Gaining or suffering from education??

The school year is over. The play has come to an end. Rita has faced several challenges in her life, but none as challenging as getting an education.

At the beginning of the play, Rita said she wanted to know everything the educated ones knew. She hold the belief that the high and educated classes were people who felt superior because they could maintain conversations about various topics. And she wanted to be like them, being able to have a normal conversation with any kind of person, and expressing her ideas in the appropriate way.

Throughout the play, we noticed changes in Rita's way of speaking, trying to sound more proficient and cultivated. She also suffers changes in her personal life, she separates from her husband, quits her job at the hairdresser's, and starts getting in touch with normal students and people with whom she probably would never have had a relationship if she hadn't started attending college.

By the end of the play, Rita's apparently learnt to judge her relationships better, after realising people are not always as they seem. She seems to be able to apply her knewly acquired knowledge in her life. She has a new job, she is considering new possible ways to go on with her life...

I believe that Rita has both suffered and gained something from her experience in university.

She has suffered personal losses: her husband Denny, her family and friends have grown appart from her. She suffered greatly the culture clash she experienced both with Frank and the rest of the students. Her coming from a working-class environment certainly had some drawbacks through the learning process. She had problems at the beginning dealing with new authors and vocabulary, as she couldn't quite grasp the true meaning of the bibliography. She tried to make herself understood by means of her own jargon, which was not possible nor acceptable if she really wanted to learn as the rest of the students and pass exams in the right way.

She had to "adapt" her way of speaking her mind, she learnt how to be objective rather than subjective, which was EXTREMELY difficult for her, as she is very straightforward.
She gained streetwise knowledge, appart from academic knowledge. She learnt to be objective but without loosing her originality and uniqueness.

Rita has changed a lot during the course of the play, but without completely loosing herself. She knows she comes from a different background than most of the average students, but she is OK with this fact. She has come to terms with her personal life and she has accepted the good and the bad things that came to her as a result from getting an education.

What's most important is that she knows SHE HAS A CHOICE. She is free to choose how to live her life, who to relate with, what to do with herself. And she knows she is the one responsible for the outcomes of her decisions.

Educating Rita or Educating Frank??

Coming to the end of the play, I think Rita has learned quite a lot. She's not only learned how to express her ideas somewhat better, she has also learned to be a better person, to judge others better. Frank has also learned that there's more in life that only what he wants from it.

I think the play ends with Rita cutting Frank's hair as a way to show us that both of them have grown as individuals. They are now able to share better and they can learn from each other as people, as friends, not only as teacher and student. Rita tells Frank he is a very good teacher, as he has helped her pass the exam by giving her all the tools she needed academically speaking. But she also thanks him because he also gave her tools to understand the world better. Having Rita cut Frank's hair shows that she can also teach him something about life, something related to be a better person

No matter the colour, the chamaleon is still the same...

Rita has apparently changed. She has changed her job, her friends, her entire environment... She has even changed her name AGAIN.

By the end of scene 5, she lets Frank know she has changed her name because "Rita" was only "pretencious crap" and she got to realise that. What, in my opinion and in Frank's too, she doesn't seem to see is that her self is not only in her name. Frank calls after her different names to try to know her new name, though she doesn't answer.

What he wants to make her see, is that even if she changes her name over and over again, she will still be the original "Rita", or actually Susan... He is a bit worried she has ended up loosing the real person who was eager to learn, to become more educated so as to be better.

I think that along the process of learning, which Rita also saw as a way of self-discovery, somehow she found herself with new interests and lost track of her real goal: LEARN. She has learned a lot about life, though, perhaps in a way that Franks envies.

Dear Diary

Beginning of school year,
Mr. Burgess has just informed me he won't follow the instructions I gave him when he took charge of the class. It's outrageous! How dare he contradict my orders?! I shall follow this class very closely, there is no chance this class will come to overcome all its problems...

First term is over,
Though Mr. Burgess's behaviour has been reported to the Board of Education, he has continued to disobey my line-ups... In spite of this, I have notices some unbelievable progress in the students' performance... I may have misjudged them... and Burgess... perhaps he really knew what he had to do...

Test results have arrived,
I have just seen the final tests' results from Mr. Burgess. It's uncanny, incredible...! I'm really out of words... I cannot believe how he did it, but he managed to make this children do their best!... Only a couple of them got Cs , while the rest got As and Bs... Really amazing....

Talking properly

Rita's been a new woman for some time now. She is separated from Denny, she shares a flat with another girl, she speaks her mind with other students, teachers and tutors.

Following this new trend, Rita follows her flat mate's advice and decides she needs to "speak properly" to go with this new "her". She claims she's been herself by using this peculiar voice and avoiding her normal jargon. She pronunces every single syllable and doesn't cut up words. According to her, speaking this way she is being her true self. She means that she doesn't want to use her normal, ugly voice now that she is a different person.

I think she doesn't need to disguise her voice to show she has changed. Being able to speak her mind making sense of what she says, something she was always able to do, is more than enough to show she is different. She is a new person, altough she remains being herself.

Ch... ch.. CHANGES!! Face the strange...

Rita's last words in this scene refer to William Blake's work "Songs of Innocence and Experience". Rita is back from summer school and shows a drastic change from the Rita in the last scene. She is restless, more positive; she is free of inhibitions and wants to transmit Frank her new attitude, renewed after being in London.

By mentioning innocence and experience, the author is refering to Rita and Frank. Rita is the young, naif and inocent girl who had wished to change her life, and apparently has done so. Frank is the mature, experienced man who was to help her change. Now Rita has changed too much in Frank's view. He thinks she has achieved her goal of changing her life, and he is afraid he'll loose her as she doen't need him anymore to learn how to be a better person.

Doing better

When Rita's mother says "we could sing better songs than those", Rita realises she is not the only one in her family who wishes could change herself. She understands her mother also longs or had once longed for the opportunity to change herself and her lifestyle.

This shows that even people who seem happy about their lives sometimes wish they were better or different somehow. By defying her reality and wanting something more, Rita shows everyone what many people would like to do: being herself and doing whatever is necessary to become someone better, in her case, through getting an education.

It was bleedin' great!!

Rita enters in a rush, very excited about having gone to the theatre, a real one, to see a play, Macbeth.

She begins telling Frank what she actually expected from the play saying "I thoughtit was gonna be dead borin' ". But even so, she wanted to experience by herself and she went eitherway.
After seeing the play, she found it "bleddin' great, honest... it done me in, it was fantastic".
She now wants to write about it, so excited she is... She even bought the book.
She frequently uses the word "fantastic" and "dead good" to refer to it.

Unfortunately, Rita wouldn't be able to use those wonderful expressions in an essay. Essays are part of rhe formal environment of education, and as such, she is not allowed to write with freedom to choose any vocabulary. She needs to adapt to the expected words and phrases necessary to write an academic piece of writing.

From my experience as a student, it can be difficult sometimes to find the correct words. And I have the feeling that Rita may find certain difficulties when the time comes for her to write her precious essay on Macbeth...

It's life for me

Rita gives several reasons to why she wants to study, even though she's having serious problems with her husband Denny because of the course.

She claims she is busy "findin' herself" and therefore has no time to find someone else, husband or lover... She only wants what she's findin' inside her. She says Frank gives her room to breath, which is certainly what she actually wants Denny to do: she wants him to let her live her life and become a better person. She feels Frank feeds her without expecting anything in return, whereas Denny gives her nothing more than headaches and urges her to have a baby.

She is taking the course very seriously. She has even threatened Denny with killing him if he touches what seems to have become her favourite book: Peer Gynt.

She already feels a different person, a different Rita to whom Denny married. She doesn't see the course or literature as taking the place of life, but as life providers... She feels alive now, able to choose how to live it. She wants to make the most out of the lessons, and that's why she refuses to go to the pub. Every moment counts to help her see more things, deeply...

Feelin' stronger

In these scenes we witness Rita's development in writing some essays. At first she cannot write following the set conventions for essays. Either she quotes too much other authors when writing about a specific one, or she writes very few words. She thinks short is good if it goes to the point. But Frank tells her that doesn't always mean correct.

She believes that attending the course is helping her open her eyes more. She views her surrounding environment as one which lacks culture as a way of living. She believes people she knows do not enjoy life as they have got used to living day by day without trully enjoying it.

She feels stronger if going to class. She mentions her husband is afraid of her becoming stronger. I believe he is afraid of loosing Rita if she becomes more educated. He may think that once she gets an education, she will want more for her life and so will want a better, more educated husband. I think Rita is not that kind of person and that what she expects of getting an education is not necessarily a way out of the working-class environment, but a way of expressing herself and feeling good with herself and her environment.

A perfect mess

Rita goes to class with Frank for the first time in this act. As she enters the room she starts going around without sitting down. She cannot stay still...

Rita sees Frank's room as an ideal place where she feels she can get an education. As she puts it "everything is in its right place". When one finds things where they belong, one can feel at ease. The teacher's place is in Frank's chair, where he should teach her. Rita's place is... actually, all around the room, as she does not like sitting down very much...

Rita believes "proper students" should make the best out of their good luck, as they are able to study right after leaving high school. They have been "the lucky ones", being able to continue studying as they didn't have to go along with what friends and family thought was best for them.

One day, Rita decides to follow her own thoughts and enrolls at the O.U. She decides she wants a change in herself, and the only way to change is through education.

Educating Rita - Act 1

I have seen the movie made based on this play some years ago, while studying English... I don't remember if I liked it or not, but reading the book now brings some memories...

I've chosen question 1: Why does Rita want to study?

Rita is a twenty-six-year-old woman from the working classes who enrolls in a course from the Open University. This programme is meant for people who didn't have the chance to go to university in the ordinary way due to time or money issues.

Rita is a hairdresser and her husband wants her to have a baby in order to start a family. In spite of this, she wants to study Literature. She longs for knowledge she believes she can get through the course. She wants to know everything possible in order, according to her, to become a better, more complete person in life. In her own words, she wants to "discover" herself before doing anything else in life.

Apendix: Ten years later, facing the new millenium

Ten years after publishing the book, Savater comes forward again to wander around in our heads in relation to whether changing both a century and a millenium affects the way our ethics is used. So so...


It is not a century or millenium that affects the way we behave, but our daily life. How we face every step we take and how we treat others every day counts.


What is important for us to remember is the fact that "all humans are born, love, struggle and die." We are human beings all the way and even with our differences, we are in the same quest of LIVING our lives. We must treat each other as we want to be treated even if the one I just talked to didn't treat me as I wanted or deserved...

We need to bare in mind that we are guests in this planet, temporary inhabitants of this place called Earth. We share it with others who are in turn guests as well. We should be conscious of the fact that this planet is our temporary home and therefore we need to take care of it and preserve it for future guests... Something that is urgent to do!!


With our present globalized reality it is sometimes difficult to see how integrated the world is nowadays, We interact daily with people from faraway places, different races or ethnics. However, this interaction seems more natural that it would have seemed a century ago. Unfortunately, there are still people who can't understand that, though humans, we are all different. They still tend to segregate... and discriminate against...


As hosts and guests of this planet and among societies and communities, we have to show signs of hospitality. Basically four words, divided into two sentences that will help us during our quest:


THANKS!!


YOU ARE WELCOME!!


PS: Enjoy your stay in this planet. Take care of it as if it were your house. Live a good life.

You'll have to think about it...

Your life is yours to live...

Whatever everybody else tells you, it is in the end YOUR CHOICE. Family and friends can GUIDE you, or ADVICE you, but finally it's your decission.

There is no recipe to live a good life. Noone can predict how you will live it because "The Good Life" is not pre-desinged or pre-established. A good life is taylor made. We invent and construct it as we experience and live it.

While on the way of living, we search and find out by ourselves, responsibly.

As teachers, we can help our students to discover ways of thinking and valuing life for them to be able to live a good, responsible and enjoyable life...

Freedom, Justice and Assistance

Living a good life within a democratic community implies freedom, justice and assistance.

We have the freedom to choose our actions, as long as they don't go against other people's, or accepting responsibililty for them. When acting we have to be just towards those who interact with us. This is, we must treat others as human beings and not as other type of living organisms...

As a community, we need to provide assistance to those in need, without dragging along those who are not in need of help.

Within the teaching experience, inside a classroom, we as students are free to choose many things (except for the teacher!!). We can choose to attend, to be absent, to do the homework, to participate, etc. As teachers, we have the freedom to choose how to teach the subject matter (pitty, not always...). We should be just in the way we treat our students, setting the example of how people should be treated in everyday life. In assisting our students when they have difficulties we are teaching them the value of caring for others.

"La petit morte"

Life is worth it. So, live it! Even through certain sorrows, we reach pleasure in life. Getting pleasure out of the actions and likes is part of what makes us human beings. Being a good one includes enjoying pleasures every day. We have to learn to enjoy the simple pleasures of life.

The most we can get in life is Joy. Yes, with a capital letter because I think is one of the ultimate goals of life: to ENJOY it... Whatever we do should bring us joy. However certain things may give us just the opposite: sorrow. But we need to learn to live with that too...

With mildness in our heart and determination we can enjoy life fully.

As students, we need to find joy in what we study, if not it will be difficult to feel gratified. As teachers, we need temperance to help our students learn not only about the subject but also values that will help them be better human beings... We can help them find some joy in life... Quite an utopian thought, though... But not impossible

Put yourself in my place

This was a dificult one... Savater says that ethics is interested in how to live a good human life, amongst human beings. This is not very complicated, as we human beings use symbols to communicate among each other. Thought, actually, could be difficult as people from different backgrounds and cultures interpret symbols in different ways... Despite our differences, however, we are all part of the human race and that makes us all humans.

We have the right to be treated as humans, that is in a respectful way, taking into account how they would like to be treated and reflecting that in their behaviour...

But at the beginning I said that this one was difficult. This is so beacuse I experienced other "human beings" 's evil... I had my bag stolen last weekend, with many things inside that were valuable to me, and that is not referring to the money inside... Savater says "not for acting badly they stop being human beings"... but don't they?? I felt so disappointed of people that day that it is difficult not to think that people stop being people when they act against other people's freedom and good intentions.... Very difficult...

We all have the right to be treated as humans... We need to put ourselves in other people's place to try to imagine what others expect from us... In spite of everything, I still have faith in people.. there's always someone putting himself in someone else's place... Like the man who found some of my belongings and phoned to return them....

Here comes... Jiminy Cricket!!

Being a good person implies many things. On the one side, you are free to choose what is it you want from your life and how to get to it. You are aware of the fact that sometimes your will crashes with someone else's, and so you'll try to adjust to the situation. On the other hand, we may be selfish and do what we want the way we want it without caring the effect this may have in others.
If you are morally good and respect yourself and those who surround you, you will care about the consequences of your acts. If you do something you KNOW is wrong, you'll feel remorse; and you may even want to make things right.
Being a good person you are responsible for your acts, good or bad. If they are bad, they may harm you and others, or even prevent you from having a good life.
Be aware of your acts and prepare to be responsible for their consequences... It is not a bad thing to be selfish sometimes. To want something just for you is not always wrong, as long as it allows you to continue on the right path...

Wake up, baby!!

Living a good life involves many things. Having personal possessions, getting new items, buying and selling through out our lives... but also interacting with others. We cannot treat other people as objects due to the simple reason that they ARE PEOPLE, and NOT THINGS!!

Someone once said "Don't treat others in ways you wouldn't like to be treated yourself." Huge truth. If you don't like to be treated as an object, why should you do that to your mates, friends, family or strangers? Part of living a good life is communicating and interacting with people. We do this every single day of our lives. So why make it unpleasant for everyone instead of treating people kindly and as they deserve?

Live a good life, treat people with respect and try to understand the core meaning of your own life. This is yours to discover, as no one can choose how to live your life except for yourself. Make good and wise choices, according to what is convenient for you.

Have a good life...

Would you consider a human being someone living in an empty planet, with no company but himself? Is that person a human being if he doesn't have someone to talk to, to share ideas, feeligns or thoughts?

Being a human being means being in contact with other people, with whom you socialise and communicate. There's no person without interaction with others.

You can have a good life as long as you remember you are free to choose what you want from your life... because it is yours to live!! Yes, it is true that you can listen to suggestions or follow someone else's orders... but it is your decision either way!

Deciding what we actually want is the tricky part of the issue... specially when you are not completely sure of what you want.

So, choose to live a good life!! Whatever you decide will take wherever you choose...

Just remember that part of living a good human life is being part of a society, sometimes with cultural traditions and using a language that helps us express whatever we want.

Do what you want!

We are free to decide whether we follow someone else's orders, our surrounding customs or our desires.. But sometimes this is dificult as they do not satisty us. What is important is to be aware of what we decide and why we decide it.

Do we follow orders without stopping to think if they are convenient for us or not? Are all orders or customs good for us? Or could they be immoral as well? Not only behaviours can be good or bad, moral or immoral... People can also be so. However , there's no manual to learn how to be a good human being... Therefore, we have to learn by being human beings, sometimes by trial and error... We are not an instrument to reach and end, but our intentions are the reasons we do things.

While we learn, at school and in the school of life, we follow our beliefs and criteria to be ourselves immersed in a society...

So... do what you want!! As long as your free will and freedom of choice does not go agaisnt someone else's...

Orders, customs and desires

Everything a person does is done with a reason. Some things are done following someone's orders. We may choose to obey those orders that are generally intended to make us some good, or disobey them with some consequent punishment.

We can also perform some acts because it's a custom in our community or social group. However, as we are part of different social groups inside our community sometimes we may follow several customs.

As far as desires go, we follow them because we "feel like it".

As teachers, it's a good idea to bear in mind that children, teenagers and of course adults may sometimes not feel like doing an exercise or are not in the mood for a class when they have been forced to get out of bed with -3 ºC !! When this happens, teachers need to be ready to handle the situation.

Most children and teenagers feel "forced" to go to school or private lessons, orders they obey from their parents or close family because "it is good" for them... It's the teacher's responsibility to make them feel at ease and enjoy themselves while learning as well.

Freedom

Human beings have the capacity to choose. To choose what to do , when to do it and how to do it, among many other options. Unlike animals, plants and other live organisms, human beings have freedom of choice.

People can choose to learn certain things and not others according to their interests. However, there are certain matters that we are compelled to know, such as differentiating what is "good" and what is "bad" for us. We know eating healthily is good for us and that abusing drugs is not. (though some people may think differently, it's their choice)

Unlike other living creatures, humans are free to choose how to live their lives. People not necessarily have to do things as we can choose if we want to do them or not. We are "programmed" by genetics but also by the society and culture in which we grow up. These shape us in ways that allow us to be able to decide what, when, how and why to do or not certain things.

We are free to choose how to cope with daily life and to try our bests in everything that we make our minds up.

As teachers, we are able to help children develop this capacity of choice. Little by little, we can help them realise that they have the capacity to reach everything that they want. Children are part of society and they need to learn how to interact with it. Teachers should always be there to help them discover the necessary tools needed in the art of living.

Ethics for Amador by Fernando Savater

Antipedagogic notice

Ethics is not a substitute for religion. Ethics is to do with everything that surrounds us. We live in a society and within it there are always issues that we can consider to be worth of a discussion of them being good or bad for us.

Ethics closely related to moral. Moral reflection is a part of our lives. Considering what is good or bad helps us be better people.

The ultimate goal of ethics and moral is to help us be Free thinkers, to allow us to speak our minds but without forgeting that there are other people who might feel offended by what we have to say. Respect to others' thoughts and believes is a crucial part if we want to live our lifes within a society.

We have many times over the last half a century expierenced what happens to a society when ideas, thoughts and believes are not respected as they should. People gone missing, fear to speak one's minds... Things that should never occur ever nor again...

Prologue

Reading this part of the book was very touching and at the same time funny to notice that what I thought only happened to me seems to occur world-wide...

My parents love to philosophise about life... I have passed long hours listening to them doing this. Sometimes I paid more attention than others, but I was always patient to what they were trying to say. Growing up is usually a step-by-step adventure. I sometimes skkiped some steps and later I faced some philosophical reflections on what had happened and the whys...

"Have faith in yourself" This is a message from Savater, but it is also the message I've got from my parents all my life. It is very important to have faith and to believe in oneself because one is the only one who has the answers to our inner problems and issues. Of course, there is always someone you can resort to when in need. I love to call this someone "Mum" and "Dad".