Mirena's blog

I am working in a context where I have to support international* students (predominantly Chinese) prepare for study at a UK university. Like everywhere else, I adopt pedagogies fostering active learning, group work (GW) and discussions (by GW here I mean classroom tasks where students are encouraged to perform them in pairs or small groups and work together generally). However, I am increasingly perturbed by the fact that there is a mismatch between widely adopted pedagogical pemises and classroom reality. Recently, I chatted to a student in class and they told me they prefer to work individually and do not like chatting and discussing with others. It seemed to be an idiosyncrasy but there are a great number of students predominantly from China who seem to adopt a similar stance. This made me question the suitability of the pedagogy we are largely employing despite it being implemented with view of the fact that it will foster the necessary skills for thriving in the world of work. Act...

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,  that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish,  but have everlasting life" John 3:16 In Bulgarian culture today is the day of Forgiveness (Proshka). As per tradition younger generatons go to the house of the elders for a meal and they each ask of each other's forgiveness for things they said or did that might have hurt each other. Is it good to turn the other cheek? Forgiveness is a central concept in Chrisitianity and is related mostly (the way I see it) to God's neverending love for His creations. How vast must His love be to sacrifice His only child to help us atone for our sins? To forgive, you must also have a piece of that love - love for your kin or neighbour, love for the other specks of what we call humanity. Another Chrisitian concept which I feel is closely related to that is the premise "turn the other cheek". The Bible has a lot of ideas and parables which should not be constru...

 "Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” Genesis 11: 7 Ironically, even when they speak one language, they still need to use it to divide themselves. Labelling is indeed a very interesting phenomenon in Western culture. I came here as a person, a soul, and then one day I realised that had I been born and lived here all my life, I would have gained a good amount of labels - vulnerable child, trauma survivor, BAME, precarious worker, most recently I realised I am also a third space professional. All these of course are ways in which others in this society might want to view me - this is not the way I identify myself. It just shows their level of thinking, prejudice, fears and narrow-mindedness. That is not to say they do not try to make amends. Sometimes the labelled get advocates to fight for their rights through organised campaigns or annual events even. Other times the labelled ones themselves come up with new labels to wash the s...

I have been thinking about writing on the topic and have indeed made the odd tweet about it, but since it has been heavily promoted in academia, I thought I would put my thoughts in a more coherent way (I hope). And no, I won't be citing other works in this blog.  These are some reflections on how I view and feel about research. No strain, no gain or why I do research*? As a teacher and an inquisitive person, I do feel the need to probe into things that happen around me in my classroom. I am also of a very sensitive and perceptive nature and capture things others might not be aware of. So you could say it is a very much personal interest and predisposition. I also view this as a way to express myself, to create and develop myself. It is also a challenge for me and I feel that straining myself is the only way to grow.  Further, I consider researching (or scholarship) to be a natural stage of a teacher's development journey and this is how it was pretty much for me. In the begin...

Hello, my name is Mirena and this is my space for ideas, thoughts, exploration on topics of interest to me and my art. After working for a few years in UK HE, I came to realise how frustrating it can be for a person bubbling with ideas and creative energy to be stilted by institutional agenda, procedure and human ego. The best way to do things is finding your own way. It might not bring you recognition or success as commonly understood by most people but you will have the unbridled freedom to express yourself and be heard by those who want to hear you - and that is what matters.  Over the past years I have had many ideas for academic research stemming from my immediate classroom practice but due to circumstances related to precarious work situation I was not able to bring them to fruition with the exception of a paper I wrote detailing the results of a study I conducted with students on a pre-sessional course at a UK university  - you can find the link below. I have struggled ...