“CREATIVE SCHOOLS: GIVING AN ANSWER TO STUDENT NEEDS IN THE 21ST CENTURY” - Marina Cáceres García

Is it possible to build our ideal school? That's the question that I asked myself when Yolanda suggested this new project. All of us through our videos proposed many good ideas, but with the subject of sociology we discovered that all the ideas that we had commented were not so easy to carry out as we thought.

Before starting with our work, we devoted one class to see some videos which I would like to talk about them because all of this I really attracted my attention.

In the first video, Ken Robinson talks about the importance of creativity and the few value that many school give nowadays. Some teachers think that to learn new knowledge is not necessary to use it. In addition, some of the teachers don’t allow children to develop their own skills, because the students should learn only the basic subjects (maths, language...) and they don’t use creativity.

Also, he showed us that the children are afraid to make mistakes and when they make it they can lose the rhythm of the class and they can’t adapt later. The problem of that, if the student never does something wrong, they can’t learn from their mistakes and they don’t know how to fix real problems.

Finally, Robinson made us reflect on the great number of skills and abilities that human have beings and the privilege to have all of them. So through this first video, I could ask me why not take advantage of our capabilities and develop when we are learning.

On the other hand, the second video that we saw, I seemed the most interesting. Takaharu Tezuka presented us the idea to release children. This means that children should have their space to play and learn without barriers or limits, because in this way, children will make mistakes and, through their own mistakes, they can learn more autonomously. To carry out this methodology, they did so with a very different structure of the building which I had previously seen. His school was circular shape and around it were the classes, which were formed by big windows which allowed a great lighting.

After this, we started to work with the creation of our video. In it we include our solutions and ideas to build our ideal school:

We begin with the structure of the school, which should be a big building to fit the needs of each student. Our school included creative areas (theatre, painting class...), sports zone (gym, pool, tennis...) and, above all free spaces. The classes would be large and each one have a maximum of 20 students, because the goal of creating an inclusive school to know the difficulties of each and to help them at all times.

With the methodology that we would use, it would be based on cooperative learning, doing practical activities and leaving aside the theory part. We would also give a major role to new technologies and would promote participation in class, so that all people could express themselves freely. In addition, we consider very important to develop skills such as critical thinking and problem solving.

Another big change we make is in the time table, because we would like to add more break time between classes so that children could keep the rhythm and in this way they don’t bored in class. Also, we would add new subjects such as theatre, art, music... but we would still keeping the main of it like maths, language, english…

One of the most important things in education is motivation. But always we make a mistake because sometimes we say that is the pupils the only people who are demotivated. But, many of the teachers are not motivated when they teach, so as guides should show students their motivation because, in this way, children will feel more animated.

In our school, we are all involved in learning, including the family. Parents should be informed of the progress of their children, so we will try to make a good relationship between parents and teachers.

Finally, we must take in account the values that we want to promote. Among them: eliminate bullying, accepting other cultures, and trust, respect and help others.

Besides all these ideas that Virginia, Alfonso and I shared, we could find many more things thanks to the work of our partners.

Modern Students team, they talked about an optional way for not eliminate completely the exams and the theoretical part, because I could keep the mini-test.

The next group was exposing was Amigos del Football, which told us about new methods which were used in Turkey and in Germany.

The most thing that caught my attention of Wanderlust group was the synthesized of ideas of the best educational systems (USA and Finland) and the way that through them as they adapted to the building structure.

Later, Crónicas Viajeras told us about his school. They proposed something that the other groups don’t talk about it. This is the bilingual method. Today, most bilingual schools, are formed by teachers with low level of English or who don’t know how to apply it in class. They believe that once or twice a week a native person should have conversations with students so that they can improve their oral learning.

The team Team Perk I liked too. It seemed a good idea to create tutorials with parents each a certain time, so that in this way the family is involved. In addition, they created a student council where students could meet to discuss and solve problems. Also, here they can share ideas or complaints...

Finally, Musical Chairs talked about the importance of the relationship between the teacher and the pupils. Their teacher has to treat equality all students and also have to account in mind that not all of them have the same learning process.

In conclusion, it seems a good job as we could get ideas and ask how to carry them out. Unfortunately, this change is not immediate, the change needs much time and money to build our ideal school. But the most important thing for me is to know that school is a place where we learn, but also we can have fun.