We are celebrating the 10-year anniversary of Debats d’Educació by giving the educational community the opportunity to air its views
I’m a teacher and the director of the Bellaterra school. I’m a member of the Rosa Sensat Teachers’ Association and the Catalonia Federation of Pedagogical Renewal Movements. I am also a member of the Catalonia School Board. In addition, I’m a writer. And the father of three children and the grandfather of two grandchildren.
It is said (although a half-truth) that teachers must start with the children’s interests to be able to get them interesting in learning. If this were completely true, this belief would be very easy to put into practise. A teacher’s responsibility above all consists of motivating students to learn what we believe they need to learn in order to live in the present and project this learning towards the future without forgetting about their immediate interests. A teacher’s capacity to reveal students’ commitment in the learning process is the first thing we must remember.
Thus, it is necessary for teachers to feel like apprentices learning alongside their students.
Although it’s true nobody can learn for another, it’s also true that we learn in social contexts. The more open to the surprise of knowledge a group of humans is, the more aware they will be that they need the support and collaboration of the entire group in order to learn and the more the individuals will be committed. As a result, teachers must be able to foster everything that allows students to interact, contrast, share what they know and what they question, discuss, defend, etc. everything we believe should be learning material in a school.
Nothing is more motivating or increases personal and group commitment to learning more than finding meaning in what we propose doing. Oftentimes this meaning awaits us outside the classroom even at the school. Teachers should know how to seek out and find arenas and times where students can explain what they are learning to their peers and others. Working on projects, encouraging cooperative activities, mixed cycle organisations, mixed level organisations, school networks and other institutions help raise the level of interest we should show in learning.