CREATIVE SCHOOLS: GIVING AN ANSWER TO STUDENT NEEDS IN THE 21ST CENTURY

I realize that society has changed in last years but school is in the same way. It’s true that have been included new technology and so on but it’s not the most important thing. I think that we should change a lot and first of all is the methodology.

In this reading you could found some changes or solutions to improve the education because children are the future and it’s important to educate in the best way.

The main global idea is adapt the school to the new age and to get it is important take in account some general ideas that will be develop after:

• Create a real relationship between students, teacher and parents through activities, games… and get a real trust between each other.

• The knowledge is not only the content so it’s so important teach in values and get a comfortable area to work and avoid problems like bullying.

• Give dependence to children in the way that they should learn content but they should learn how to get it too. So the main methodology will be focus in investigation and cooperative.

Its important know that we have some difficulties to put in practice all the items that we will develop but this is the main point; education law should be create and develop for teachers and students and all the people that work in this sphere.

All the ideas cited after are related because there are some points or ideas that are involved in more than one so I can’t talk one by one.

I think that all children feel their school like a second home because they stay there around 950 hours so I think that the best option is to ask them about changes, proposals… because they could have a good idea, not too developed but a good idea at all. In this way we will improve their imagination and creative thinking.

It’s true that one day children will be adults and they should be prepared to this but I think that all of us should live in the present, I mean, children first should have fun and then learn responsibilities and values but thinking in a funny way. With this I propose to change the methodology in a cooperative one. With this we could reduce the weight of backpacks -as Teacher’s Dumbledore army represent with a funny scene- because they don’t have all the information since the first day, they will increase the content and information.

This will promote the independence of children because they look for information, prepare a class, do a project, get an agreement with other classmates… I think that this is the best way to teach because of the fact that we live in a globalization world and nobody will tell them the information that they’ll need. With this they work and improve some skills like the capacity of summary or critical thinking that is so useful for their future.

I like so much a sentence that ‘Modern students’ say that is: ‘Teachers teach but they don’t know everything’ this is the reason of the need to change the methodology.

To get a better effect is necessary the implication of parents because children learn always, not only in the school. Nowadays the relationship between parents and teachers is almost non-existent; parents go to talk with the teacher if they have a problem or if the teacher asks for a meeting so, as Perk Team said, is a good idea to prepare some activities and plays to improve this relation, like a family day.

While we are doing activities to improve this relation, we create a relation of trust. This is the main point of Finland system, as Wanderlust said. In this way parents could trust in teachers’ opinion because of the trust and they could realize if they children need support classes too and help children with projects.

You could realize that I talk about projects instead of homeworks because, from my own experience, I learn more if I look for information, reflecting about it, doing a poster or a support like this… So children should build their own project guided by teachers.

Related with the physical structure of the school it’s quite interesting think about the different classes or areas that a school has; the normal and music class, a space to play and to sports, a laboratory… but children don’t have neither space nor time to relax. My team, like others as Amigos del football, propose create two spaces –based in company google- and change the timetable to bring children a little break after each class.

• Study zone: where children could read, study, meet to do projects…

• Leisure or play zone: where children could disconnect, play, create or develop their ideas to different machines…

Our group talk about flexible furnitures. There are different modules with which you can build new furnitures without the need to buy new ones. I think that this is a good idea because changing the class we avoid the monotony and through this the boredom.

Is scientific evidence that the environment where children learn is more important that we think. If the space is big, bright, comfortable… children will improve themselves better and faster. To get this objective we could decor the class with posters of projects, things that they elaborate in art’s class or things that they do at home and bring it. It’s a way to transmit that the class is for them, is their space.

Through this favourable environment we could avoid problems like bullying that nowadays are more common and we can’t tolerate this.

There are many projects, activities, plays… ways to avoid this type of problems. The best option for me is to talk with children and through tales or plays –in theatres– try to explain some social terms like diversity, culture, interculturality… to awareness children that we live in a society where everybody is different but this is something fantastic because we could learn a lot of all of them.

We develop these ideas when we work in groups as cooperative learning do. To improve it more is a good option to choose work with inclusive classrooms because it is specific on the integration of different cultures and people.

There were some ideas which I agree with but I didn’t think about it when I did this project.

• Speak with a native person:

I think that it is the most important and the only way to really learn a new language. The teaching of a language in this country -in schools- is so bad because they are focus on grammatical concepts and forget to teach the practical one. I have been learn the verb to be 3 years, not with the same importance but it was a grammatical point during 3 years and I have never have a native person and this is more useful.

• Road education:

It is something that everybody should know but sometimes we forgot to teach. In my case, my school prepare a lot of activities about it and I remember these days like a funny one because we do something different.

This is the idea that I was trying to explain during all this document, children learn more and have more interest in thing that are funny. So the clue of all is to transform all the contents to get a funny methodology and change the place where they learn.

• Be healthy:

Mens sana, in corpore sano.

It is a Latin expression that I related so much with education because we can’t pretend that children stay quiet and sitting in the same place six hours because they are children and because we need run, shout and remove all the tension that we have. This is not only for children; adults need this too. It could be a good option prepare some activities where children, parents and teachers do sports and in this way the relationship between them will be improved.

Finally we could realize that the main objective of my ideal school to motivate children in different ways.

Motivated to…

         … look for information by himself

         … explore the world

         … be dependent

         … live their own live and know how to do it

         … be critical and not to give everything for granted

Motivate to be different; to be whatever they want because the personality is the best part of humans and school should improve it and teach that they are perfect like they are and teach to respect not only people, plants and things too.

Beatriz Martinez Isidro

1ºB - GEP