Friday 3 August 2018

The most enjoyable subject...

  In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, they are not.
Albert Einstein

The career or profession of your life has always been an elusive, but important issue. As a young adult, my parents, friends, magazines, institutions in the city were the source of information. Nowadays, you find accurate information at home in front of a computer.

You click here and there to find information about the university that deserves your presence, the career that seems the most promising, that has the best study programme, one whose prestige might be helpful to find a good job, an institution with well-known researchers, an institution that ensures a brilliant future....

Chemistry Lab
Eventually, you find a suitable career and, filled with content, start attending classes waiting for the best class ever and, at the beginning, this seems to happen with most subjects. As time goes by, this excitement changes to a state of normality that persists until you eventually graduate and, on looking back, appreciate their contribution to your personal growth.

In your mind, however, you shall dearly keep a small bunch of subjects, activities in classrooms, in laboratories, activities that had a special flavour because of the contents... the classmates... the teaching staff... the season of  the year... and/or any other activity that made quite an impression on you.

Safety Chemistry  Lab
Laboratory activities demand most of our attention and usually strengthen team work, improving the desirable friendliness of students with a common goal. Thus, lab work becomes quite attractive, particularly to those eager to set up equipments to do, for example, simple distillations, solvent extraction.... Others feel satisfaction upon observation and study of optical phenomena, such as dispersion of white light  through prisms, reflection, diffraction. I actually enjoyed learning chemistry/physics/biology in the labs when I was in high school. The possibility of observing actual phenomena with the naked eyes and also doing with my own experiments gave me an indescribable pleasure that led me to observe with curiosity all the processes occuring in our daily life.

Yet, theoretical activities in the classroom also caught my attention; specially my teacher of biology who created an atmosphere of mystery to uncover the "truth" under common living processes, who made me dream of the varied "worlds" existing in our daily life. Thus, the theoretical data ranged from solid ground information in a particular issue to doing exercises, analyses, and other learning activities.

So, theory or practice? I say both.



Now it's your turn:

Write about your favorite subject this term.
  • Name of the subject:
  • Describe what you do in classes
  • Explain why you like the subject
  • State whether your classes are mostly theoretical and/or practical
  • What makes the subject interesting
Other considerations that you might use:
  • People participating in the teaching activities (teacher(s), auxiliaries, ...)
  • Importance of the teaching people in your choice.
  • Importance of the subject matter in your decision....
  • Approximate number of students of the class.
  • Main contents you have seen

Word Count: 180
Make comments on 3 of your patners' posts, plus a comment on your teacher's post

22 comments:

  1. When I went to school I also enjoyed sciencie with laboratories

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Kathernine,
      It's usually reassuring to learn by doing or observing experiments in a lab.
      See you,

      Delete
  2. i think that the practice requires theory at least in the chemistry lab.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Vicente,
      Theory and practice live together; they need each other.
      See you,

      Delete
  3. I prefer theoretical, i hate doing exercices and practing activities but i know it's neccesary.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Ariel,
      You are one of the exceptions to the rule... most people, I think, prefer practice over theory.
      See you,

      Delete
  4. I think that we learn more whe we apply what we learned! like in chemistry lab

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Francia,
      I agree with you...This is so for most people.
      See you,

      Delete
  5. Laboratory activities are very interesting and excited!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Catalina,
      They are really exciting activities to most of us...
      See you,

      Delete
  6. i think that both:theoretical and the practice are important but also i think that we learn better with practice.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Paula,
      "Live and Learn"... is an excellent quotation.
      See you,

      Delete
  7. i love the laboratory activities!i think the best way to learn is practicing!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Valentina,
      Most scientists are conscious of the importance and dependance of one another... We need more than theories...
      See you,

      Delete
  8. I say both too, despite lab is very tiring

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Belén,
      If the lab session is too long, it cannot help be tiring...
      Breaks are always necessary.
      See you,

      Delete
  9. I´m agree. We must learn not just the theory, but see the wonderful aplication of what we learn.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Rafael,
      That's right...that's the wonder of practical applications,...it's like magic.

      Delete
  10. I prefer theoretical, but I think that practice is very important too! Some people learn more with practical class,not in my case..:( haha

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Haidee,
      A good thinker will probably go further than one who needs practical activity... So, good for you.
      See you,

      Delete
  11. In my opinion, I prefer the practical than the theoretical. Because I feel that being more didactic, you learn much more than memorizing some words written on paper

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Megumi,
      There are all kinds of people...theory and practice lovers... The issue here is actual learning... if practicalities are better for you, that's fine.
      See you

      Delete