Talk about an issue as important and at the same time politicized as the Education it is always a delicate thing. Everyone has their own opinion based on their experiences throughout life, their training, etc.
Nancie atwell, awarded with the Best Teacher in the World award Awarded by the Varkley Foundation, from magnate Sunny Varkley, explained in an interview to the magazine eudutopia some of the keys that she considers to be the foundation of the best way to educate. His opinion is supported not only by this award - endowed with a million dollars, by the way - but by more than 40 years of teaching experience, many of which have decided the Center of Teaching and Learning (CTL), a school that She herself founded in Maine for the research and dissemination of new educational methods that has managed to become a reference in the United States.
Do not settle for a docile student
Atwell says that in education, teachers often settle for a docile student, as if children can only be obedient or resist authority. This results in the division between submissive students and unsuccessful students. Atwell insists that the objective must be different, and explains that in the CTL you bet on the commitment of the student, who has great freedom to choose his activities and readings.
But this conception has a much deeper basis, since it arises when it is considered that the teacher is not capable of directing the students in the right direction.
Students must read and freely choose their readings
CTL students read an average of 40 books a year and of all genres. The difference between the CTL reading promotion programs and most of the programs of this type in the world is precisely that in CTL students can choose what they want to read according to their interests.
If you are interested in this topic, I recommend an article that I wrote a while ago in Current Literature entitled Children, books and programs to encourage reading: Reflections
Parents need to trust both teachers and students
For Atwell, one of the key difficulties in education is that neither the students trust the teachers nor the teachers trust the students. "The problem arises in not trusting the good decisions of the boys"Atwell explains. "The problem arises from not trusting that teachers have enough resources to lead students in the right direction."
To get good results, education has to be fun
For many parents and teachers too, fun in the classroom is a suspect. Perhaps at the base is the concept of what everyone understands for fun. However, there are more and more teachers' voices that remind us that we must free ourselves from this prejudice.
In this sense, Atwell bets on a fun that must come from within. She explains how some hubs seem to haunt her in the wrong way, "Giving bicycles to the boys who read the most books" o "Making the director dye his hair green if everyone reads 10 biographies." Motivation must be intrinsic, not extrinsic. The key is not to disguise boring as fun, but to make students restless enough not to consider anything boring.
The teacher should not be limited
Atwell believes that the new laws in the United States have turned the teacher into a mere link between the content that the higher authorities consider that the student should know and this. It is not very different in the rest of the countries. Atwell believes that the professor is not a technician who applies what he is told, that he follows an imposed script, and that this reduces the professor's intellectual enterprise to the maximum.
In education there should be no exams
Atwell rejects the tests, which he considers a series of "rigged exercises, not even rigorous and a bit ridiculous that has nothing to do with the enjoyment of stories and the exercise of self-expression ”. She believes that all they get is a paperwork-laden climate for accountability, and that all of this determines all of the teacher's decisions. "We need to look at the achievements of individual children in each discipline, authentically and personally.", He says. In the CTL each student must explain their educational process, rather than abide by external standard assessments.
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