Learn to live together

Wednesday 14th

Today the teacher has explained us a new project that we are going to do. We could choose among different topics: : teaching to be a person, teaching to think, to live together, to make decisions, etc. After choosing the topic, we must design three activities to work in the chosen axis. One to develop with the students, another with the teaching team and another with the families, and we shoul do one of them in class. After preparing all this, we are going to present our project to the class.

We did not know what topic to choose, first of all we chose ‘to make decisions’, but finally we decided that the most interesting one was ‘learn to live together’. As we had to do one of the three activities, we chose the one for parents, because, we are used to see activities or games for children, so we thought it was a better idea doing something with parents.

So, for today nothing more, we have organised our ideas, but for the next day we will bring information, to start shaping the project.

Monday 19th

We have brought information, and new ideas. We already know the activities we are going to carry out. And the introduction about Tutorial Action is already done, for doing it we read an article: "La Acción Tutorial en Educación" by  Morales Moreno, A.B. This article explain us some things to put into practice the Tutorial Action. The article said that the tutorial action is a process, inside the school guidance, that complete the docent action and try to attend the diversity of all the students. For carrying out the tutorial action we need some things, one of them is to coordinate the whole educational community. Another one is to create a Tutorial Action Plan (PAT), a document in which there are objectives, member's functions, programs and activities. On the PAT we have three levels of intervention: students, faculty of teachers and other institutions. The PAT also has a part of evaluation in which there are three types of evaluating our students: first evaluation (at the beginning of the course), formative evaluation (during the whole learning process) and final evaluation (at the end of the course). The Tutorial Action has some lines to follow. One of these lines is to live together that we have used for doing our new project.

We just need to do the details and to practice the presentation because it will be next day. We decided not to use any type of electronic plataform, so we will do everything with cardboards. We will stay after class for having everything prepared.

Wednesday 21st

Today we have presented our project. I leave you above the explanation of each of the  three activities.

This is a school. In each window we can see important things of each of the activities (parents, teachers and students). As the one at the left.

We are going to start explaining students’ activity for acquiring our goal: making them learn to live together.

The main objective is that students interact with each other, respecting everyone and putting into practice various values that everyone should treat, for example: generosity, help, empathy, responsibility, etc. They must be able to live together, all this will help us to promote equality on them, inclusion. To carry out this learning model, we would like to do group activities in the classes, and so that they interact with everyone, we would like to change the members of the groups every week. So, there will be activities every week, for example: songs in which they tell everything they have learned during that week, poems, drawings, etc. The individual activities will be presented to all the classmates, so that students get used to talk in public.

For example, we have thought of an activity that consists on asking to our students to make a drawing of the members of the small group they belong to on that week, as we have already said, this group will be changed every week in order to establish a good relationship between all students and to promote inclusion, so they will have to repeat the drawing as soon as they change the group. We think that the pictures will help us to see the students’ perspective about their classmates and if it exists any type of discrimination, try to solve it as soon as possible. The drawings could also be about their families, to try to teach children that the family does not have to be a father and a mother, so that from a young age they know the importance of inclusion to diversity. Teach them for example that there are different family structures and that sex does not define gender. They are not simply things that should know, but things that can be found in every class, so, to avoid any discrimination when encountering cases that they are not used to, we must normalize it so that they can live together, without mattering nothing more but the comfort of every student.

On our practical case, we have a transsexual girl on class, she will be called in the way she feels more comfortable. But, we do not need a transsexual girl or boy for showing the students that they have to respect diversity. Of course, so that this girl is comfortable, everything as possible should be done, connecting students, families and teachers, everyone must contribute everything as possible to prevent, problems and bullying among other things.

Although, to motivate the students, there will be a tree on the classroom wall. On this tree, each student will have a monkey, as the week goes by, and things go well, the monkey will go up. And at the end of the week the monkeys of all students should be at the top of the tree. The things that will be valued for the monkey to climb will be for example: if they interact well with their classmates, if they respect each other and share their things, etc. They must do actions to raise, and once they reach the top, they will have kind of prize.

Another similar thing, would be that each student at the beginning of the week has a flower without petals. As the days go by, or at the end of the week, the children will add petals. Each petal has a value: responsibility, respect, generous, care, empathy and interact with the partners. Before leaving on the weekend, the children should add petals to their flowers, depending on how their week has gone, ideally, they should have the whole flower.

Now we are going to proceed to explain the part that would fall to the team of teachers:

Teachers are an essential part on the children’s development, so that is why we consider this activity is also very important to be done. The activity that we have to work with other teachers is about “to live together” and will consist of a meeting in which we will treat mainly the topic of inclusion. Firstly, teachers should define or explain what they understand of the word inclusion, talk about their point of view about some topics like the homophobia, racism, and other types of possible discrimination, to see if the perspectives are similar and agree on if they should teach any values in their classes and which of them. Then, the teachers will have to describe their points of view of our students, their weakness and their strengths, trying to reach an agreement on how to solve the weaknesses. We will also show them the kid’s drawings of their classmates and of their families, to know also their opinion about it. Maybe with all our points of view it is easier to help any student that has a problem.

Finally, we will explain them the case of a transsexual student, and try to create classes with innovative and inclusive activities to obtain every kid feels comfortable, and as we have said in the previous activity, the groups should be changed every week in order to every student talks to all. Every student must take part on the activities that the teacher proposes without shy, or fear about what they can think the rest of the class about what they say.

These are some proposals that can be made in some subjects: In arts and crafts: The kids should make a drawing of their classmates to observe as they see them if there is a good relationship of if there is any problem with any learner, because the children make this drawing unconsciously and the teachers should perceive if there is something strange, and other picture of their family and make them explain why they have drawn like that, how they feel at home, also to help us to decide if the familiar relationship is favourable for the development of the child. In physical education: whenever they have to make any sport the teacher should mix girls and boys in the same groups in order to have balanced sports teams, and also motivate all of them to participate in the class, because as we have said, some students do not participate in class because they are shy or insecure because of what can think the others about them. And in other subjects, try to make similar activities that imply working on groups promoting the inclusion which it is our main goal.

And finally, and not less important, we are explaining parents’ activity.

Our intention is to organise a meeting with the parents of the students at the beginning of the scholar year. In this meeting we will show and explain them what activities the teachers will develop with the students to work on the topic “teaching to live together”. Also, the purpose of this meeting will be talking with parents about inclusivity and the special needs of every child, highlighting some of the values that our school defends and promotes.

The meeting will have some main points that the tutors will have to cover up, in first place they will talk about general issues, then about inclusivity, in third place about some specific cases and in last place we will show them the activities the teachers are going to organise to get to the main objective.  

With general issues we mean it is important to clarify parents that in our school we want to instil in them values of respect and love. This means that one of our main purposes is to create a school in which every child respects the others. Promoting these values will create a comfortable climate in the class, this will benefit every single student.

Talking about inclusivity, we want to advertise them that in this school children with some special needs will be admitted. So, there is a possibility that in their son or daughter class it can be a kid with special needs. The rest of the students will have to empathise with them and give them help when needed. Also, it is important to highlight that those students who make rude comments or actions to those that have special needs, will be punished. All students of the class should feel part of a team, not having to worry about their intellectual capacity, their gender or race. With inclusivity we also want to talk about the different family structures, transmitting our acceptance. 

In the specific cases section, they will be advertised about some children and what it’s their situation. This is made to prevent future problems with the students. We will talk about a case that concerns us, a transsexual student. The name of this student cannot be revealed, but they have to know this situation in case someday their children get home talking about this and asking questions. Of course, we recommend parents to transmit them acceptance towards the situation. When reading the class list, this kid will be named as the way he feels identified. We are going to remember parents that if any of their children need any specific measure, or they think it is important for us to know about their particular situation, we will be pleased if they let us know.

One of the main activities to deal with the chosen topic is the control notebook. We will always like to have communication between families and teachers, so we find interesting having a control notebook in which each teacher will write about the different values of the children in all subjects, accepting also parents’ comments. The values that will be qualified are the next ones: care, responsibility, respect, generosity, interaction with partners and empathy. These values will be evaluated by: improvable, good and excellent. They should try to improve among time passes. As we mentioned before, students have a tree through which their monkey will try to reach the top doing good things, the same happens with the flower, that will have to end up full of petals. But these things are only seeing by the students, that is why we think is a good idea having this notebook to make parents know everything.

I really like this activity, I enjoyed a lot doing it, and I feel like a real tutor. Without a doubt the activity that I liked the most about the degree. 

The teacher told us that we have made a very good job, and that motivate us a lot.