Education beyond the traditional curriculum.

One of the things I wonder about the most is when and how are we going to be ready to orientate basic and primary education to a more sensitive one. What I mean by that, is teaching our kids social and ecological responsibility, and not just the basic competences or even worse, plain theoretical contents. 

Environmental education.

I'm going to write from personal experience, about this project that we're about to implement in our school. Separated from the established curriculum, the primary school teachers have developed a three-stage project contemplating the ecosystem and climate change. It will be introduced firstly with videos, or specifically designed didactic units. Then the kids will have the chance to experience first hand, taking them on field trips to different types of institutions or by expositions from field experts. Lastly, all kids will have to put into practice their learnings. 

For the first stage we will use the resources given by the recycling organization Ecoembes, which offers didactic units designed for the different stages in educations, and possible subjects (spanish, english and even physical education). Click here to check all the units and various contents. 

The second part will be a visit to the local "Centro de Reciclaje" in Villaviciosa de Odón, which is half a block away. Here the kids will be able to experience and see the first step to the recycling processes and will learn about recyclable materials, etc. Given the extended ignorance among society on what its fit to recycle, this visit we thought would be of more value than a trip to a more complex recycling establishment.

Lastly, we'll implement a full recycling system at school. Starting in every classroom, every kids will have the chance to separate paper, plastic and organic trash. And in the main hall, we will have a bin for batteries, electronics and different wastes that we all find necessary after our visit to the recycling center.

This is only the first part of a more extensive project that will include animal welfare and responsibility towards pets, respect towards social minorities, etc. All of those topics also developed in the same way as the previous one I mentioned, looking to expose kids to different realities in the world, some of which they will never witness otherwise. 

So far, education for moral and ethical issues has been recently introduced with the new Lomna in primary education. However the curriculum has been developed in a very theoretical way, far from reality and very abstract. It makes you think about how effective the new program will be, and if it will have any effect on the kids whatsoever. It sort of seems is another subject to just get good grades on their records. 

Improving our children education it is definitely in our hands, as teachers, when provided with a mediocre and half-way curriculum, all of us are capable of many greater things for our students.

EL FUTURO DE LAS TIC EN ESPAÑA Y EL EJEMPLO DE LOS FINLANDESES

Las TIC (Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación) son importantes en la educación primaria, ya que permiten a los niños buscar la información que necesitan y también organizar lo que han encontrado, haciendo que se conviertan en personas independientes y un poco autodidactas.

Esto hace que los niños sean cada vez más responsables de su propio aprendizaje y conscientes de su importancia.

BENEFICIOS

Las TIC son un fenómeno global que se encuentra en todos los ámbitos de nuestra sociedad.

Los niños que tienen conocimientos sobre computación en una etapa temprana de sus vidas pueden lidiar mejor con el mundo moderno. Además una buena utilización de las TIC hace que sea mucho más fácil para los niños encontrar y organizar la información y mantener el interés en el aprendizaje continuo.

POTENCIAL

El hecho de que las TIC potencien el interés de aprender en los niños hace que sean importantes en las escuelas primarias, ya que pueden ayudar a los niños a lograr mejores resultados en otras materias y para encontrar lo que necesitan y utilizar la información de manera particular. Es importante que los niños se familiaricen con las TIC a una edad temprana, ya que tendrán ciertas habilidades para el resto de su educación y en la vida adulta

Veamos ahora el ejemplo del sistema educativo finlandés.

Hace un par de semanas pudimos leer la noticia, para muchos seguro que desconcertante, de que en Finlandia a partir del año 2016/2017 la escritura a mano pasará a la historia y se enseñará a los niños a mecanografiar y no a escribir con un lápiz o con un bolígrafo, como hemos aprendido casi todos.

http://www.enriquedans.com/2014/11/escribir-a-mano-es-del-siglo-pasado.html

Bueno, pues ahora los periódicos han modificado la noticia, Finlandia asegura que no quitará el aprendizaje de escritura a mano por completo del sistema educativo, Minna Harmanen responsable del Instituto Nacional de Educación de Finlandia, ha aclarado para el periódico ABC que la caligrafía tradicional no desaparecerá del sistema educativo finlandés,  se mantendrá como una asignatura optativa.

En palabras de Minna Harmanen 《La escritura que se realiza a mano con un bolígrafo no termina, y se considera muy importante para adquirir destrezas y memoria》.

El sistema educativo finlandés considera que la la asignatura obligatoria de mecanografía será muy útil para el futuro laboral de los niños, ya que les aportará fluidez en la escritura con el ordenador.

Económicamente hablando, este cambio en el sistema educativo supondrá una gran inversión en dispositivos informáticos para que ningún alumno pierda la oportunidad de aprender con este nuevo método,  aunque todavía está por ver si el estado finlandès podrá proporcionar un ordenador por alumno para que el aprendizaje sea indiviual y más cómodo.

En el siguiente artículo podemos ver toda esta información ampliada:

http://www.abc.es/sociedad/20141203/abci-finlandia-educacion-escritura-mano-201412030753.html

Teniendo en cuenta que el sistema finlandés es un buen referente en el ámbito educativo,  me pregunto si algún día el estado español estará preparando para adaptar su sistema educativo a un método novedoso y cercano al finlandés. Aunque primero tendremos que observar la evolución del nuevo método finlandés.  ¿Sera verdad que este nuevo método aportará un gran cambio positivo en la educación? ¿Provocará este cambio la extinción de la escritura manual?

En mi opinión, creo que es una buena iniciativa la introducción de la mecanografía en edades tempranas pero espero que ello no termine por extinguir el arte de la escritura manual que refleja la personalidad propia de cada persona y aporta muchos beneficios al aprendizaje. 

Multilingualism in Schools.

According to this wikipedia entry, updated last on December 9th, 2014: List of languages by number of native speakers, the most spoken language is indeed mandarin with a 14.4% of world's population, followed by spanish with a 6.5% and later english with a 5.3%. Surprisingly enough, few schools around the world are teaching their students mandarin or spanish as a mandatory subject, unlike English. Why? because english is the international most recognized language throughout the world, not only socially speaking, but far and foremost in formal environments: political, economical, scientific, and of course, educational.

When looking at our spanish education system, we encounter "semi" bilingual curriculum taught by the same teachers that taught before the bilingualism was established in schools, and even more tragic, only a small percentage of them are fluent or even posses the sufficient level of the language, even less why the system should be bilingual to start with. Therefore according to this article by Ricardo Martínez de Rituerto: Suspenso en Inglés, in 2012 statics showed that only 24% of ESO students were capable of effectively understand English, reaching a merely level B1 or B2 on the European Scale.

Image taken from Suspenso en Inglés, El País, 2012.

We should ask ourselves if the reality of this tragic situation in primary and middle schools (ESO) has changed at all in the last two years or if we continue to teach traditional, old and misguided English curriculums in our schools, disguised behind the "bilingual program".

English in Universities, what are we waiting for?

Not few but many studies, comparisons, articles, etc; have been published about the need to establish a bilingual education in our superior education system. It seems a waste of resources, human and economical, to change basic education looking forward to a better development of abilities and allowing spaniard children to lead the future markets, and then forgetting all of it when they go to any university around Spain. How can any concerned and responsible parent allow their child to waste all of that knowledge in three, four or five years in uni? The answer is simple, send them abroad to another more qualified institution, if you can afford it.
Susana Pérez de Pablos writes in her article: La Universidad Europea ya habla inglés. Y el alumno? about the differences in european higher education systems, and how English is approached in them. She mentions one of the intrinsic goals of the European Union, which is evidently the disappearance of borders, educationally speaking as well; and then goes to question how our students could confront the situation of exchanging countries and universities if they won't even be able to communicate to begin with.
It seems like we're waiting for the new generation of kids who are mediocrely learning in two languages, to turn 18 and finally go to uni to start thinking about institutionalize English as a second and mandatory language in our Universities. Spain will be then, a full generation behind (maybe even two) the rest of the northen european countries which we so much want to resemble to.
Elisa Silió in her article from 2013: El inglés, nuevo latín de la Universidad Europea, mentions the case of the Universidad de Alcalá in which some of the degrees are being taught in English, but of course with the resiliency of some teachers reluctant to "lose" the value of our native language. Today, the Universidad de Alcalá hosts students from around the world that are given the opportunity to study in English and in Spanish, providing the learner with an extraordinary experience.

When it comes to languages, not just the spoken ones are important.

If we take too long to think about this bilingualism in our institutions, not just when English is on the table, but other languages like Chinese, German or even Catalan or Valencian, there's so much time we're waiting that we could use to invest on introducing other types of languages indispensables in the near future (let's not say now and start panicking). In this article from David Bollero, 2014, we can read about the current initiatives taking place in countries like England, in which children of 5 to 7 years old will be introduced to programming basics within the next few years. That initiative is going to be introduced here, but in a much different way, starting at around 10 to 11 years old. That means that british children of the same age will indeed have a clear advantage of 5 years ahead of spanish kids. Shouldn't we stop to think about this for a minute? Aren't we running behind already? Shouldn't we, primary school teachers, nonetheless university and secondary teachers, learn how to do some basic programming? Just like we should know English, programming should be mandatory not just for students, but for teachers as well.

In this TEDxTalk Gijon, Luis Toyos brings to the table this obvious need in education: the imminent necessity of our kids to learn how to write, not just read computers.

In his blog we can read about programs ran in different schools in Asturias, using Arduino, a basic and very simple programing software for kids (and so young...).

More articles on English as a second language and in education found in the Education Section in El Pais, which I personally think is fantastic. Enjoy:

Por qué nos cuesta tanto hablar inglés. Pantaleoni, Ana. 23 Marzo, 2008.

La mejor gimnasia para el cerebro es el bilingüismo. Álvarez, Pilar. 21 Noviembre, 2014.