to the kids.
It can be enriched by different activities that teachers must prepare, depending of the age or level they are teaching.
Level: (3rd and 4th grades).
Hope all these resources to celebrate Mandela could be helpful to my usual readers, teachers from different countries and continents.
"It is easy to break down and destroy. The heroes are those who make peace and build."
Ricardo
