jueves, 20 de noviembre de 2008

Working in the past or Working in the present?


First of all, I want to mention that this movie was really meaningful because trough simple sketches I could get many details from this period.
As it did not have dialogues, I needed to pay more attention than to the movies that have it. The movie did not have any colours so it immediately introduces to the viewer into an old context.
What it was shown in the movie were the laboral conditions in which workers use to work. With machines arrival to the countries, everything started to change strongly. For working, people had to apply for jobs in factories. There, they should work as fast as machines did. Workers were not able to stop working because if they did it, they could cause a disaster in the machine.
The movie showed Chaplin as a worker in one of those factories. It seemed there were not enough factories for every people because at the beginning of the movie there it was showed how people “fought” against each other to get a job. Once that Chaplin was working there, he was not able to stop working until the lunch break. On the other hand, business people were finding the way that makes people work even during lunch time.
The first machine that was brought to make workers eat during work was tested with Chaplin. It did not work at all, because after some minutes it became out of service and it started to cause more problems than solutions.
Nowadays, it is difficult to think that workers rights were so ignored. During those times, people were treated as “machines to into machines”. Bosses did not want workers have time even for having lunch. They only thing that bosses wanted was production in order to get money.
Fortunately, there are not the same working conditions today. we are still having working problems with bosses or colleagues, but at least we can have lunch in peace, supposedly.

viernes, 14 de noviembre de 2008

Industrial Revolution Essay.


How can Industrial Revolution affect people? How it could be teach to children nowadays? Those are the questions that I want to answer trough this essay. Every people had heard something about industrial revolution, at least once. It means this was an important issue in the world. On the other hand, I want to explain how this topic could be taught to children in schools and the possible effects it may bring to students who know about this issue.

Industrial Revolution occurred during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It took place mainly in England, later in other countries. Industrial revolution brought changes in terms of work, housing, socioeconomics and culture. One of the major impacts that the revolution caused was the change that people had to deal with.

During those times, the population was mainly centred in the country side. The majority of people lived far away from cities. Their jobs were all related to the farm. When the Revolution came, money started to be limited and people in the country side started to get poorer and poorer. For that reason, they decided to move from country side to cities. It brought a huge impact for them because cities were totally different to farms. For getting money, people had to go to work to different types of enterprises. Not only men were working there, girls and children also had to work in miserable conditions.

Children did not have the opportunity to study at those years. They were expected to work as much as an adult. Their work was paid, but less than their elders. Children used to work in mine or textile manufacture. Life expectation was not too long because living conditions leaded people to death sooner than today. Even though, there was an increase of people during those that period of time.

In mines, there were not good conditions to work. Children work was very needed by mine’s owners because it was cheaper and children could get into little places. When politicians notice this issue, they tried to limit the period of children’s work, but mine’s owner were against of it one hundred percent. They said they were doing a favour to children by paying money to them and this was avoiding them to die by hungry. The only thing that politicians could get was that children under the age of nine were not allowed into coal mine and children over nine will not be able to work more than eleven hours per day.


Industrial revolution also brought changes in terms of housing. Rich people lived in huge castles with big gardens and every comfort they could have during those times. On the other hand, poor people lived in small houses which did not have the minimum standards of hygiene. Their houses had open sewers; this brought problems in terms of damp. Dampness brought serious illness to the population; disease like cholera and typhoid. These diseases were the reason why many people died.

After this review about some of the contents related to the revolution industrial, I would like to show my point of view about how it could be taught to children in schools nowadays.

I think an important way of showing how important the industrial revolution was is by telling them how difficult it was for people who had to deal with this change. The first thing that I would do in a class will be to speak about the issue. I will tell them everything I wrote in this essay. Then I will ask them to for groups of around four or five people in order to discuss what I said. I would like them to talk about different issues with different classmates, this way they could get several point of view of the same theme.

After this activity, I would ask a question to be answered as a group. I would ask something like: Would you like to live during those times? How do you think your life would be? After this activity I would say a conclusion of the theme.

I think it is always important to know what happened in the past to able to understand the future. Children should know this because they are growing and they need to learn some details from the past.

lunes, 10 de noviembre de 2008

Victorian age.


The industrial revolution took place in England during late 18th century. It brought huge changes in terms of working and daily life. One of the main changes that revolution brought was machines. Business people established places named factories. There, they had these machines and they needed some people to work with them.
People who lived in farms, started to get poorer because of the machines that were coming to the country. They decided to move from farms to cities. It caused to people to live in horrible and insanity conditions. It was a big impact for people because they had to change their life stiles drastically.
In factories, bosses allowed to work men as women and children. Women and children had to work as much as men, but they received fewer salaries. The conditions that children and girls were working were horrible. People were not treated as good they should be.
I think this was a good period for few people and a bad people for most of them. Rich people got richer with this invention, but poor people got even poorer because moving from one place to another and change your working stile causes many problems, economic, physically, etc.



Industrial Revolution, part 1.

Industrial Revolution.

How can Industrial Revolution affect people? How it could be teach to children nowadays? Those are the questions that I want to answer trough this essay. Every people had heard something about industrial revolution, at least once. It means this was an important issue in the world. On the other hand, I want to explain how this topic could be taught to children in schools.

Industrial Revolution occurred during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It took place mainly in England, later in other countries. Industrial revolution brought changes in terms of agriculture, transportation, socioeconomics and culture. One of the major impacts that the revolution caused was the change that people had to deal with.
During those times, the population was mainly centred in the country side. The majority of people lived far away from cities. Their jobs were all related with the farm. When the Revolution came, money started to be limited and people in the country side started to get poorer and poorer. For that reason, they decided to move from country side to cities. It brought a huge impact for them because cities were totally different to farms. For getting money, people had to go to work to different kind of enterprises. Not only men were working there, girls and children also had to work in miserable conditions.
Children did not have the opportunity to study at those years. They were expected to work as much as an adult. Their work was paid, but less than their elders. Children used to work in mine or textile manufacture. Life expectation was not too long because living conditions leaded people to death sooner than today. Even though, there was an increase of people during those that period of time.
In mines, there were not good conditions to work. Children work was very needed by mine’s owners because it was cheaper and children could get into little places. When politicians notice this issue, they tried to limit the period of children’s work, but mine’s owner were against of it one hundred percent. They said they were doing a favour to children by paying money to them and this was avoiding them to die by hungry. The only thing that politicians could get was that children under the age of nine were not allowed into coal mine.