School Blog

Reflexiones, consejos y emociones que a diario nos asaltan en este trabajo que supone dirigir un centro docente / Thoughts, advice and emotions that occur to us as we work every day to achieve academic excellence at our school.

Month: March 2016

Viaje en busca de la partícula de dios

Caxton College - IFIC

Nos encontramos con el coordinador de la práctica en la cafetería del campus de Burjassot a las 9:00 y nos dirigimos a la sala de convenciones de la biblioteca donde pudimos disfrutar de dos charlas; una acerca de la historia y acontecimientos de la Física de Partículas, y otra acerca del funcionamiento del detector ATLAS del acelerador de partículas LHC en el CERN (Instituto Europeo de Física de Partículas) en Ginebra. Tanto el programa del todo el día, como las presentaciones utilizadas se pueden descargar directamente de la página web:

http://ific.uv.es/masterclass/agenda-ATLAS.php

Seguidamente nos fuimos a almorzar, y a las 11:30 comenzó la práctica de análisis de datos obtenidos por el detector ATLAS, que se realizó en el aula de informática de la Facultad de Física. En la siguiente dirección web:

http://atlas.physicsmasterclasses.org/es/wpath_teilchenid1.htm

Podemos encontrar los datos obtenidos por nuestros estudiantes (para ello debemos seleccionar en el menú de la parte derecha superior el apartado análisis y buscar nuestro grupo por fecha: 08/03/16, o por lugar: Valencia); aunque he preferido poner como principio una aplicación fantástica que nos proporciona las trazas de los diferentes tipos de partículas medidas en el detector ATLAS. Además también pueden encontrare aspectos teóricos del experimento, se puede descargar gratuitamente el programa que utilizaron en la práctica (MINERVA), y muchas otras aplicaciones muy interesantes de la Física de Partículas.

Acabamos a eso de las 13:30 el análisis de datos (buscábamos el  bosón de Higgs como consecuencia de su desintegración en dos bosones W, que a su vez también se desintegran en leptón y neutrino, que es su canal de desintegración más frecuente) y nos fuimos a comer, invitados por el IFIC, a la Escuela Técnica de Ingeniería Superior, ubicada entre la universidades y el IFIC.

Seguidamente nos dirigimos hacia el edificio del IFIC para realizar otras charlas y a las 16:00 comenzó una videoconferencia con el CERN y con los otros grupos de trabajo (dos en Francia y uno en Alemania) con los que compartimos tanto resultados de los análisis de datos, como experiencias de la práctica. Además hubo un turno de preguntas hechas a las dos encargadas del CERN, acerca de su vida laboral en el acelerador, un quiz de preguntas, …

En mi opinión, ha sido una experiencia muy positiva para los alumnos, pues han podido comprobar, detectar y medir aspectos de la Física de Partículas que estudian en la asignatura de Physics.

De hecho ellos fueron los alumnos que más pudieron entender tanto los procedimientos como la naturaleza de dichas partículas; pues, en los institutos de enseñanza española no llegan a ese tema hasta finales de curso.  Aunque las charlas fueron en castellano (o alguna en valenciano), las presentaciones fueron en inglés, la videoconferencia también fue en inglés, y lo más importante, son aspectos que en dicha asignatura ya han visto en clase.

Un saludo a todos y disculpad la longitud del mensaje (es imposible hacerlo más corto).

 

Ramón Díaz, Profesor de Matemáticas en Secundaria

The Language of Music

Caxton College - Music Teacher

There have been many studies into why music is so important in the early years of children’s development. Helping to improve listening skills, motor functions, comprehension in language and numeracy. From professional and personal experience, I have seen that studying music helps to improve memory, build confidence and encourages children to socialise. As an early year’s music teacher there is a responsibility to teach these values and abilities, and to show the children the first steps within music education. As with any language, they must first learn the “words” and “vocabulary”. In respect to this way of thinking, my goal is to create a strong awareness of rhythm and space, and improved listening skills. Specifically, within classes, we will work positioned in a large circle where every child can see and hear every other child. Emphasis is placed on rhythmical games and activities whereby, even if a child is not playing an instrument or singing, must still be listening to their peers in order to continue within the game. For example, passing a simple clapped rhythm around the circle. This is often then further developed with the use of clapping/playing rhythmical patterns based on simple spoken sentences. “Let’s All Play Our Drum”, for example, where children must repeat the phrase and play or clap only on the word “drum”. Later on, when the words are played rather than spoken, a call and response pattern emerges through thinking of sentence rhythms and syllables. I have found that engaging children in fun, rhythmical activities and games (whilst at the same time using their language skills) greatly improves their listening skills. Which brings me to the importance of listening to “real” music.

Quite often as adults we forget to give early years children the opportunity to listen to high information music, or more complex forms of music. Nursery rhymes can often overshadow other musical forms due to the need to learn basic vocabulary. Yet when early years children are regularly exposed to more complex musical sounds (for example Mozart, Duke Ellington, Bach) this then becomes the norm. The complex music no longer sounds complex. When the children first heard traditional Indian music, it sounded strange Yet, after the third or fourth time listening, it wasn’t strange anymore. In conclusion, through rhythm and listening skills early years music at Caxton helps to improve children’s communication, confidence and patience, helping them to carry this on in all other aspects of their school life.

Simon Taylor, Music Teacher

Standard of Beauty

eIMG_5247Lucía, alumna de Year 10, junto con Amparo Gil, Directora, Marta Gil, Subdirectora y Cristina Pérez, Psicopedagoga.

“Beauty is the last, best belief system that keeps male dominance intact”

If you watch TV advertisements from the 60s or 70s, you would be surprised to find out the exaggerated and ‘disgusting’ ways women are portrayed: sometimes as cleaning-crazed beings, and other times only as man’s pets. By that time, women’s role in society was fairly simple: do whatever your husband tells you to do. In beauty advertisements, instead of having a woman present the product like we have today, it was actually the man who presented it, saying a slogan similar to “buy this to make your woman beautiful!” And then his wife would be incredibly pleased because her husband had bought her something to keep her beautiful, as she isn’t able to do this by herself. If she is beautiful, she will be able to keep her husband happy.

Now, you’d say things have changed. Women have the right to vote and we are assured that their role in society is much more broad and open than 40 years ago; almost the same as a man (same job offers, same payments, same treatment, same activities…) and surely women now feel more empowered than ever with this new freedom they have. However, because it’s so new and foreign for them, the world doesn’t know what to do with it. Do we keep treating women as before, or do we treat them as equals to men? “Even better, why don’t we use it for our own profit?” Added the beauty industry.

And that’s how women, who were learning to adapt to their new, dominant roles started becoming more lenient on beauty: they began to seek guidance, some kind of scale that would help them measure how successful they were at directing their new life. Using that insecurity, the beauty industry bombarded these naive women with false connotations between success and beauty.

In the end, they grasped the concept that to be liked and accepted by others as a normal individual of society they had to be pretty- or at least that’s the message they were trying to convey. In reality, the beauty industry was just manipulating their fresh new self-esteem to become slaves to their physical appearance and opinion of others. They thought they were confident and strong, when actually they were becoming fickle and insecure as minutes passed.

It is also to note that while all of this culture revolution was going on with women, men were practically perceived in the media the same way as before: strong, dominant and in control. Only this time the female figure in the background is way more subtle- but it’s still there, silently manipulating our roles in society.

 And 30 years later, the snarky pressure this unknown industry was strangely settling on newly free women has developed in so many dimensions that it’s now a massive fog that clouds society, especially us, the new generation. The fog clouds our judgment so much that we don’t even doubt ourselves when we choose to wear makeup or go to the gym. This is because we were born with these ideas already deeply rooted in the way humans think about themselves and others that it’s natural for us to seek perfection in ourselves so that we can be accepted by others.

In that way, I guess you can say both men and women are the same: we are both deceived by the media to believe we should strive to be the best form of ourselves even if it’s not remotely close to the way we are, and if we do so we will feel satisfied and fulfilled with our lives. The difference lies in the methods the industry uses to introduce us to the ridiculous standard of beauty. Women are constantly allured with feminist words about self-righteous conduct that makes them think of themselves as independent, only to be contradicted by severe, specific instructions of what make a true woman. It’s as saying “we all deserve to be strong, free woman. We should be treated the same as men; we don’t even need them to exist! Oh, but you aren’t a true woman if you aren’t skinny, or conventionally pretty, or don’t wear makeup…” while men are being constantly told that they have be a masculine, dominant figure that everyone feels intimidated by, and that if you aren’t, you aren’t a real man- even if the pressure of the media on them isn’t that strong. Either way, the different insecurities both genders feel form a barrier between them that will intersect with the path to equality we desperately need and want in our society.

In my opinion, the only way to overcome the strict standard of beauty and manage to see through this foggy society is by self-perception. If you are able to create a realistic image of yourself that only satisfies your own desires and expectations- not affected by what others think- only then you will eventually learn to accept yourself and feel confident in your own skin. In other words: accept that you are different and that all of these insecurities and doubts you have of yourself are only encrypted messages society puts in your mind. You have to learn to think for yourself, to be analytical and critical of the media around you and how they wrongfully influence you, and most important of all, learn to overcome it. Rely on those who cherish you just the way you are, because those are able to see you through the foggy beauty for what you’re really worth, and of course, do the same for the people you care for.

http://www.internationalwomensday.com

Lucía, Year 10D

Comida casera

Marcos Soriano Chef de Caxton College

Queremos inculcar a nuestros alumnos un estilo de vida saludable y ello incluye educarles en una correcta alimentación.  La mejor forma de controlar lo que comen y hacerles ver la importancia de una comida equilibrada pasa por elaborarla en nuestras instalaciones, que cuenta con:

  • 2 cocinas: una convencional y otra para alergias e intolerancias.
  • 3 comedores adaptados a las edades de nuestros alumnos.
  • 7 líneas de buffet.

Los menús, que están supervisados por un doctor especialista en nutrición, constan de:

  • Comida casera basada en la dieta mediterránea.
  • Fusión de la cocina local con la internacional para que los alumnos que proceden de otros países se sientan como en casa.
  • Productos de primera calidad.
  • Todos nuestros productos son naturales, sin procesar.
  • Fruta y verdura fresca todos los días.
  • Legumbres un día a la semana.
  • Pescado variado extraído del mar, no de piscifactorías. El menú incluye emperador, merluza, bacalao y rape, entre otros.

Todo esto, unido al cariño con el que el personal de comedor atiende a los alumnos, hace que nuestro comedor sea excepcional.

Están todos invitados a comer con sus hijos y aceptaríamos encantados cualquier propuesta que tengan para seguir mejorando.

Marcos Soriano Carrascosa, Jefe de Cocina

Caxton College British School