SLTEP Tosun Terzioğlu Scholarship

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SLTEP Tosun Terzioğlu Scholarship
Dear SLTEP 2016 Participant,
We continue to be saddened by the passing of Sabancı University's Founding President, dear Professor Tosun Terzioğlu on February 23rd this year. Tosun Terzioğlu was very dear to the SLTEP Family. He
always believed in our work and efforts and supported us wholeheartedly in the launch of SLTEP in
the year 2004. He actively joined many of our gatherings, ceremonies and celebrations, the last one
being, our first SLTEP Alumni Conference and Meeting on November 1st, 2014 in celebration of 10
years of SLTEP.
Tosun Terzioğlu was an amazingly unique leader, a great mathematician, an inspirational presenter,
an excellent teacher and learner, and a loving individual who was interested in and highly knowledgeable about so many different areas including education, history, art, music, languages, literature, philosophy, nature, gardening, boats and sailing. Yet he always remained genuinely modest and enthused by new learning and ideas.
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To honor dear Tosun Terzioğlu's unique being and invaluable support to the SLTEP Family, we will be
providing a scholarship for one SLTEP participant each year. The 'SLTEP Tosun Terzioğlu Scholarship'
will cover the selected participant’s course fee for that particular year.
Please note that the scholarship does not cover other expenses.
If you would like to apply for this scholarship, please complete the task on the next page and submit it
as a Word document to Ms. Yasemin Bancıoğlu Göyer at: [email protected] by 5 pm on
Friday, May 20th, 2016. We will not be able to consider applications received after this date.
All scholarship applications will be blind-reviewed by the SLTEP Tosun Terzioğlu Scholarship Application Review Committee consisting of the SL Director, the SLTEP Program Director, SLTEP Tutors and
Deniz Şallı Çopur, Alumni Member, SLTEP 2006. Therefore please ensure that in your essay, you do
not use your name or the name of your institution.
Selection will be based on the holistic assessment of content, organization of ideas and language expression.
The
recipient
of
the
scholarship
will
https://sltep.wordpress.com/ on Tuesday, May 24th 2016.
Thank you.
Deniz Kurtoğlu Eken
SLTEP Program Director
be
announced
on
the
SL
Blog,
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SLTEP Tosun Terzioğlu Scholarship
Essay Task
Please choose one of the extracts* below taken from the book, Bir Dünya İnsanı: Tosun Terzioğlu
(November 2015,) and write an essay of around 750 words (Calibri 12 and 1.5 spacing) in English, describing:

your reason(s) for choosing that particular extract (you can refer to it as Extract A, B or C in
your text)

how the ideas in the extract relate to your personal and professional development goals

a question that you would have liked to ask Tosun Hoca
http://www.bilgiyay.com/s/1386/deniz-kurtoglu-eken
* Extracts chosen by SLTEP Alumni Member, Deniz Şallı Çopur.
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Extract A
“Ben eğitimde bir şeye çok inanmışımdır. Okuma-yazma öğrenmek için önce harfleri kullanmasını ve
hecelemesini öğreneceksin ya da matematikte de çarpım cetvelini öğreneceksin. Onun başka çaresi
yoktur. Ama ondan sonra bir de işin esasını özünü öğrenip onun üzerine insanın kendinden bir şeyleri
inşa etmesi çok daha önemli bütün bilgiyi öğrenmekten ziyade; çünkü bütün bilgiyi öğrenmeye kalktığın zaman insanın, “Çok şey öğreneyim, ondan sonra kendim bir şeyler yapmaya çalışayım” dediği zaman, ya vakti kalmıyor yahut da öğrenmeye kendini kaptırdığı için yaratıcılık körelebiliyor. (Bir Dünya
İnsanı Tosun Terzioğlu, Çocuk, s. 20)
There is one thing I strongly believe in in education. In order to read and write you first have to learn to
use letters and to spell or in math you need to learn the multiplication table. There is no other way.
But what is much more important is to learn the essence and core of what something is and for the
person to actually build upon it by adding some things from themselves rather than learning about all
the knowledge. For when the person says, "Let me learn a lot of things and then I can try and do some
things myself" thus attempting to learn all the knowledge first, they either run out of time or their
creativity is blinded as they get carried away with learning.
Extract B
“Bahçe, kapalı ve kendi başına küçük bir dünya ve insan kendi bahçesi ile biraz da olsa kendisi meşgul
olabiliyorsa bir anlamda onun dünyası o bahçe oluyor. Nereye ne dikildiği, ne ekildiğini biliyor. Hangi
ağaç ne zaman dikildi? Eskiden ne ağacı vardı da kurudu? Dolayısıyla onun yaşayan dünyası bahçesi
oluyor. Bir bahçe öbürünün aynısı olmuyor. İnsanlar kendilerine göre yapıyorlar bahçelerini.” (Bir
Dünya İnsanı Tosun Terzioğlu, Bahçe, s. 95)
A garden is a closed and in itself a small world; if the person is able to look after the garden themselves, in one respect that garden becomes their own world. They know what they planted and sowed
and where they planted and sowed it. Which tree was planted when? What tree was there but then
dried up? Thus the person’s garden becomes their living world. One garden is not the same as another
garden. People make their gardens according to who they are.
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Extract C
“Eğitim kurumları biraz zeytin ağacı gibidir, biliyorsunuz zeytin ağacı çok yaşar. Bakılmasa bile yaşayabilir. Pek öyle zeytin vermez ve böyle zamanlarda kırılıp çürümesi daha kolay olur ama bakıldığı zaman
zeytin ağaçlarının çok geniş gölgeleri vardır. Üst tarafına doğru gayet sağlıklı ama ince dalları vardır.
Üstü zeytin doludur. İşte o gençleştirme dedikleri bir operasyondur. Yani, o gövdenin sağlamlığı üzerine devamlı bir yenilik yapılıyor. Ağaç belki yüzyıllık oluyor ama dikkatli bir şekilde budandığı ve bakıldığı zaman yirmi-yirmi beş yıllık ağaç gibi gayet sağlıklı gözüküyor. Eğitim kurumları da tabi ki ağaca benziyor. Ne kadar sağlam ne kadar iyi kurulursa kurulsun etrafına bakmak, kendine bakmak, kendini irdelemek, devamlı daha iyisini yapmak suretiyle yenilikler yapmak peşinde olmalı… İyi eğitim kurumları
her öğrencisinden bir şey öğrenir ve ona göre de kendini geliştirir… Yani hem etrafa hem kendi içine
devamlı bakması ve kendini her bakımdan geliştirmesi gerekir.” (Bir Dünya İnsanı Tosun Terzioğlu,
Bahçe, s. 97-98)
Educational institutions are somewhat like the olive tree. As you know, the olive tree has a very long
life; it can survive even if it does not get looked after. It does not yield many olives and at such times it
becomes prone to breaking and drying away but when you look after them you can see that they have
large shadows. Towards its top, it has reasonably healthy yet thin branches full of olives. And that is
what is called a youthening process. In other words, a constant revival is made upon the strength of
that trunk. The tree maybe grows a century old but when it is carefully pruned and looked after, it
looks quite as healthy as a tree that is twenty or twenty-five years old. Educational institutions are
clearly like trees; no matter how strong and solid a foundation they may be built upon, they need to
strive to innovate by looking after their surroundings, by looking after and scrutinizing themselves, and
by constantly doing better… A good educational institution learns something from each of its students
and develops itself accordingly. In other words it has to constantly look both inwards and outwards
and develop in all respects.