As in the article is stated, we are not only professionals whose mission is to check the stipulated contents for each level, but we have the responsibility to guide the students’ learning towards the total fulfillment of the expected goals. Off course this only can be possible through the design of the different units, which gives the guidelines to be clear on what we want to get, and how we might get it. These are the two most important factors that must be taken into account at the moment to start any teaching process. Personally I consider that if we have in mind both, the expected results will be come true more easily, because we will be ready to face any unforeseen event, applying the experience gained in the previous years. The idea is to make students aware about what is the purpose of the class and work together in order to achieve it, however for this sake, there must be coherence between the proposed goals and how they can be reached. It means that we always have to keep in mind what to teach and how to teach all the time, focusing our teaching practices on this logic.
The framework of our teaching and learning priorities will help us to design our lessons respecting the established standards as well as to respond to the demands made by the different students. However the problem is that there is not a real match between what teachers are looking for and what the curriculum says because the latter is more worried about the coverage of the contents (quantity) than the use that students can give them in a real context (quality). Therefore the question is how we can open the door to understanding if the government policies state other goals as ideal. This is the mismatch that the current system shows, which provokes confusion especially during the design stage, constraining us to design our contents, regarding the curriculum expectations. Obviously this incoherence affects the fulfillment of the expected goals, because the application of what we have learnt through the reading of the different chapters can not be carried out in the classroom. For example: the use of tasks which guide students to get a real understanding from the contents , the use of assessment as a way to collect enough evidences to say whether the students achieved the expected results or not , and the procedures that can fulfill them.
Undoubtedly we need to make a shift related to work for goals in common, which point to plan tasks based on their application and not only on their coverage, making the learning a more meaningful process by the students what would bring as a consequence the improvement of the current educational system.
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Indeed, I dare saying that Chilean education is full of the mismatches you speak about. Just think of what national education policies ask for, what you can actually do at classroom level, and what it is evidenced when assessing students, and what it is evidenced when asessing teachers too. ‘It is quite a challenging task even for the most skillful mechanic putting a 40 million Peso Mercedez engine on an old- fashioned worn second hand Fiat 128 chassis assuming that it will work fine’, as one of my teachers at ULS referred to of the national state of affairs regarding education, specially TEFL. Indeed, life is full of incoherencies, but it is in our education system where we can confirm them, and see that, despite all of the talk we are so fond of hearing from authorites, so-called experts and whoever that is ‘committed’ to improve learning, it is not very likely that things change in a nutshell.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I insist on the point that, at least, we, 'the tiny spot in this infinite galaxy of TEFL' can contribute with our one gram of pedagogical yearn for change.
As I once said on one of my posts, ‘just by giving at least one ore two grams of pedagogical contribution, we are somehow helping filling this big 10 tons bag of educational change up’.
Jonathan,
ReplyDeleteas you mention at the end of your post, it is necessary to make learning a meaningful process for our students, and that will only happen if teachers have things clear before hand, so that our lessons are coherent enough to show our students that we want to take them somewhere. Otherwise we will get lost, and our students won't be able to see where they are going. They won't see the connection between our subject and real life, therefore they will think (and feel) that it is not useful to learn. So, that is our challenge, to show them that it is worth to be in a classroom, as well as to show them that we know what we are doing.
mismatches and misunderstandings are present in the educational policies, we have to make a great efort to try to find similarities between goal presented by the ministry and the reality, it is hard, but we have the tools now to try to make the connection between them.
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