WEEK 39 - AINHOA MERINO

RADIO THEATRE AND MUSICAL PRESENTATIONS

This week we have been lucky enough to look a little bit inside ourselves, and at the same time get to know our classmates a little bit better. I am talking about the musical presentation we did on Tuesday. In it we got to know many facets of our classmates that we didn't know and at the same time we showed how we really were. I, personally, chose a Basque song that is very important to me and in defining my identity. 

The song tells the story of a ship that was carrying a treasure for the Basques six hundred years ago. The ship was sunk near the island of Gaztelugatxe near Bermeo. The protagonist dives, finds this treasure at the bottom of the sea and discovers what the treasure was: "the desire of not oppressing anyone, and of not being oppressed".

I don't know if you know it, but the Basque people were oppressed for a long time, and our grandfathers and grandmothers were forbidden to speak Basque on the street during Franco's dictatorship, nor could we speak Basque in our homes and of course education had to be in Spanish at all times. As my grandmother told me, they stayed in "secret" places to be able to learn and teach in Basque, but if they were caught the punishment was death or jail.

When I was a child, I was somehow ashamed of who I was to speak Basque. I thought about what others would think of me. But, right now I wouldn't be me without Euskera. Since I understood what it really is to be Euskaldun, and what is the feeling of being Euskaldun I have always defined myself and felt like it, and that is why I think that this song somehow defines my personality, and above all my identity. And that is why I think this song is so important for me, because if someone asked me to define myself in a few words the first one would be Euskaldun, and that is why I have chosen this song.

After all, I have always asked myself, what is being Basque for me? and I have finally come to a conclusion: an Euskaldun person is a way of life of someone who speaks, defends and loves his language, in my case, the Basque language.

I think music is very important both in our daily lives and in our professional work as teachers because thanks to this wonderful tool we can transmit many things such as emotions or knowledge. I also find very interesting the power that music has when it comes to building our identity. According to Ruud (1997), It turns out that music, as ever-present in our daily life, frames and anchors many of the situations which are used as raw material in the process of identity building.

In addition to this we have been able to do the Radio Theatre by groups and it has been very useful for me. We have been able to take again the story that we created in the excursion in the cabin in Grønland, we have been able to put voice and sound to this story that we created with our groups. I find this technique very interesting when I think about my future as a teacher. I think it can be very interesting to make good use of new technologies to tell stories or transmit wisdom in a different manner than a normal fairy tale.

In the link is available our Radio Theatre, Caroline:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lP-2tuQYoM2Mbl8Z3entGQvDVXxt4Q80/view?usp=sharing