CREATIVE SCHOOLS: GIVING AN ANSWER TO STUDENT NEEDS IN THE 21ST CENTURY”

 “CREATIVE SCHOOLS: GIVING AN ANSWER TO STUDENT NEEDS IN THE 21^ST CENTURY”

In every class you have different students with different needs. How to create a school where you can satisfy all needs from all students? In this project every group created an ideal school. To develop an ideal school you have to think of a lot of different aspects like the school system, the architecture of the school, the role of the teacher, different relationships and many more. To increase our knowledge we read different articles and watched as well some videos about schools with inspiring ideas. In the following I will present the main ideas of our ideal school, main ideas of the videos, we watched in class and as well about the ideas from our colleague’s presentations.

Our ideal school is an inclusive school. In an inclusive school all students learn and participate together. Inclusivity is not defined by physical and cognitive disabilities. It’s more than that. It includes the whole human diversity with respect to ability, language, culture, gender and other forms of human differences. It’s a school which considered that achievements, attitudes and the well-being of all young people are important. In our school one lesson is 45 minutes long. After that there is a 10 minute break. The classes should not be so big. Our school prefers smaller classes, because that way the teacher can help individual.

The environment is as well important in our ideal school. Our school is surrounded by a lot of nature. There the teacher can do different outdoor activities which are healthy for the kids. Also our ideal school supports to have animals in class. In this wise the children learn to respect animals and to take care of another living being. In this school we improve our attitudes and values. Also it is necessary to develop critical thinking, to promote the free expression, creativity, solidarity, equality and motivation. Trust takes also a big role in our ideal school. All people trust in each other. The teachers trusting the kids, parents trusting their children and the kids trust them. This helps especially the kids to fell better and knowing that other people are there for them and are helping them. The kids are more motivated, because they don’t think they will fail. Parents are part of our school too. Not only the teachers are working on the education of the children, the parents do as well. For example parents talk with the teacher how they can help their kids at home with homework and the teachers give them advices.

Another option is that the parents are with the teacher in class and help the teacher. In both ways they work all together on the education of the kids. Our ideal school promotes a modern relationship between the teachers, the kids and the content. The theory is called “instructional Triangle”. It’s about the dynamic and complex interaction by which teachers help the children to learn challenging subject content. Three main point are here important. 1.) Teachers knowledge of subject content for teaching. 2.) Teachers knowledge of students thinking and content learning. It’s about the interaction between students and the content. 3.) Teachers knowledge of diverse students. Teacher should understand and know the existents of students diversity like culture, linguistic, cognitive and more.

For us it also seems important that the teachers have goals for the individual needs and also for the collective needs and interests of the school. They are:

1. Making Headway on the School’s Central Goals, Priorities or Problems:

2. Building the Knowledge, Skill, and Disposition to Teach to High Standards

3. Cultivating Strong Professional Community. Conducive to Learning and Improvement

4. Sustaining Teachers’ Commitment to Teaching

As well the dealing with problems is in our school different. The school supports a method where teacher transform problem in creative problems to make teaching more easily for the children. There are different ways to do that like incubation, suspension of judgment, appropriate climates, analysis, engaging problems and feedback. Appropriate climate means for example that you create a peaceful environment and make the children and their ideas feel important and accepted.

In the videos we watched together in class the speakers mentioned really interesting and important aspects which should be noticed when we talk about ideal schools. Sir Ken Robinsion speech is about education and creativity. He has the opinion that all kids have massive talents, but the people waste them. Creativity is for him as important in education as literacy and he appeals to treat it with the same status. Kid’s creativity is huge and it has no boundaries. Also he said that kids are not afraid of being wrong and if you are not prepared to be wrong you will never come up with anything original, however most of the kids have lost that capacity by the time they get to be adults. They have become frightened of being wrong. He believes that if you don’t grow into creativity you will grow out of it. The main reason for that is for Robinson the education system. Every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects. At the top are always mathematics and languages and at the bottom are the arts. But he has the opinion that art is as important as math is. The reason for that is that the system is predicated on the idea of academic ability.

In another video Takaharu Tezuka presented us the best kindergarten people have ever seen. The kindergarten is made in a circle, because kids love to run in circles. The kindergarten is completely open and there are no boundaries between outside and inside. This kindergarten supports noise. Kids can sleep better if there is noise and they show amazing concentration in class. Main point of his speech is that children are supposed to be outside. This kindergarten also thinks that children nowadays need a small dosage of danger. In this way they learn to help each other. Kids need some injuries this is how they learn to live in this word.

Our colleagues mentioned in their presentations as well interesting and important points. Some of them I am going to mention in the following.

One group for example compared in their video the spanish-, turkey- and german school system. During the whole presentation the group made clear that they prefer the german school system. They talked for example about the different style of teaching. Schools in Germany teach between behaviorism and constructivism whereas the spanish teaching is more traditional. But even the german school system is not perfect. It’s very critical that after the 4^th grade the children, their parents or the teacher have to decide on what kind of school the child has to go. So the children get separated according to their academic ability. Mostly the decision is depending on the recommendation of the teacher. That’s a big issue, because a lot of studies showed that the recommendation is not based on the skills its dependent from the social background from the families.

One group supported also the idea that teachers should motivate their students. In my view that is an important point, because when students are interested or motivated they learn better and they won’t forget it that fast. That’s also the reason why learning should be done in a funny way, for the motivation of the kids. Most of the groups recommended that parents are part of the education and be in contact with the teachers. For many it is also important that all students have the same opportunities.

Another point of one ideal school was the contact with the nature. In this school should be lots of gardens outside and the widows are made of glass, so the children feeling outside when they sit inside. And the teachers are in that school more like friends. They prefer a guide process of learning. The children should be treating like small adults. They should get the chance to solve their problems by their own, but the teacher is always there if they need any help.

One group spoke about a great idea that is called “Family day”. The idea is that parents, teachers and kids meet up to get to know each other better. This is a good way to work on the relationship and also to talk about current issues, what have to change or of course about the good things like what is great right now and where the kid is doing really well.

Cooperative learning was also in many ideal schools an important point. Most of the groups mentioned this kind of learning and see it as a significant aspect when we talk about different teaching methods.  

All in all this project showed that is takes a lot to create an ideal school. It is not easy to create an ideal school. There are many different aspects and theories which should be noticed. Collecting all this different and important ideas and put them together in one project was challenging for us. But it benefited us in many different ways. On the one hand we improved over knowledge about school system and got to know different perspective and on the other hand we all could develop us individual as a teacher. We may now know in what kind of school we probably want to work in the future and more important what we have to do to ensure a good education for children. The children are the future but we live in the present and we have the chance to help them to live in a better world.