OUR IMPROVEMENT

After a long time, learning, sumarizing and understanding how school works and how we can change it, we are completely sure that we have improved our knowledge a lot.

Since the subject "Organization and Management of school" started in the month of February, we have continue builindg up our personality as people, but more important, as future teachers. We felt more involved in the subject during the months of April and May because these were the months when there were more activities than the previous months and May was the busiest month because our work group and we had to carry out our ideal school.

We think that we did a great work in all parts of these project because we attempted to give a progress point depart from the documents of the Campus Virtual and other documents, and after we connected all the information with our ideas. Also we looked for more information to add into our projects and for so, we havelearnt more.

 

We have learnt about school. All the areas have been recognised; The cultural area, the management , the political and the more personal one, the social.

We have developed our idea about the management concept. This progress has been carried out using documents ans specially thanks to the activities in C.E.I.P. Miguel de Cervantes where we could observe the structure and the organization of this center. That progress of evolution can be seen reflected in "Innovation management" of our ideal school where we have transmitted the idea of a change in this educative aspect but preserving some points of the school as we know it today. In this way, the management concept has supposed an important step from the ignorance in this relevant part of the school until the own model in our ideal school. As future teachers is important to know how every type of school works and more imporant, how can we change these problems .

In that school, and in the "Denis Belgrado" primary centre. we have also learnt about how people feel at school, what they think about school and about the relationships of people on it. Teachers, parents and students, as we analyzed in our projects.

We think we had work very hard along this subject to make amazing classworks and we had learnt all necessaries knowledge to develop a modern school. All days we was build our ideal school concept where won't exist walls, impediments or differences between our pupils.

Now, and after our first course on Primary Teaching studies, we are more comfortable and we think that we can change the future.

Thank you for your understanding.

CURRENT SCHOOL. CRITIQUE.

A CRITIQUE OF THE CURRENT EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM 

If as teachers, in our daily work, we fail or we do not promote new learnings. why we keep doing the same day after day?

The school has already expired  more than 200 years of existence and it is still considered to be the main way to access to the education. Today, school and education are widely discussed concepts in academic forums, public policy, educational institutions, media and civil society spaces. In this way, it is no wonder that families criticise how it works or teachers complain about lack of means or discipline or social pressure.

The schools, since its origins has been characterized by structures and practices that are today mostly considered obsolete or antiquated. We say that does not accompany the needs of the twenty-first century. Its main weakness is a design that does not consider the nature of learning, freedom of choice or the importance that have love and human bonds in the individual and collective development. Ismael Palacín afirms that “La escuela ha sufrido pocos cambios en su concepción del aula, del profesor, de los alumnos o del tipo de aprendizaje, pero la sociedad ha cambiado enormemente y con ella su materia prima, que son los chavales”.

The aspects related with the classes in the school continues being traditional. The subjects of Language, Maths and Sciences (nowadays divided in Natural sciences and Socials sciences) are that more hours are in the schedule. Other subjects like Citizenship or English have minor influence. Although it is a positive aspect the introduction of Digital culture and practise (this year has been the first one) and French (which will begin the next course).

The classes still are not totally dynamic, but there are small advances, as the increase of works in group. The ways of organize a classroom are also changing. We have verified how pupils work with four close or U-shaped tables. Although we must say that a teacher organizes and manages his class attending to different factors, as his thought, the characteristics of his pupils, etc.

Children, in the opposite side about what is supossed to be, are still sad. They don´t like going to school because they consider it us a jail, were they have to only study study and study and where they are going to be 6 hours sitted on a chair.
School has to change to help them improving their personality, something that right now is not posibble.

Thank you for your understanding.

OPINION ABOUT HOMEWORKS DURING THE HOLIDAYS

Los padres declaran la guerra a los deberes en las vacaciones de verano (Click here)

We have chosen this Elena Mengual's article of El Mundo newspaper  due to  it is an interesting topic about the education.

We have always thought that assigning homeworks to do in summer is an absurd and ineffective method. We have been pupils of primary a few years ago and we remember that they were serving for nothing, and in addition, we were not disconnecting of the course during the summer. After nine months of course, and 25 hours a week, doing approximately approximately 40 exercises every week in house, the last thing that we wanted was to do more exercises.

Catherine L'Ecuyer, Educar en el asombro authoress, aims that to assign homeworks to do in summer "only for not losing the habit, sense does not make". Another person who reinforces our theory is Mireia Long, Pedagogía Blanca co-director, who defends that the pupils must rest physics and emotionally. However, Luis Carbonel, the president of Confederación Católica Nacional de Padres de Familia y Padres de Alumnos (Concapa), express clearly in favour of the homeworks during holidays "but not understood as a revision, that also, but as occasion to be useful the time and to learn new things. What it is not possible to consent is that they pass all the time watching the television". It is totally false that a child who does not have to do homeworks in summer is all the time watching the television. From our point of view, it is a justification with few foundations since a child during the summer has time to watch the television, and in addition, to play with the friends or to go out with his parents to the cinema, for example. In addition, there would be necessary to ask any person who is in favour of the homeworks in summer if he or she work during his or her holidays. We believe that it is the same fact.

Jesús Salido, president of the Confderación Española de Padres y Madres de Alumnos (Ceapa), association for which we talk and write about this topic, "was thinking that it was the correct thing (assigning homeworks) because they us have always sold this idea, until I have seen that is not the most suitable thing, among other things, because the homeworks generate many tensions in the families. First with the children who don´t want to do them because they prefer playing and it is very easy to finish vociferously or with punishments. In addition, it condemns to the rest of the family not to go out until they finish the homeworks”.

In our opinion, homeworks in summer musn´t be compulsory and they haven´t to have as a consequence a negative mark. 

Thank you for your understanding.

OUR IDEAL SCHOOL

Once we have completed the information about our ideal school and to analyse the different aspects and problems which still occupy in the school, we decided to do an alternative presentation for the sharing of the information about the exhibition of the ideal school. We thought that a good idea to represent our ideal school was a “Draw my life”. An alternative idea for an alternative school.

Draw my life is a good method to transmit our idea of the school that we would like to have in the future according to the information that we searched along the academic year by means of very simple drawings. 

Finally, the realization of this project has led to a breakthrough in the development and finalisation of our ideal school and the acquisition of a new model both school and design. We hope that you like the result of the video.

Thank you for your understanding.

Critical perspective: What doesn’t work? Why?

 In last class we talk about the operation of our actual school and we saw that lots of things didn't work well or were bad raised. Our proposal as future teacher is change that and make a better school.

There are lots of problems, but some of them are really important and have to me changed as sonn as possible.

In an inclusive school teacher's role has to stop being a transmiter of knowledge that students must learn by memory, and has to dedicate to the individual necessities. This is an important fact that has to change, nowadays the teacher goes to class, read the book and then put homeworks, when it had to be very different. The teacher had to go to class and watch what the students are doing and help them individually, and if the student has a disability, more, because they will need more help and the teacher to be with them, not talking to all the class the same not taking into account those kids that need help or doesn't understand the lesson.

 Other important aspect is the motivation of the students by the teachers. According to PISA Inform the rate of intrinsic motivation to learn Mathematics is negative in Spain (-0'14), and that is one of the hundred of examples that are nowadays in our schools. As teachers motivation is very important, with that students will learn easily and also is fundamental to the elaboration of mental maps, that will be asimilated and when you need them won't be forgotten.

"It is known that we have teachers of the 19th century, with methodology of the 20th teaching children of the 21st century ", Sánchez says. The item dedicated to the permanent training of the professorship diminished in the PGE for this year of 52 millions to 4 (-91 %).

These are some of the examples in our day a day, and we have to became them better for our kids.

REFERENCES

Inclusion in the school (López, M. Innovación educativa, nº. 21, 2011: pp. 37-54)

PISA Inform 2012


Thank you for your understanding.