How a decision could change the educational future?

I would like to talk about a close experience that I know about the importance of the decisión of a teacher that can change the life of a student.

His name was Victor and to locate the place of the story we must start in 1991 the student was 7 years old, all the teachers said that this boy had ADHD (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder).

The student was in his fourth course of primary education an his attitude was very bad according with some reports of the counselor: he couldn't stop in the chair, while his partner were doing the homework he was drawing squares and strange figures with embossed.

The teacher was always calling to the mother of the student to tell her that this attitude must change or the student would be punished with extrawork or not allowed to go to the trip at the end of the term. It doesn't matter that the parents of the student quarrel Victor every day waiting for a change but all the fridays the teacher had to call again.

One day the psychologist of the school decide to interview the student. During an hour they were talking about what was the problem of the poor marks. At the end of the interview the psychologist said the student Victor wait here just a minute because I'm going to talk with your mother about you.

The psychologist closed the door and told the mother: your children doesn't have any attention deficit, the problem is that he is probably more clever than the average of the class for that reason he is boring at class.

The psychologist could continue with the idea of attention deficit and he could prescribe some medicines for be relax at class. However he advice the parent to change the school and the parents change Victor of school and he arrive to a school in which the average of the students was higher.

He started to study like a normal boy obtaining at the end of his studies a excellence award. Nowadays two years ago he ended telecommunications engineering with very good marks.

The conclusión is that we (as a teachers) can change the life of the students just with a simple decision without thinking that we can exploit all the potential of the student. I now understand very well the decision, because the student was my old brother and he is one of the most clever persons that I know, despite of be the worst student.


I find a video of SIR Ken Robinson in which something similar happens to a important dancer in which the teacher could break her creativity with a simple medicine to be relax in class.

Story Telling in Class

During this last days we have been preparing a Story Telling in class, but What Story Telling really mean for me?

In my opinión is the mixed of active learning and dynamic teaching with the final aim to create a story in which if you couldn't understant the language of the story you could know attending at the singal of the autor what he or she talking about. In other words it means that tell a story with lot of gestures and movements to help the students to participate in the story.

A good example of this story telling is the video that we have seen in class

 

 

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Starting With Jolly Phonics

I would like to start this blog with a good example of Jolly Phonics that we have seen in class.

I strongly believe that Jolly Phonics help a lot the students to relate the meaning of the words with an image just with the use of a simple song.
During the last practicum periods I could check that students remember better things that they have learnt with a song than to study from a book.

Children also learn how to pronounce and articulate in the right way so they will never forget it improving in every class they're list of vocabulary.