The debate about who is to blame for the decline of the education system makes no sense, but the education children receive in Spain has only turned around on its own, without advancing.
Why not allow the Internet to be fully available in schools, as it is abroad? Or why don't we change the current promise of schooling ("If you overcome obstacles you will have a future") for a more reasonable one like “We will accompany you in the process of discovering who you are and what the world you live in is like”?.
These are two of the reflections on education made by Sonia Díez Abad, a doctor in Economic and Business Sciences and a degree in Psychology and Educational Sciences in her book 'Educaacción'. But above all we like his practical proposal of ten actions for the change in education that our children "need and deserve".
Sonia Díez defends a new model of education that involves us all and that sends a clear message: we still have time to leave a better world for our children, so let's start building it.
These are the proposals as educator of the president of the Horizon Ithaca education group:
1. ProvocACCIÓN: raise your voice to policy makers
Through a fictitious letter to any politician, he encourages those responsible for education to move forward urgently:
“Our educational model was designed for a world that no longer exists and is unable to adapt to the new realities that emerged from the digital revolution. I am not talking about missing computers, I am talking about the mentality with which we behave in the digital world and that, until now, it has been impossible to move to classrooms conceived, in the form and in the background, for a time already passed "
That's why Silvia proposes stop educating for uniformity and do it for diversity, because in the digital world in which we live the opportunities are born from what each one has and can contribute differently:
"Helping to find what makes each of our students unique, special, different should now be the axis of the educational mission."
2. Reactivation: ask what we educate for
Children get bored in class, says the author, in an ideal environment to lose any illusion to learn, the result of inertia, fear of change and ignorance.
"The school still prepares its students for a world where changes are slow, where it is reasonable to aspire to a job for life and where borders are solid. That is, a world that does not exist."
Sonia Diez says that "Educating for today's world means starting from scratch" and ask a series of fundamental questions:
If knowledge is now anywhere, why do children have to go to school?
If each discipline advances from multiple points of view, Why keep using a single textbook?
If there are no limits to access the knowledge we need at any time, Why is compulsory education still fixed between the ages of three and sixteen?
If we can fully customize the information we transmit, Should we continue teaching the same class to all students equally?
If the digital transformation occurs in all sectors of activity, why prepare students for content and skills that the labor market will no longer demand?
If we want students to be able to adapt to the circumstances, Is it appropriate to educate them in an invariable environment?
If access to knowledge is universal, do we have to measure students quantitatively or qualitatively?
Are we forming autonomous people with the capacity to think for themselves?
3. Adaptation: change the rules and promote educational entrepreneurship
Our current education system is no longer from this world. It is a fossilized system. And the students perceive it, they see the inconsistency between the teaching formats they have to comply with and the reality of the world they live outside of school.
"Educational leaders are recruited with the intention of safeguarding stable organizations over time, not to be shaken", explains the expert, who adds that "This has to change, new sap is needed in schools, entrepreneurs who take initiatives and change decisions, taking into account the opinions of the student".
4. Training: prepare children to act in the world that they will live in reality
The psychologist explains that the school has become an obstacle course, "Not in a wonderful place that kids are going to learn."
According to the author of 'EducAcción', the school, the institute and the University are a process with which our children think they have to meet to, after a thousand exams, be supposedly prepared for life. "The terrible thing is that, after passing all the tests for fifteen or twenty years, nothing and nobody guarantees that they are prepared for life."
In Babies and more, how is the school our children need? They are digital natives. Changes are needed nowThe promise that the entire educational community should make to parents is: "We will accompany you in the process of discovering who you are and what the world is like in which you live".
To make it, The school should create a path that, by going through it, allows each child to discover their talents, strengths and weaknesses., as well as the opportunities offered by the world around him.
5. HumanizationACTION: promote the enjoyment of the learning experience
To achieve this, we must begin by redefining the educational model based on learning, not teaching, with:
The review of the academic curriculum, which should be addressed in content and methodology (commitment to experimental learning).
The implementation or incorporation of other curricula that may introduce or compensate for necessary learning and that are not currently contemplated.
In Babies and more, what can we do to prevent bullying? Seven keys to educate in valuesThe expert comments that the current school focuses on just two intelligences (logical-mathematical and linguistic), instead of adapting its learning offer also to the rest of the students' cognitive styles: visual and spatial, musical, kinesthetic body , naturalist, interpersonal and intrapersonal.
If we do not offer children the possibility of learning taking into account their type of intelligence, not only will they not learn, but they will waste their own resources, their intelligence potential6. Collaboration: help fathers and mothers understand their role in education and collaborate with them
The new forms of family are making their way without previous references and without instructions. We are discovering our needs, potential and limits on the fly.
In Babies and more Help children do their homework: when parents can support and when it is better to leave them aloneExplains Sonia Díez, that:
"Many families see them and want them, due to shared custody, incompatibility of work schedules, etc., to maintain habits and routines necessary for the education of their children, and even to be able to attend them daily or during school vacations" .
And he adds that "Fathers and mothers feel lonely and pressured. They are very demanding and little supported. Their training is taken for granted and teachers only intervene when problems arise, that is, when it is too late."
How can we talk about education and forget about educating parents, who are the main educational agent?And ensures that it is not about creating Parent Schools, but about "to weave a dense care network for families with support and accompaniment services throughout the entire stage of parenting and until emancipation."
In Babies and more "It is very positive that parents can be with their children in the classroom", we talked with a teacher about the adaptation period7. Professionalization: ensure that all children have access to good teachers
We must see what fails in the selection of our children's teachers and what triumphs in other countries with the best grades in education.
The conclusions of Sonia Díez, which speaks of our teacher training system, are surprising: the aspirants for Teaching enter the University with the lowest grade of all Grades, while leaving the Degree or the Master, with the highest. Conclusion: little requirement.
Just the opposite of what happens in countries with the highest marks in Education (such as Australia, Belgium, South Korea, Finland or Singapore, among others): they select their candidates for teachers within the best qualified third of each promotion.
Although it also clarifies that it is not only about notes:
"Finland's bet it is not so much to select the brightest students academically, but design teacher training in a way that arouses love and passion for the profession in young applicants. First they look for the right people and then provide them with the appropriate technical training. "
In Babies and more "More self-criticism, less complaints": the reflection on Twitter of a teacher generates an intense debate about our educational systemBut it is even more surprising to know that we cannot "to import" Well-qualified teachers in Europe, because it takes an average of two years to obtain Spanish authorization to teach (since they have to pass a strict technical exam and even pass some credits to match their studies to ours), and even more so if they come from outside Europe. So many talents give up. This is explained by the author of 'EducAcción'.
And advocates the idea of Finland Not only to train their teachers, but also to accompany them until they make sure they do well, they measure their results, and before coming to sanction they support and restart the process. Because even the best professional is also susceptible to mistakes and every October 13 they celebrate the Day of Error, to remember that making mistakes is an inherent part of the learning process and not something embarrassing that we should hide or avoid.
That's why teachers, says Sonia, "We must dare to try new paths, to be truly responsible for the development and improvement of our profession, and truly loyal to children."
8. EvaluationACTION: enable a fair and rigorous assessment of student progress
The current teaching system tends to value only what it can quantify. But there are other factors, besides the numerical ones, that are valid as learning indicators.
That is the opinion of this teacher who also believes that:
"The most important thing at the outset is to abandon the unique thinking that has led us to account for learning - with quite outdated tools, by the way - and begin to incorporate the assessment of other skills and abilities associated with real understanding and performance."
In Babies and more Work for projects: this is the alternative education chosen by Pablo Iglesias and Irene Montero for their children9. InovACTION: incorporate all available resources to improve quality
In Babies and more The use of tablets in the classroom: successes and mistakes of this new way of learningWhy not improve the current situation of education thanks to the opportunities offered by technologies? Asks the author of 'EducAcción', which also implies:
¿Why not make school hours more flexible, anchored in the Industrial Revolution and clearly absurd, and allow each school to adapt them to its educational proposal?
¿Why not allow equally flexible groups of students of different ages but with common talents and interests to delve into certain fields of learning?
¿Why not shorten the summer vacation that harm the evolution of boys and girls and disrupt the lives of fathers and mothers, whose periods of work rest are becoming more flexible and look less like the school calendar?
Why not tear down the walls of the classrooms and create spaces of different dimensions and uses depending on the needs of each moment, spaces that best fit a world that demands openness and agility?
¿Why not allow internet to be fully available in schools, as it is outside, instead of absurdly pretending to put doors to the field?
Why not combine the face-to-face with the virtual, as is already happening in all areas of human activity?
¿Why not take advantage that the contents are accessible through multiple platforms to give teachers the opportunity to be true “Companions” of students instead of mere transmitters of knowledge?
10. TranformACCIÓN: create a new frame of reference for a new educational model
In Babies and more Changes in the LOMCE: the main measures expected to be implemented in educationDespite all of the above, Sonia Díez claims to be a positive person and therefore ensures that "we live in a world full of possibilities and that we can, with imagination and work, achieve what we set out to do."
"There is nothing more important than leaving them and them the legacy of a good education"Photos | iStock
¡EducACCIÓN !: 10 actions for change that our children deserve and need (Without collection)
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