Second category: Changes

There can be a lot of changes in a student's life because they have to deal with decisions. Starting by the choice where and at what kind of school you want to go, going on with choices about who will be your friend and which courses you will join (language- or science direction). 

The transition from primary school to secondary school is also an important experience in a student's life. Young people are moving from a small classroom to a large and more heterogeneous school (Hanewald 2013, p.64).  

Sometimes these changes can be stressful or also helpful. Data analysis revealed some aspects for a successful transition (Evangelou 2008, p.2). On the one hand, there are the relationships between the students. If students get help at the new school and find new friends, they get the chance to improve their self-esteem and they get used to their new routines inside and outside of school (Evangelou 2008, p.2).

Another aspect is their dealings with the organization at school: Are they interested in school work and get used to the school organization? 
Bad experiences like bullying at secondary school or problems with new teachers can make it more difficult to have a trouble-free transition (Evangelou 2008, p.2). 

Going more into the choices of which way you want to go, for example, a scientific way or a linguistic way. Most of us had the choice of these ways in the middle of secondary school. 

Once decided to go this kind of a way we had to join the courses for this subject and it was not possible to change our mind some weeks later. 

We had the impression that we got not enough information to make a decision like this. It would have been used to try out some courses in the different subjects to get an impression.

If the students are interested and improve in a subject, it can help them in their following studies and their decision of choosing a job. In another case, it can be also the opposite. If a student is interested in the subject but had a teacher that, for example, did not create the lesson interesting, then the student will not like it and maybe will not like the subject for the next years of his/her life. We think that the decisions and the changes who are coming with them, leave marks in each student's life. 

In our opinion the school system is trying to get the students as far as it is possible into a “way”, to have them faster in the world of work. But it is more important to try yourself out and to see whether you like this or that way more to know where to go in your life. 

 Resources: 
- Evangelou, Maria. (2008). What makes a successful transition from primary to secondary school?
- Hanewald, Ria. (2013). Transition between primary and secondary school: Why it is important and how it can be supported.

Rest my case - a reflection about education

We want to show you the following video. It is a wonderful reflection about education where the methodology is judged. It supports that every child should be treated and learned in a different way according to his abilities and capacities because each one of them is different. It is impossible to teach the same thing in the same way to children with different dreams, needs... The creativity and the individuality must be promoted. 

We have to change the methodology, the subjects should have the same time (for example, 3 hours of maths and other 3 of art), the homework must disappear and the distribution of the classroom have to be modified. 

As a consequence, we can see the evidence that the school has not changed in 150 years, the classrooms are similar! Although it seems incredible, it's true. So the author question if in this situation students are trained for the future. 

"The teachers are heroes because they can reach the heart of a child" as it is said in the video. But they are hard punished and criticised. Please, watch the video and reflect on it! 

Lecture about children with disabilities

Last Wednesday, we had an interesting lecture about how to work with children with disabilities. It was focused on the diversity and integration in the classrooms. We learned a lot of things about different disabilities like dyslexia, Down syndrome, high capacities, hypoacusis... 

Firstly, the lecturer divided the class into groups formed by six students according to the Philip 66 theory (six people can look for information in six minutes). So each group searched information about one of them. 

Then, we explained to the rest of the class the disability that we choose in order to know about all of them. It was a good method to learn because we didn't feel bored due to the participative and dynamic atmosphere. We also learned how to work with these children and the lecturer gave us some "rules". For example, it is advisable that we sit down these children in the first line or that we explain the tasks with more details. 

As future teachers, we have to think that a child with a disability is not a problem, it is a new opportunity to face to face new challenges that other people believe that have no solution. But, everything is possible! Try it!

Although the lecture was about cognitive disabilities, we also want to show you a video which refers to physical disabilities because they can appear with the same probability in our classes. Remember to say: Yes, I can! 

Toothpick lesson

On the lesson on 20.3. the teacher started talking about toothpicks. At that point we were quite confused since we were supposed to be learning about didactics; how was that supposed to help us learn about didactics? The teacher started to tell us how a magnificent invention a toothpick is. After that it started to get clear what we were supposed to do: first, we were told to form groups of 5-6 persons and our task was to build figures out of toothpicks that we had to get from the teacher’s table. We were told that we had 10 minutes to finish the task. Six persons were chosen to be observant of collaboration, creativity, and quality of our works.

One of our group members happened to have a smooth surface we could stick the toothpicks into, so we had a different kind of a surface than the others, and the implementation was also different. Our group started with an idea of a house, which transformed into a school, with two students playing in the yard. On top of the school, we formed the letters A, B, and C and also formed a sun shining.
It turned out quite a few groups had the idea of the house. We think that it’s because that’s the first form that comes to our minds when told to form a figure; it’s quite easy to make as well. All of the final products were also different, obviously, and we thought they were really great.

We also had a final discussion on the task, where we learned the didactic part of the lesson. We were discussing on how we need to count the time and really plan the lesson carefully to be able to hold a good lesson for the students. We were also discussing if the task or the final results would have changed if we had a different kind of an introduction and/or instructions. For example, when the teacher was excited about the invention of the toothpick, it somehow made us excited about the task also. What comes to instructions in this task, we were only told to build figures out of toothpicks, and all of our questions were answered the same way: “Build figures.” It gave us free hands to use extra materials also, which all of us except for one group used. We think that this was a way to build our creativity also. Usually, at school, we are used to having really precise instructions on how a work should be done (this goes at least in Finland and Germany). 

We think that children’s growth of creativity could be helped by giving out more tasks like this. When children are little, they need more examples of how a work can be done, but when they get older, this model should not be used anymore.

What do you think? Is there aby object that can help us to learn more than one subject? Do we all have the basic resources to learn?

First category: Type of school

According to the different categories that we established previously, we chose the “type of school”. Firstly, when talking about public and private schools, we want to point out that public-private partnerships can be shared into four categories: 1. publicly-funded resources that are publicly managed, 2. privately funded resources that are privately managed, 3. publicly funded resources that are privately managed, and 4. privately funded resources that are publicly managed. The first group basically means the most common form of public school, while the second group means the most common private schools. In Spain, a low percentage of schools are publicly funded and operated, whereas for example in Finland and Germany (where two of our group members come from), most of the schools are like this. (Wößmann, Public-Private Partnerships, and Student Achievement: A Cross-Country Analysis, in Peterson & Chakrabarti, 2009). Most of our group members went to a school which was publicly managed and funded. One of our group members went to a school which was privately managed but publicly funded, whereas one went to a school which was privately funded and managed. Due to this, we get to see some differences and similarities between the public and private sector. We are going to take a closer look at the aspects of the different schools, by explaining the differences between a private and a public school.

What comes to the differences between public and private schools, one significant difference is the obligation of wearing a uniform. In public schools, you have the option of wearing the school uniform or your own clothes. However, at the private schools, it’s an obligation to wear it. One of our group members who went to a private school remembers that if you didn’t wear the uniform, you were punished. What comes to Finland, there is no such thing as a school uniform.

Secondly, in the public school, there was an option to choose between religion or an alternative subject, in which the students were taught values and behaviors. The private school, though, and the one which was supported by the state, had religion as a compulsory subject in the elementary school. In the private school funded by public money, you had to pray more or less once a week and you had the First Communion. Again, in Finland, the issue is different. Religion was a mandatory part of the primary, secondary and high school. Only if you were a part of some other religion, you didn’t have to participate, but you would be learning something else instead. This leads us to a conclusion: private schools have autonomy in choosing optative subjects, adapting pedagogical methods and organizing extracurricular activities. 

An interesting aspect is that the socio-economic status “[...] has been found to have an association with less positive transitions for children.” (Evangelou 2008, p.2). One member of our group had a friend at secondary school who got more and more problems to continue with the new routines. Not just because of the school system that leaves us just twelve years to finish the school (before it was thirteen years), the greater problem was that the parents didn’t have much money. The student needed help but their parents could not pay for more private tuition. Their solution was that the student went to another school where he/she would finish his/her studies after the 10th class.

Finally, we can say, that the decision of the chosen school will leave its mark on the children. There are a lot of differences between private and public schools and also just between the public schools of each city. 

We came to the resolution that we have to take notice of the different aspects of the decision that the children and their parents are making. 

Looking in the future and seeing us as teachers, we could have private conversations with each student and their parents at the end of the primary school o to help them with their type of school decision.

Resources:

- Chakrabarti, R., & Peterson, P. E. (2009). School Choice International. (1st ed.) The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts: London, England

- Evangelou, Maria. (2008). What makes a successful transition from primary to secondary school?

- Gayarre, A. L. (2000). Enseñanza privada-enseñanza no pública: formas y estatutos en los Estados Miembros de Ia Unión Europea. Revista Española de Educación Comparada, (6), 415-417.