Separate subjects are extracts or selections from the different disciplines of knowledge, that are given in isolation. This selection represents the ideals and the pattern of the dominant culture, reflecting a single reality.
In them, knowledge is decontextualised from social issues, because it does not connect learnings to such situations. This makes it impossible for children to adapt properly to the society. Moreover, this produces a lack of significance, since it is impossible a connection between acquiered and previous knowledge.
Separate subjects are the knowledge, which students must achieve, being a unique and closed answer, not giving place to exploration and creativity.
From this perspective, there is a great concern for the amount of content, so there is a confrontation between learning and teaching. In addition, there is a hierarchy of subjects, and because of that, some subjects become more important than others. Finally, what we want to reflect with the video is that the existing frontiers between the different disciplines should be blurred.
References
Beane, J. A. (2005). La integración del currículum y las disciplinas del conocimiento. En J. A. Beane, La integración del currículum, pp. 61-71. Madrid: Morata.
Authorship
Yarina Alonso Mediavilla, Alicia Castanedo Cubas y Sara Gestera Aramburu, 2020.
Infantilization refers to the attitude that adults have towards children, based on the contempt and undervaluation of their abilities, since they consider that they are not capable and treat them as something unintelligent.
There are two infantilizing strategies.
On the one hand, we can fall into waltdisneization, in which children are kept in a fantasy world, away from social inequalities and injustices. Reality is presented to them with unreal or fantasy characters, accompanied by cartoonish descriptions, and this makes children not know how to distinguish between reality and fiction.
On the other hand, with the tourist curriculum, we bring children closer to different cultures in a banal, superficial way, with stereotypes. For this, drawings are used, which make those cultures ridiculed and devalued; and although children know that the drawings are simply drawings, a vision of these situations as something unreal is promoted and it contributes to the preservation of dominant stereotypes.
Authorship
Mirella Barcenilla Vegara, Izan Cadavieco Miguélez, Adriana Gutiérrez Lavín y Nerea Gutiérrez Suárez, 2020.
Cooperative learning was defined in the Modern School as a principle of companionship and mutual support.
It is an educational practice, that has had multitude of investigations regarding to the great academic impact and affective, social and cognitive development of students.
This learning is about working together to achieve common objectives. They are small heterogeneous groups, so they can cooperate with each other in an effective and collaborative way.
The elements that make up this learning are: mutual positive interdependence (they are unable to achieve success unless all the members of the group achieve it) simultaneous interaction, both group and individual responsibility, group self-assessment and self-regulation, and interpersonal skills (social, communicative or cooperative) in addition to participation with equal opportunities.
In an educational environment, this is the more relevant or used form of defining the Curriculum word. The curriculum is defined as a series of units of contents in order to carry out an easy learning, supporting the previous units which pupils already control. The problem of curriculum as content is that it drives out any mention of the educative process and omits the issues of cultural selection. This meaning of curriculum could be understood as a tool of spreading the knowledge in a reproductive way. It is a script that must be followed strictly, ignoring all of the aspects out of the scholar field.
Authorship
Andrea Castillo García, Celia Barbadillo y Elena Barquín, 2020.
The psychologization of social, sexist and racial problems is a way of explaining situations of marginality by focusing on the individual without taking into account the social structures of power, which are the cause of such situations of marginality.
For example, in this period of confinement, there were families that had problems in providing technological resources so that their children could follow online education; in that situation, some media blamed families for the scarcity of these resources, instead of seeing the existing responsibility in society.
Authorship
Alejandra Díaz Heredia, Marina Calleja de la Fuente, Rocío García Rasines y Ana Fanjul Cobo, 2020.
Project learning in the classroom is an innovative educational method that arises from Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. This methodology allows children to acquire knowledge and skills by becoming protagonists of their own learning. In this way, they will be able to develop their autonomy by being responsible for planning, structuring, implementing and evaluating their own work. That is, they can actively participate in their own educational process. This perspective tries to claim the transgressive and creative potential of work projects based on the search for non-fragmented knowledge and the development of an integrated curriculum.
To carry out this work plan, we must take into account what we want to do, why we are going to do it, what we are going to need, what we will do it with, where we can find what is necessary, and who is going to do each task and how.
“Workshop are an organization of entertainment or educational activities that uses concrete intelligence, assisted by manual motor skills, for the production of objects. A workshop tends to provide the necessary bases for the knowledge of a profession or for the gestural and intellectual training essential to later occupy a job. By extension, the term workshop also designates the place in which such activity takes place or the group that engages in it ” (Vigy, 1986, cited in López 1997, p.36)
Some of the characteristics or facets that constitute the workshops can be specified from the ideas presented by Borghi (2005).
Workshops can be used in many ways since, in some cases, you may choose to carry out a single workshop, thus giving the school a specific identity and, in other cases, you can opt for the versatility of workshops.
In addition, in terms of materials, they can be specific and specialized, therefore, aimed at the development of certain tasks or, on the contrary, non-specialized materials (ones, such as stones, ropes, etc.), so that it is very useful for many enriching activities. However, the absence of specific materials would not allow the specificity of the workshop to be established, but it would be necessary not to lose focus on the objectives of the dynamics.
On the other hand, the presence of several teachers can occur simultaneously in the same class, favoring the division of tasks and the use of specialized skills. This can be beneficial if it is used in an enriching way but is at risk of opting for excessive specialization, leaving aside other fields. In the workshops, without giving up the role of teacher guide, stimuli arise from the context and from other infants, so special importance is given to the learning context, leaving the teacher more on the sidelines.
The vision that is put on the workshops can be very contradictory, since they can be welcomed as separate and exceptional activities within the school routine or, on the contrary, integrated as part of the school’s day today and an opportunity for more experiences .
Regarding workshops we can find two different organizational modalities: outside the school and within it.
Within the school, workshops can be understood as a specific, alternative and complementary space to the class spaces (work corners), in which ad hoc activities are developed with a single objective. On the contrary and preferably, workshops can be conceived from the versatility, where the school cares about each one of the infants, valuing their individualities and diversity, offering them different multipurpose spaces for their development.
Regarding the fulfilment of workshops outside the school, we can find three privileged spaces for their attainment. The first of them, in the open air (in farms, orchards, the garden, etc.) where the natural activities of observation and experimentation will prevail. On the other hand, we find the environment close to the school surroundings, in which a visit to the garden, the park or the forest can offer us abundant activities. And finally, the city’s resources can offer us the opportunity to make cultural visits to museums, associations, libraries, etc.
References
Borghi, B. Q. (2005). Los talleres en educación infantil: espacios de crecimiento (Vol. 12). Graó.
López, S. T. (1997). Talleres y rincones en educación infantil: su vigencia psicopedagógica hoy. Comunicación presentada en el Congreso de Córdoba.
Para realizar esta actividad de documentación en la escuela infantil me he centrado en el juego y más específicamente en el juego simbólico, pues el juego tiene un papel fundamental en el desarrollo integral de los niños. El juego motiva y facilita el aprendizaje.
A lo largo de mis estudios y de las prácticas realizadas en centros educativos he podido observar la importancia del juego en el proceso de enseñanza – aprendizaje.
El juego simbólico permite desarrollar la función simbólica en los niños, la cual es muy importante en el proceso de socialización y para el conocimiento de la realidad. Los niños, son los protagonistas de su propio aprendizaje, interaccionan con otros niños y establecen roles en los que tienden a imitar la realidad o el contexto en el que se desarrollan.
La función simbólica, permite hacer visible un objeto o un acontecimiento que no está presente, a través de algún sistema de representación: gestos, imagen mental, lenguaje, dibujo, acciones significantes, juegos de ficción…
El juego simbólico permite la asociación de un objeto cotidiano con la acción que el niño realiza con él.
Mediante el juego, el niño interpreta sus experiencias y establece reglas, y todo ello le permite asimilar y aprender. El “juego simbólico” es un mecanismo de descontextualización y de desarrollo de la función simbólica.
La función simbólica es importante, pues permite asimilar de forma lúdica aprendizajes y conocimientos sobre el contexto físico y social a través de juegos, palabras, objetos… que les permiten explorar dicho contexto.
En un principio la actividad se centra en el propio cuerpo y va evolucionando progresivamente e incorporando objetos que le rodean.
Mas o menos al año y medio el niño es capaz de imitar acciones sin tener presente el objeto que las provoca y puede crear situaciones que reproducen hechos reales que ha vivido. Son estas situaciones las que llamamos juego simbólico.
El niño comienza por imitar hechos muy próximos a la situación real vivida, comienza a hacer imitaciones de situaciones que él realiza habitualmente, por ejemplo, hace como que come, duerme…para evolucionar y trasladarlas a otros, por ejemplo dar de comer. Es en este momento, cuando juega por ejemplo con muñecas y les da de comer, o lava o peina, cuando el niño imita lo que los adultos más próximos hacen con él, para finalmente no sólo imitar, sino que se identifica con lo que está representando.
A través de la observación he podido comprobar que la imaginación todavía no está muy presente en la etapa 0 -3, es más adelante cuando los niños son capaces de enriquecer y construir situaciones más complejas y compartirlas con otros niños.( jugar a mamás y papás). En el aula de dos años si he podido observar alguna situación en la que la imaginación está más presente que la imitación.
El juego simbólico es primordial para el desarrollo cognitivo del niño, pues para entender diferentes ideas y situaciones es necesario ponerlas en práctica de forma simbólica.
He podido constatar que ha través de diferentes situaciones de juego, el niño es capaz de separar los objetos reales de su significado apoyándose en un objeto sustituto que posee propiedades semejantes al objeto real, por ejemplo, un bloque de las construcciones hace de coche o un palo de madera hace de cuchara.
El juego simbólico favorece el desarrollo y adquisición del lenguaje, así como la relación y la interacción de los niños con los demás y con el mundo que les rodea.
Free-play allows the students to conduct their own actions while being the protagonists of that moment (Fernández, 2014). This process is creative and ruleless, it benefits spontaneity, creativity, imagination as well as it frees the children from the pressure they may feel and it allows them to get on in an independent way (Caurcel, 2010). Therefore, free and spontaneous play is very essential for it promotes creativity and generates pleasure in the people who participate in it (Arnaiz, de Basterrechea y Carreño, 2011).
Spanish schools, at the beginning of the 20th century started to position themselves on a more transformative and whole view of childhood; this process wanted to leave behind the rote and intellectualist approach and focus the process of teaching and learning on the children, which also helped the value of the ludic activities to be recognised (Rico, 2007).
Although nowadays the importance of free-play is well known for its benefits, it still lacks opportunities for it to be appreciated. The concept of free-play that we explain in this document is not related to the reality that this process goes through in schools. In spite of the awareness of the teachers about the importance of free-playing they are still resistant to leave time for it in class. This usually happens because these teachers still have a more traditionalist view of playing. They may see it as a spare time activity with no correlation to education. Alternatively, the goal is to not see it as a waste of time but as something rich and productive within the educational process (Rico, 2007).
Certain reason as to why free-playing lacks rich and educational purposes are as followed: lack of pedagogical training the teachers have, the lack of support from the administrative team, the opinions of the families, the pressure of the curricular content and the ratio of students per classroom.
As we mentioned earlier, teachers do not count with a strong support from the administrative team of the school to add the free-playing to their programme, as well as they are not given enough and a specific time for this activity (Mañós, Balagué, Virgili y Montalá, 2019). Moreover, Malaguzzi (2011) tells us about the need of a timeless time, without any rushes, where every kid does as they please, experimenting, building relationships and knowledge. Children have different ways of interacting with people, different ways of expressing themselves and experimenting, so, this process needs to have its own time respecting every child’s right to have their rhythm.
Having finished seeing the reality of free-playing in schools, we can conclude there is no correlation between the traits of free-playing in reality and the concepts we went through in this paper. One of these concepts is that each individual has different way of participating, understanding, contemplating, playing and interpreting and these should be done in a free context. If we allow this process to happen, we will allow the kids to create their own map through the unconscious and the mental representations of the reality (consciousness) (Abad, 2008). In a similar way, children conceive playing as their own basic way to act. Even though they do it for pleasure, the main reason behind this activity is because the feel the need to do it (Arnaiz, de Basterrechea, Carreño, 2011).
For this process to be done correctly, adults, specifically teachers, must present materials in an organised way so that it can provoke a sense of transformation in the children. In this way, the kids will be able to make the places of play their own, physically and mentally. In free-play there should be place for disorganising, destruction, reuse of materials, etc. Teachers must see this process not as an error, but as a way of getting to know the children in a more global way while using the observation as a way of documenting (Abad, 2008).
Using a real-life example, there is a proposal of a teacher of a three years olds classroom that includes a crib, a bench and some fabric. This teacher got mad at the fact that the students did not go through the materials as she had planned but instead, they went in a completely different direction.
We have to take into account that playing is not a one-room activity, but it is recommendable to take place in other spaces outside of the classroom. A more natural surrounding is beneficial thus the free-play enables the students to enjoy, experimenting and learning in a more global way. An example can be school trips in the outside (Rico, 2007).
Once we have seen the evolution of the concepts of free-playing throughout the years and the ones that we have now in the school context, we can say that students are not getting everything they can from it. Schools tend to rely on publishing houses that offer them pseud-games that are far from giving the children the liberty of action that they deserve. The fact that they kids are told the “limits” that certain materials have also limits their learning. Moreover, as we mentioned earlier, the time for creating and experimenting is overlapped by the obligatory assignments that they have to do. as a result, playing has way less time than these previous activities (Hoyuelos, 2015). Playing is not wasting time, but limiting the possibilities of reaching a full growth.
References
Abad, J. (2008). El Placer y el Displacer en el Juego Espontáneo Infantil. Arteterapia- Papeles de arteterapia y educación artística para la inclusión social, 167-188.
Caurcel, M. J. (2010). Contextos de desarrollo y juego en la edad infantil. En A. Muñoz García, Psicología del desarrollo en la etapa de Educación Infantil (págs. 176-193). Madrid: Pirámide.
Fernández, L. (2014). El juego libre y espontáneo en educación infantil. Una experiencia práctica. Santander.
Hoyuelos, A. (2015). Cultura de la infancia y ámbitos de juego. En A. Hoyuelos, & M. A. Riera, Complejidad y relaciones en educación infantil (págs. 113-130). Barcelona: Rosa Sensat
Mañós, R. V., Balagué, À. G., Virgili, N. A., &Montalá, M. D. (2019). Percepción de los maestros sobre el derecho al juego libre en educación infantil y educación primaria. Estudio desarrollado en Barcelona (España). Bordón. Revista de Pedagogía, 71(4), 151-165.
Rico, A. P. (2007). Consideraciones pedagógicas sobre los valores y posibilidades educativas del juego en la España contemporánea (1876-1936). Historia de la Educación, 26.
Authorship
Laura Cabeza Badía y Cristina Rojo Santamaría, 2020.
This document will relate about the lunch time in early childhood education, giving to this moment its full pedagogical value and highlighting its relevance to stay healthy and develop healthy food practices.
By remembering our practicum experiences in different schools, we all came to the same conclusion: in the lunch time, the children who we were attending, they all were watching all kinds of videos, like movies, songs, cartoons…, instead of talking and interacting with each other. According to Ritscher (2010), to promote the development of autonomy it is highly recommended to avoid such practices with the aim of “mislead” children, since these practices only feed the child but they do not promote the capacities of taste and sensation.
However, one of these three practicum experiences is quite opposite to the rest. In this specific case, children do interact with each other about what they were interested in, as well as they help each other, and the teacher would not silence the dialogues. This way the children could talk with the classmate sitting next to them but also with the whole group. To concrete these dialogues, we will give some examples. They would ask each other about their birthdays parties, who will assist to which party, they would also ask each other about what food preferences they had, they even help each other by opening the plastic packaging and last one but not least, they would also encourage to finish their food to the classmates that were always the last ones.
Talking about the types of food that were brought to the schools, we have compared some schools with others. In some schools, there was a weekly calendar in which day was programmed with different type of food (yogurt, cereals, fruit…) to promote a varied and balanced diet. In other schools it was free choice.
A common aspect that we have found in this weekly organization of the breakfast is that some families did not respect this weekly calendar and they did not offer to their children variety of healthy foods.
As Thió (2011) defends, children have to confront situations that develop their autonomy, with challenges that gradually develop it. However, this has not been like that in our practicum experiences in the schools, because teachers did the small achievements of the students themselves, like opening the wrappers or serving water in the glasses. It did not really promote the autonomy of the children. The teachers did it that way because they wanted to finish lunch time as soon as possible to do other activities.
In conclusion, we can affirm that it is not given enough pedagogical value to lunch time in the schools, because the objective is saving time and take advantage of it to do useful activities where lunch time is excluded.
References
Ritscher, P. (2010). Comer con todo detalle. In-fan-cia, 119, 25-27.
Thió, C. (2011). La comida más allá de la nutrición: Autonomía, autoestima, responsabilidad. Aula de Infantil, 59, 44-45.