ARTICLES WITH OUR EXPERIENCE ABOUT SOCIAL

In this post we will also talk about the social aspects in the school with different articles. We decided to divide in various areas.

In the first place, the relationship between teachers and pupils. As we discussed in our experiences, we think that the most of the teachers are inefficient and they don’t carry out really their work like teacher, because they are limited to give their theory class or to tell their lives without really worrying about the student.

In our opinion, the teacher has an important role in the child’s life so they must to change the attitude and make sure the student has a central role. Especially they must to pay attention to those pupils who live in a poor ambient or other unfavourable situation. We read an interview to Ivor Goodson. This talk about several issues, one of them is the power which has the teacher about that we talked before. “Es el profesorado el que puede marcar la diferencia incluso en situaciones sociales inhóspitas y contradictorias. El profesorado, si insiste puede alcanzar cierto poder, una especie de mediación; incluso cuando las políticas y las posiciones del poder son contrarias, existe una posibilidad, debido a la naturaleza de los docentes, al afecto, que puede actuar como sustento en las clases” (Ivor Goodson, 2000). Además, añade “la profesión docente, si ha de ser recordada como socialmente importante, se tiene que dirigir no solamente a sobrevivir en una clase o impartir el contenido de una asignatura. Aunque ésta es una parte significativa, no resulta suficiente. El profesor o profesora debe pasar de una competencia técnica a una competencia social, la cual requiere tomar conciencia de su misión social. Creo que los mejores profesores no son formalmente conscientes de esto; llevan dentro una fuerte pasión, la de creer por encima de todo en la misión de enseñar. Y eso es lo que creo que deberían hacer los sindicatos docentes, ayudar al profesorado con un fuerte sentido de su competencia técnica para alcanzar la competencia social. La enseñanza es una profesión maravillosa si podemos equilibrar las competencias técnicas con las sociales”.

Estamos totalmente de acuerdo con ello, es lo que explicábamos anteriormente. Pensamos que la relación entre el docente y el alumno debe cambiar mucho en la actualidad y debe haber un ambiente más fluido en el que se impartan valores sociales.

In connection to the theme school-family, we read an article that it talks about that and we think it is very interesting. We think that in the present, this relation is broke and maybe is like two worlds completely different and separates. As we talked in our experiences, the most of the teacher only have in mind to parents when the pupil has a bad behaviour.

The education and the personality of the children are influenced for the family and the school, so the two parts have to be together so that the children have an effective progress. In our opinion, the education in the present is bad in this. The parents have a lot of work and many times they don’t have time to educate in a well way their children, so they leave all the responsibility to the school. Also, in other part, many teachers are limited to teach their subject and they are neglectful of other things that should instil in students, for example, the values or the identity.

Abelló, L. (2007) considera que la función de los padres en la educación de sus hijos debe estar reconocida socialmente para que el poco tiempo que tienen por culpa de los horarios laborales no les impida educar bien a sus hijos. En esto estamos totalmente de acuerdo, tendríamos que cambiar la mentalidad de la sociedad y dar mucha más importancia a la educación de los niños por par tanto de los padres como de la escuela, ya que de su educación dependen muchas dimensiones del futuro. Ni los padres pueden darle todo el cargo de la educación a la escuela, ni viceversa.

En definitiva, debe haber un cambio de mentalidad, y tanto la escuela, como los padres, deben ir en una misma y única dirección.

Reference:

• Abelló, L. (2007). La participación de las madres, padres y tutores en la escuela del siglo XXI. Aula de Innovación Educativa, 15(160), 43-45.
• Goodson, I. (2000). Recuperar el poder docente (entrevista con F. Hernández).Cuadernos de Pedagogía, 295, 44-49.

OUR SOCIAL EXPERIENCE IN SCHOOL

Today we begin the day with new experiences in the social area inside the school. What is exactly the social thing inside it?

We think that it includes the relations between the pupils, teachers and parents, due to the fact we made the concept of relationship. It is the one that more defines it. Inside this one, relations are the competition between classmates, the stress for the exams, the companionship.

Now we start with some of our experience, which we decided to divide in two parts:

Teachers-pupils
Here we explain how our relation with our differents teachers was, how our classes were (dynamic or boring) and how the relationship between our parents and teachers was.

In our experience we can distinguish differences teachers:
Kind.
Boring.
Serious.
Innocent.

On school there were more helpful and kind teachers in contrast with high school that there were more boring teachers. But all of them weren’t the same. Although there were teachers who were closer than others and their classes were more comfortable.

In addition to others teachers were on their own, they didn´t give us any attetion. With these type of teachers we have to be in absolutely silence and they sat us individually, this type of professors we used to be afraid.There were some teachers of this kind who used to insult students.

Not all the high school teachers were boring or bad, because there were some teachers who were like friends. Due to we celebrated theirs birthdays party. One of us currently keeps friendship with one of his teachers at the Institute, because he was worried about getting along with their pupils. For some of us high school were more traditional than school and teachers didn’t help like they did at school. On this way, there were others who didn’t teach theirs subjects, because they told us their lives or problems with their relatives. On the other hand, there were teachers who everyone was laughing, we were always in the classroom talking and we could copy in their classes, these types of teachers used to us to warn with expulsions.The last one couldn't impose respect.

On the other hand, we used to have a lot of exams, of which we do not remember anything, since we had to memorize.



Regarding the relationship of teachers with parents, we can say that not all teachers were legal, because they always used to call the family when we did something wrong, in this way encouraging a poor relationship with parents.

Often our parents had to go to talk to them since we suspended without reasons, and then used to rectify. One of us remembers that once did something wrong at the Institute, and the teacher called his mother screaming you.



Classmates

Here we explain how were our relationship with our classmates.





Of our experience with our classmates we can say that it has been very good, since we were a small family, for the simple fact from which we were passing more time with them that with our own family.This owes to itself to which we were in the habit of doing activities that were joining us very much, for example the trips in which we were spending it to ourselves very well singing in the bus. Although not with all we were removing well because there were some of them who believed themselves better or superiors that others, but in the bottom they were our friends. These relations were very closed, due to the fact that we stayed a lot of hours so we made a lot of friends. We used to get along with them but obviously we have our group of friends.



Today this is all, see you soon!!

HOW CAN WE CHANGE THINGS?

In this post we're going to talk about our own experiences and how we or other teachers in the world can change it. 
In Spanish is explained what we had to do and in english the content. We hope you like it!

WORK

-          Experiencias que no cumplen con capacidad de los estudiantes y atención a la diversidad.

-          Formular una alternativa diferente y realista que no reproduzca lo negativo.

ENTRADA

Wednesday 27th of april, in our organization class we were proposed to write our experiences where teachers didn't do well their job so we have to propose what, how and which methodology or strategy we would used if we had been them.

EXPERIENCES

In physical education one of the tests that we had to do was being 45 minutes running without any stop, you only had the chance to stop once less than 2 minutes. This test cost 2 points of the final note and not everybody had the physical capability of hang all this time. Many students stopped because they couldn’t advance and the teacher didn’t do anything.

In arts we had a drawing notebook in which there were a lot of templates to paint and draw exactly the picture that shows on the example. You can’t draw or paint as you want so no one had the liberty to do what they want. If you didn’t do it right you had a bad mark but if you did exactly the same you got a high mark. We think that this subject shouldn’t be like it because every student should do what they want based on their creativity.

We were obliged in music lessons to play the flute everyday and teachers believed that everybody was able to play it well. A lot of students didn’t know how to play it so it influenced in the mark later. These teachers didn’t attend to students that were more needy and so they need more time to learn how to use it. Teachers should give more attention to this things so in that way students get a better mark at the end of the course.

ALTERNATIVES

In physical education we can do the next things: the ones who aren’t in a good physical form could stop more times in the test or run less time. Also we think that the mark shouldn’t have so influence, we have to give more importance to the participation, group games, effort, attitude… This is the appropriate to do because everyone born with a different physic capacity, if not everybody could do it is a bit exaggerated 2 points of the final mark so this test could value less. Each one is good in a thing and we can’t desmotivate a student because he or she isn’t capable to do something.

In arts, the teacher should give to the students a template with an example of what they have to do that could guide them but not obligate to do exactly the same. We can propose them to do something different too. It’s not worth it that they copy exactly the same, every child is different and we have to give them freedom so they learn by themselves. We think that is good on primary stage that children let free their imagination so their creativity increase second by second. We could propose similar activities but each one could do whatever they want.

In music, teachers could teach better how to use the flute. They should pay more attention to children that don’t know how to play it. Something that teacher could do is let the students play the instrument they want that is on the class so in that way children would learn more instruments and they wouldn’t be worried at all about their marks.

These are the alternatives which we think are the best ones.

If you don't agree about what we propose, you can add a comment and give us your opinion, thank you everyone!!!!

ARTICLE WITH OUR EXPERIENCE ABOUT MANAGEMENT.

In relation to the education magazine and the article: 'The role of school organization in educational change: the inertia of the status quo' we brought out some information to compare and analyze with our information that we posted previously. We separated the last post in 3 stages but today we're going to talk in generally. At the end of this post we'll put the link to access to this article.

Firstly we agree that the organization or management adquires an instrumental character. It's not part of the learning desing and it doesn't envolve the pedagogics sciences but it's important for the practical realization. A lot of traditional manuals had some importance on the furniture or audiovisuals.. or maybe with the 'group dynamics'... You can see as we wrote in the last post about managament how we gave importance to the furniture, how the class was decorated or even the blackboard we used, so at the article said maybe we were engaged to a traditional organization.



"Las actividades de las organizaciones educativas no determinan la forma de la organización, sino más bien esta forma viene impuesta por el ritual de certificación y por los acuerdos que se toman desde el entorno" (Weick,1988,p.69)

Moreover, a good management inspires a definition of reality. It creates a social stage. The educational intervention can't ignore the organizative. Like we said before it's not part of the pedagogy but it's part of the rules of the school so we can't avoid it.
Although many teachers are attached to the organization of the system and the school, so in that way they don't create new things to help their students. They're like stuck in a no renovate management. You can see our experiences with teachers during the time and it wasn't always the same, we agree like in the article that there're going to be two types of teachers: the traditional ones and the "cool"ones. So... is the problem on teachers? or is it on the organization? We think that it could be on both parts because a teacher could do what he or she wants while it's justify and it doesn't break the law or the school organization. But in part the school has blame too, because if it has an old and traditional management maybe working in their environment and looking to what they can change, they can make it better.

«Me inclino a creer que la cualidad clave que se necesita en una escuela, si ha de producirse un desarrollo, es la capacidad de reflexión. Es decir, una capacidad para revisar con sentido crítico y de un modo reflexivo los propios procesos y las propias prácticas... Sería posible lograr una base paralela para reflexionar, mediante una investigación y un desarrollo basados en el propio programa de la escuela referido al servicio de perfeccionamiento interno» (Stenhouse, 1984, p. 234)



Finally we found a web of the University of Seville that explains the content of school organization and we think that it's a good link to understand in what parts 't is divided and what the school do.
 http://ocwus.us.es/didactica-y-organizacion-escolar/organizacion-del-centro-escolar/temas/1/pagina_06.htm

Article: Maroto, J.L.. (2011). El papel de la organización escolar en el cambio educativo: la inercia de lo establecido. Revista de Educación, 356, 41-60.
See you soon!!!!!!

PROYECTO EDUCATIVO

Hoy en clase hemos estado hablando sobre los proyectos educativos de nuestros colegios. Para ello, hemos escogido uno de nuestros colegios, “Nuestra Señora del Carmen” (San Fernando, Cádiz).

Este colegio está basado en la pedagogía de Joaquina de Vedruna, la cual fue una maestra de generaciones jóvenes, especialmente en el mundo rural. Hoy en día, se ha convertido en un claro ejemplo a desarrollar en gran parte de los centros religiosos. Por ello, en la actualidad el apellido familiar de Vedruna, queda asociado educativamente a un modo de presencia con identidad y estilo propios y a una forma de dar respuesta a las necesidades educativas de su tiempo.

• MANAGEMENT

La comunidad educativa es la estructura clave en la cual todas las personas que la integran hacen su aportación específica al servicio del Proyecto. En coherencia con su modelo educativo crean estructuras organizativas que favorezcan la vivencia de los valores que perseguimos.

• Estructuras integradas en la comunidad humana a la que pertenecen, trabajando en red con otras instituciones tanto cercanas, como lejanas.

• Estructuras generadoras de igualdad, abiertas a todas las personas desde la situación de las más débiles y con preferencia por ellas.

• Estructuras participativas, flexibles, funcionales y humanizadoras.

• Estructuras creadoras de espacios de reflexión e interiorización. Unas estructuras planteadas así son liberadoras y generadoras de un ambiente de alegría, donde se favorece el crecimiento y se dinamiza la capacidad para “hacer grandes cosas”.

*Currículum

La vivencia de estos valores supone por nuestra parte:

• Educar en la defensa de la vida.  

• Fortalecer la Libertad.

• Vivenciar la justicia.

• Promover la Paz.

• Promover la Fraternidad.

• Alentar el sentido de trascendencia.

Los valores que destacan configuran su estilo educativo y deben impregnar la metodología, los contenidos y las estructuras de su oferta educativa, cuya pedagogía está basada en el AMOR.

• SOCIAL

En cuanto a las relaciones en este colegio, podemos encontrar las siguientes categorías según su proyecto educativo. Buscan el impulsar valores para hacer posible una vida humana realmente digna.

Una sociedad que sea:

- Fraterna y solidaria:

• Mantiene como aspiración el servicio, la generosidad y el compromiso

• Acepta y valora, apoya y defiende al diferente

• Es sensible al sufrimiento de los débiles

• Promueve relaciones de igualdad e interdependencia entre personas y culturas.

- Libre, responsable y creativa:

• Supera el sometimiento, la dependencia y la exclusión.

• Posibilita el crecimiento y desarrollo de los niveles de conciencia y comunicación

• Favorece la actuación libre de las personas sin presión, amenaza ni temor.

• Facilita a sus integrantes organizarse para asumir la historia colectivamente y construirla con creatividad.

En relación con la persona y su medio, encontramos los siguientes apartados

• Consigo misma: Una persona que aprenda de sus errores y así crezca y cambie por sí misma. Fiel a sus convicciones, a su conciencia profunda.Que sepa conocer sus límites. Capaz de reconocer y valorar su propia historia de vida, su cultura y los valores de su pueblo.

• Con las demás personas: Comunicarse con los demás de una forma respetuosa. Escuchar lo que los demás les dicen. Ser solidaria, fraterna y sensible con todos, pero sobretodo serlo con las personas que son ignoradas por la sociedad.

• Con el universo: Libre y responsable, capaz de una relación armónica con él. Promotora de la vida y de cuanto la garantiza para todas las personas más allá de su propio presente.

• Con Dios: Consciente de que Dios existe y se manifiesta en las personas y el mundo. Vive con esperanza la búsqueda del sentido de la existencia humana.

Por otro lado, desde el punto de vista metodológico la educación que proponen es la siguiente:

• Parte de la realidad y educa para la vida y desde la vida.
• Hace de la experiencia y de los saberes ya existentes el punto de partida para nuevos aprendizajes.
• Enseña más el “cómo”, el “por qué” y el “para qué” de los fenómenos y de la realidad y no simplemente el “qué” de los mismos.
• Valora los procesos, no sólo los resultados.
• Asume el error y afronta el conflicto como elemento pedagógico de crecimiento.
• Está integrada en su propio medio con proyección universal.

En coherencia con su estilo, la metodología debe ser:

• Inclusiva: Reconoce el derecho a la diferencia, el deber de posibilitar una igualdad de oportunidades y nos exige respuestas creativas para atender a la diversidad.

• Activa-Reflexiva: Por la que la comunidad educativa aprende en un sistema basado en el principio de “acción-reflexión-acción”.

• Participativa-Dialogante: Posibilita la libertad de expresión, de opción y la postura activa y responsable en la elección de objetivos y medios.

• Creativa- Innovadora: Desarrolla capacidades, fomenta la iniciativa personal y el pensamiento divergente en la búsqueda de nuevos caminos.

• Crítica-Liberadora: Analiza los acontecimientos y se sitúa críticamente frente a ellos.

• POLÍTICA

Los intereses que rigen en este centro son los siguientes que vemos a continuación:

1. Fomentar la información, participación y corresponsabilidad de todas las personas implicadas en el proyecto educativo.
2. Dar continuidad a la misión educadora avanzando en el proceso de transformación y adecuación de nuestros proyectos y estructuras al momento congregacional y a la realidad social.
3. Dar nuevos pasos, desde diferentes plataformas educativas, para responder a la realidad de exclusión en los diversos países.
4. Impulsar el trabajo educativo conjunto con las familias, potenciando el acompañamiento y las acciones formativas.
5. Potenciar el trabajo en red, con el entorno y con las instituciones que desarrollan acciones educativas y sociales en el mismo.
6. Seguir potenciando el proceso de Formación de Educadoras y Educadores Vedruna, a nivel de carisma y a nivel profesional, alentar la participación corresponsable y prever los recursos necesarios.

• CULTURE

Los valores que destacan deben ser tomados como contenidos de modo que atraviesen todos sus proyectos, programas y procesos.  

La instancia educativa entra en un proceso de asimilación de las raíces y expresiones culturales de su pueblo. Para ello:

- Aprecia y defiende el patrimonio cultural reconociendo que es raíz de identidad y fuente de autovaloración personal y colectiva.

- Impulsa el diálogo intercultural para el enriquecimiento mutuo.

Interrelación universal.

La instancia educativa se relaciona y forma red social con otras instituciones que también se proponen el cambio social y está abierta a la realidad mundial. Para ello:

- Crea conciencia y se sensibiliza sobre la interdependencia mundial

- Participa en acciones conjuntas en la defensa de los Derechos Humanos y la Justicia.

- Forma en la conciencia ecológica y en el uso racional y responsable de los recursos mundiales.

Los valores que quieren destacar, porque consideran urgentes en esta sociedad, son:

• La vida

• Libertad

• Justicia

• Paz

• Fraternidad

• Trascendencia

REFERENCIAS: 
Propuesta educativa Vedruna. http://carmelitas.vedruna1826.org/images/stories/pev.pdf

OUR SCHOOL MANAGMENT

Management

Today we start about some of our school experience, the management. How was the coordination of it done?

We have some different experiences about it. Let’s see them!

Only one of us was in a daycare center. In which all the class had the same furniture. Although the walls were decorated with some human's body and tree posters. Also teachers were helpful and lovely.

Pre-school:

All of us did pre-school.The students per class were around 15-25. The distribution of the class was different in all of us, some had tables that have an octagonal form in which students were sat in groups of eight and others had circular tables so many pupils could sat there. The class had a big blackboard, about six or seven tables with some chairs, and the teacher’s desk. When we start the school on September, the walls were white or not decorated, but in fact, when June began , all the walls were decorated with ourselves works. Also there were some clothe rack in which we should have all our jackets to not forget them.  Our timetable was to 9:00 until 14:00 p.m.One of us had classes on the evening to 15:00 until 17:30 p.m. There were teachers really cool and let us play the whole time. 

School: 

It was basically similar to preschool, because we had the same classmates than preschool and the same timetable, but the position of us was different. We were 25-30 per class, in which there was one desk per each one, and we were sat one by one because we loved speaking, but in music class we were sat with other classmate. Although one of us was always sat with other classmate, unless when they were punished. On the other hand the furniture, for one of us, was one thing that hadn't changed, because was the same for preschool and school, but in the second cycle the rooms changed. Also we had a centre TIC and computers in our class , which we used a little.

In spite of our teachers used the traditional method to impart their classes but at the same time they were friendly, funny and so closed with us. Although for one of us, teachers were old but in the third cycle their teachers were younger and they had different methods than the others so it was more dynamic.

Finally, some of us had an extra activity school in the afternoon.

Highschool:

Some of us had to change of high school, so it was an important change in our life. The number of students grew up to 30-35 per class, but in some cases they were the same of Primary School. We were a big group so teachers sometimes lost their control with us and they were not as helpful as teachers were at school. About the timetable it was different depending the School we went. Some of us were since 8:00 to 14:30 p.m. but others of us were since 8:30 to 15:00 p.m. Teachers were more stricted so their classes were more boring in comparation with school but also they were helpful and funny sometimes. 



 We will talk about it with more details soon, we'll give our opinions too. BYE!!!

OUR SCHEME

HI EVERYONE!!!

The 2nd of March we did in class our summary to work the whole semester on this subject and it’s the next one:

We separate the school organization in four: Management, social, culture and political and each one has inside of it some items that we include to work with it.

In management we select the word COORDINATION to refer to the administration of the school, the furniture situation, the timetable, the number of students per class and the different types of classroom arrangement. How the school is coordinated.

With social we chose the word RELATIONSHIP and it refers to the relation between teachers and schoolmates or family and school... Here we include too the competivity between schoolmates and the way of work and evaluation for example: the dynamic or boring classes, homework, evaluation by exams…

TRADITION AND VALUES for culture because we think that we need to talk and think about moral values, the change of the traditional school, heterogeneity vs racism, sport and values and physical punishment at school.

And the last one is political and we chose CONFLICTS AND INTERESTS and here we include: subjects, kind of school, methods of teaching, solving problems with the same solution, no freedom and poor state of infrastructure.

We hope this will help us to know in a better way the organization and management of school.