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Thursday, 17 October 2013

An interesting article

Tesoro. Manuel Vicent

Está amaneciendo. Es la hora de los pájaros. A los colegios e institutos llegan en bandadas niños y chavales cargados con sus mochilas. Ellos no lo saben, pero todos se dirigen a la isla del tesoro. Puede que ignoren dónde está ese mar y en qué consiste la travesía y qué clase de cofre repleto de monedas de oro les espera realmente. El patio del colegio se transforma, de repente, en un ruidoso embarcadero. Desde ese muelle lleno de mochilas cada alumno abordará su aula respectiva, que, si bien no lo parece, se trata de una nave lista para zarpar cada mañana. En el aula hay una pizarra encerada donde el profesor, que es el timonel de esta aventura, trazará todos los días el mapa de esa isla de la fortuna.

Ciencias, matemáticas, historia, lengua, geografía: cada asignatura tiene un rumbo distinto y cada rumbo un enigma que habrá que descifrar. La travesía va a ser larga, azarosa, llena de escollos. Muchos de estos niños y chavales tripulantes nunca avistarán las palmeras, unos por escasez de medios, otros por falta de esfuerzo o mala suerte, pero nadie les puede negar el derecho a arribar felizmente a la isla que señalaron los mapas como final de la travesía.

Ese mar está infestado de piratas, que tienen su santuario en la caverna del Gobierno. Todas las medidas que un Gobierno adopte contra el derecho de los estudiantes a realizar sus sueños, recortes en la educación, privilegios de clase, fanatismo religioso, serán equivalentes a las acciones brutales de aquellos corsarios que asaltaban las rutas de los navegantes intrépidos, los expoliaban y luego los arrojaban al mar. De aquellos pequeños expedicionarios que embarcaron hacia la isla del tesoro solo los más afortunados llegarán a buen término. Algunos soñarán con cambiar el mundo, otros se conformarán con llevar una vida a ras de la existencia.


Cuando recién desembarcados pregunten dónde se halla el cofre del tesoro, el timonel les dirá: estaba ya en la mochila que cargabais al llegar por primera vez al colegio. El tesoro es todo lo que habéis aprendido, los libros que habéis leído, la cultura que hayáis adquirido. Ese tesoro, que lleváis con vosotros, no será detectado por ningún escáner, cruzará libremente todas las aduanas y fronteras, y tampoco ningún pirata os lo podrá nunca arrebatar.  

Our work, their knowledge, the future

After teach our own class we took a look back and tried to improve the lessons. We got several conclusions: the lessons were perfect in the sense of avoiding the language problem by talking and letting "kids" to touch. But we could make them to write o see how can they learn better. It would be excellent not only to repeat but to engage children to play different games (like saying the teacher a number) and making them to participate. It's also important to know the previous knowledge of the children. What we did well was to wait for a feedback and work with all the people in a group.

After that class, which was interesting because we really learn and we could correct our mistakes and evaluate our work, we read a text. The text was about child development. Firstly we saw our conception of child development, our previous knowledge. My answer was related with changes in mentality and acts by finishing having that child curiosity about things, and by being more conscious about problems and the real things, including physical aspects. Teacher should take into account how children change and make the lesson more personal, knowing the circumstances of the kid. 
Then we read different authors, like Lev Vygotsky. So we learnt that development is not only these changes, it is included aspects like context, culture or society. The experience and the interactions are important factors that make a child develop himself. It's curious how culture can influence in a life, the different tools that that culture is using, makes the development something incredible.
In the end we talked about an specific case (Ben case). A child looking at birds and their boring activities, creates with help of a classmate (the teacher only suggest that help and let Ben to think about what he is thinking) objects for the birds. I thought it was an example of sustained shared thinking. 

In my opinion it's important to share knowledge, by dialogue and interacting. It's the best way to learn. In this case the shared thinking was supported by two kids and the supervision (in the distance) of the teacher.

Didactics is englobing all education aspects, including the development (we study it in Psychology) so I think it's a good way to mix all the content and reflect about it, in order to learn how to teach well, and make a better society, a better future. It's amazing, and that's why I'm exciting about, because we have the "power" to change the world, by teaching not only contents but also values. I think i'm learning a lot and consolidating what I want to be or do. I'm enjoying.

Monday, 7 October 2013

We keep on learning

Time goes on, and we continue doing several things and getting knowledge. Nowadays, we have differentiated in levels the curriculum. The first level consists on National or Community curriculum, what reflects the educational aims but in a different way between the country and the communities. Then, the second implies autonomy to each center and depending on the context (Center's Educational Project); a tool of planning in accordance with the school.
Third level is the didactics unit, what the teacher prepares for the course. It consists on the different objectives, basic competences and content, taking into account  the methodology and the assessment. The last level is based on a special attention, for children with difficulties. Other thing we have done is to watch a video comparing different types of education, making us to reflect how we have to teach.

We have also done different lessons trying to teach children in first grade, in mathematics. The aim was to teach them how to ad and substract, and the concepts of tens and units. The example was: 25 students, 11 nationalities (low level of Spanish), different levels of knowledge and different interests.
It was a funny lesson, but I really think we learnt with it. The different nationalities we have in class are perfect for making different things, it's too enriching. We teach to the rest of the classmates the content, but we solved the problem of the languages very well, by making "kids" relate things, not only listening but watching and touching. At the end, we knew how to ad and substract, and tens, in finish, understanding what to do in Turkish, and practising in English and Spanish. We used objects like an abacus or different stuff related with children. It was an excellent experience.

Here there are some pictures: