CELEBRATING MY 3Oth ANNIVERSARY IN ELT

Well, well, well, I have always dreamed on this day to write about my anniversary as an EDUCATOR.. 30 YEARS .... 💓I have lovely flashbacks and am very lively about my first experience as a teacher, that combination of dynamism, joy, and tons of rapport, the complicity between planning and being on stage, which made me feel truly honoured to be part of my students' lives.

It is amazing that sensation when you are on the stage, and everything flows as you are performing many characters ( as we educators have many roles)

                                                   ME- GRADUATION  OF AN EDUCATOR

Being part of their learning process, be next to them, not in front of or behind them, just to be by their side. to support academically, emotionally, and being part of a family, they consider me, not only school students,  after some years teaching business english I have felt how my students learnt to work in teams through collaborative tasks, and I have been a second mum for most of my students in all ages and have the privilege to be named MUM.

I am not a biological mum, but during all these years, I have the blessing to have so many kiddos, some older than me, and they know how much I appreciate that link.

 

I am unable to figure out myself being retired of such a rewarding and beautiful job. There are many circumstances that we gotta face as in any job. However, when you feel like you're tired or just about giving up, the most precious gifts are the memories of your students,

There is no job as an educator where you can see the growth of a person in all aspects, and the love of those human beings that you treat like your kiddos to teach, to solve, to listen, to be next to them in the path of their lives.

              2014                                                                           2025

I would like to advise young teachers, because I began teaching at twenty years, that always do your best for your students, your planning, your performance, the reward at the end of the lesson is that magical sensation that contributes to your personal growth as a human first at all, as a professional, as the eternal learner for being better educators.

Then, Patricia Salguero is still on the road :) celebrating diversity, being unique, being human, for pioneering humanistic education and the human factor that is essential nowadays.

For  30 years more on the road on my path in ELT, and the amazing blessing of teaching with a humanistic factor.

I would like to give special thanks to all my students during these 30 years, also to my professors for all their dedication and to my awesome  PLN, who are a big inspiration for me.

With all love, 

Patty

CLOSING 2025 : Celebreating The Most Beautiful Gift We've got: "BE UNIQUE"

As many of you know this blog is about Humanistic Education, and how can close the end of my year about the way my experience with the human factor has been for almost thisrty years so far. First of all, everybody knows I am an english teacher who loves creating rapport in classes online, faces to faces or in another planets; the thing is that AI is making our role easier for that lazy ones (mean colleagues who do not like make efforts about trying by themselves and ask the chat GPT whatever they do want.)

Well, this year for me has been an outstanding adventure about my process of learning in many aspects, mainly in Neuroscience, awareness about Inclusion and Diversity, and the way how could who is part of the role of being an educators also might be part of inclusion and it makes me very puzzled, overhelmed, disgusting with the system and ocasionally with myself as I could not change how people do behave and think in they way they do about the responsability impies as educators - that´s not definetely a joke.
As a matter of that, I am still here in the battle fighting with a few weapons for a peaceful education system, where everybody was able to accept no matter race, disabilities, skin colour, social status, and so on.
I do believe that I do not close my career as an educator even if I will start working not as a teacher, I always be the freelance teacher, the volunteer lecture, the freelance teacher trainer as I can not imagine myself doing something else that teaching, I guess at the moment I was born, teaching was born with myself, and I do not really cut that link we have for long life.

I do want to close 2025 with a close post to celebrate AI in our generation with a 21st century control for students, and Let´s Celebrate Inclusion, Diversity, Be Unique, as is the most beautiful gift we could receive. Let´s being sort of mad with yoursel if you haven't already felt happy the way you want to do, Let´s cheers for the greatest people who We admire to contribute for this place named Earth to be a better word, and Finally, but never unimportant Cheers for the ones, who fight against all odds for their own feelings and now are together, living the most pure feeling, no matter whatever.

DO NOT WAIT AND BEGING NOW...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maTP315XZCQ&list=RDmaTP315XZCQ&start_radio=1

                               HUG SOMEONE , SMILE AT STRANGE,  BE HUMAN

With all love,

Patty Salguero

INTERVIEW WITH BEN GOLDSTEIN: I Believe A Lot Of What We Think Of As “Inclusive Practice” Is Actually Stuff A Lot Of Us Have Been Doing For Years. A Lot Of it Is Actually Common Sense, Things Like Developing "Empathy "with your students

 1        Who is Ben Goldstein ?
I’m a writer, teacher and teacher trainer in ELT. I’ve worked in the profession for over thirty years. I’m British but I’ve lived in Spain for decades, así que hablo español también.
 I’m passionate about making inclusion more accessible to teachers so that they can create a safe environment in class in which all students can fulfill their potential.

2. Who/ what inspires you as an English Teacher, teacher trainer, author of the book “30 ideas of inclusion in the world of ELT”?
            Well, I think reading and researching topics like Inclusion is what really inspires me. For example, my whole approach to Inclusion which is person-led rather than label-led, one that focuses on community rather than on the individual, that idea sprang from researching the topic at length.
Another inspiration are the teachers that I meet and the ideas that I share with them – that is invaluable really because you might feel that your approach is right but you don’t know until you get feedback from others in the field. Without that, you’d  just be working in a vacuum and I feel that’s a problem many academics have, that they are out of touch with the reality of the classroom.

3. How is inclusion transforming the essence of what we do in Education?
To be honest, I don’t think it is transforming what we do. In fact, I believe a lot of what we think of as “inclusive practice” is actually stuff a lot of us have been doing for years.
A lot of it is actually common sense, things like developing empathy with your students, creating a sense of community, using the students’ own language, encouraging peer learning, fostering intercultural awareness – a lot of this we’ve known about a long time but it is all very much involved with inclusive teaching practices. 
What’s changed is the way all this is framed. We are now more aware of greater variability in class, of multiple differences be they cultural, religious, socio-economic, cognitive, physical or sensory. We now need to appreciate these differences and that’s what’s new – we need to develop a greater sensitivity towards our learners  and greater curiosity about them, find out what makes them who they are. 

 
4. How do you stay motivated as an english teacher, teacher trainer, and author nowadays?
Writing is quite a solitary business and it can isolate you – sometimes I feel like I’m working in a bubble or an echo chamber surrounded by people who just agree with me.  So, I’d say my main motivation comes when I travel and meet teachers and get to know their everyday realities. That’s when I see if my work is relevant or not and if my approach strikes a chord with teachers. And, of course, each place I visit is very different so I end up learning a lot about diverse teaching contexts and scenarios – this helps inform my work a great deal. In fact, I couldn’t do what I do without being able to get these perspectives from fellow teachers on a regular basis.

5. What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced as an educator?
I’ve been a writer of ELT materials for years now and I think trying to make these more inclusive has been my biggest challenge. Publishers say they want to be inclusive and you have a lot of EDI guidelines that you have to follow but then they send you guidelines based around Cultural Considerations as well and the two documents often just end up contradicting each other- this is very frustrating. I think things are starting to improve slowly but we still have a long way to go.

6. Apart form teaching, do you think your work on inclusion is making a difference to others, if so in which ways?
It’s very hard to say. The book is still very recent. I’ve started giving talks about it now and a lot of teachers do seem to be getting the message but it’s still early days.

 
7.  Finally, What are your words or pieces of advice to teachers everywhere who want to keep their inspiration alive or even motivate themselves to keep going and growing in the field of inclusion?
I think it’s important not to see inclusion as simply an extra or add-on, it has to be something that is intrinsic to all our work. But I think big changes can be made in little ways, by small gestures, it’s a process. It’s important to demystify inclusive practice, it’s not rocket science.  Teachers don’t need to change their teaching practice overnight – in fact I believe a lot what many language teachers do is already inclusive.
 
The important thing to understand is that any adaptations or accommodations that are made by teachers to suit students’ diverse needs have to be beneficial to all students, no student should feel that they are receiving special attention– at least that should be avoided where possible.
 
 
Finally, I think teachers should see belonging as an end goal to all this. In some way, it’s more helpful and less divisive term than Inclusion. After all, you can be included but still not feel like you belong.  Belonging it is not something that is bestowed on us by others, but emerges from meaningful contribution to a group and I think that is something we can all relate to.  

Simply by showing greater sensitivity and kindness to our students, being more interested in them as people, their lives, their interests, their stories – that’s as good a place as any to start.

Extra information:

Ben is running a course with the amazing ITDI named: "Inclusion: Creating a sense of belonging - 6 week course starts on November 16th. Do not miss this amazing course

Here you are the link to register:

https://itdi.pro/community/course/inclusion-2025/#component=course

Hope to see all of you there on board :)

Patty

A short Post : Back After The Pandemic And Being So Grateful Too Many People

 Well, I guess the first big question is why I did not write for how long.... There are so many reasons..

First of all. I would like to dedicate this post to all the ones who inspire to keep on walking on my baby project ( my book),which is dedicated to my mum with all love and privilege.

One of the big reasons that I had to give up on writing here was to look after my parents, who passed away four and three years ago. 

I was focused on them and later on myself , my family, and my spritual needs, which was an amazing time for me and I do recommend everyone to do it.

I am back now with all the energy as a child :) very motivated to share and care for you all my PLN

and everybody who read me and who is always invited to contribute in the blog. 

Nowadays everybody is speaking about AI and and that´s awesome. However, we´ll always 

have a room here to speak about humanity in teaching and living.

We are very aware about inclusion and diversity, and in a few days in this blog I hope we wll have an interview about this topic with a big name, that is a suprise, wiil not same more, just be more human, if be could treat with love to plants, why not to people?

Because some of them. ARE DIFFERENT to us???? WE ARE UNIQUE . THAT IS WHY THERE IS

 DIVERSITY, GOD CREATES US UNIQUE, If we have different colour of skins, races, cultures,

 religions,sex, or have a spectum disorden : Are we  them ones with the RIGHT to make their lives

 worse for them?      ........  Definetely BIG FOOD FOR THOUGHT TO ALL OF US. 

Let´s get more information about inclusion, diversity, humanistic education, 21st century. 

STOP LABELING PEOPLE!!

You may think I am angry writing this post, but I am not. I am sad, because it is that grief reality of our society, but as educators, we have the role to control this ,
and spread the world.

Let´s spread love to all the ones who are different to us and are such as beautiful souls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WJlDvNzNN0

Patty

Teaching Ourselves in a Hard Year

The Marvellous of Being Called Mummy Instead of Called Teacher

I have never called my teacher mummy at school, never ever, and how I could be called my teacher mummy if my mummy was incomparable, she was everything to me, she was the one that when  I was a kid took me to school, she brought my lunch box at break time at school to be sure I eat, because I was very special to eat, she was the mummy that everyone would like to have of my school partners, and the teachers adored her because she was a nurse and she always donated a first aid kid; and most of the time that someone had hurt in the break, my mummy cured 

him/her, she was my mummy.

When I become a teacher 23 years ago, I grew up loving children and teenagers. However, my speciality is secondary. I have always been aroound children, and in my first year of teaching, I always visited the kindergarten room, I love so much  the liittle ones , but I was their teacher, and I was very young. To my surprise at the end of the year, the parents of kindergarten asked me to be the God mother of the Graduated ones of

Kindergarten, the kids choose me.

I still remember it was a huge joy for me and a mix of emotions about making my speech for those little ones on the day of their graduation, and I thought what am I  am going to give them as a graduation gift? I was just a simple teacher in her first year and  I did not earn so much, I have just started my career as a teacher, so I spent my whole December salary and I bought those19 kiddos a very thin Golden chains with her initials names, it was nothing comparing to el the love that those little kids have given to me that year, being a new teacher, in my really first year.

And how can I say about my own students?, their love was huge, their jokes always delete any sadness, hugs,their kisses, also their tears when they had home problems and they told me, and I was very Young but I NEVER LEFT THEM, I was always there , and I told them: Tomorrow will be better holding them tight; at the end of the year, they gave the surprise of my life, a big, big ballon I always dreamed to have one like that and the ballon said : For our mom, and a very huge teddy squirrel, it was very big and so beautiful, I am 1,54 cm, the squirrel was taller than waist, that day I cried a lot because  I am very sensitive and all of my children hugged me because I am sensitive, some of them cried too, and their parents took pictures, those kids are adults now , they have their families and  I sometimes saw them because they live near my parents´ home where I live now, and whenever I see them, flashbacks come to my mind of those little faces, hugs, when they called me mummy, y then then called me Miss, they got confussed , caused they got more time with me than with their parents. And it was… I WAS HER MUMMY AT SCHOOL.

As the time passed by I went to other schools to teach, and I listened to the teachers in the teacher room comments like: “ When are they going to leave? How long is left to end the year? Have you noticed Tania ( invented name) always wants to hug you? And Kevin always wants to give you a Kiss? How sad and how deep Grieg I had to hear those comments, because those teachers were parents at that time, and they knew what they meant that a teenager needed a hug or a give a kiss to someone, they were our children at school, and we were not there just to teach contents from the curriculum, we were who replace their parents at that time, and who spent more time with them, who knew every

single-family problems situation of each of them, of single parents families, we knew that many of those kids did not have a dad and mum together, we knew that they have serious problems at home with their families.

A grateful time.. 10,000 visits

       

            Any moment,I will reach 10,000 visits! How exciting! Thank you to all of you for helping me  reach this milestone! That’s a lot of zeros!

Why Grateful?

Thanks from the bottom of my heart to let me open my being with you all. These four years have been an awesome experience for me. 

This is just a little note from me to express how grateful I am with God, life, my beliefs, and you all.

A humanistic Side in ELT is deeply honoured and thankful in its four years of life with your 10,000 visits. 

"She turned her can'ts into cans and her dreams into plans." 

Patty.