Friday, 29 April 2016
Day 6
Technical schools and good practices.
Time flies, we know. It seems we have been here just one day, and it is already time to start to assess our Icelandic experience.
In the morning I visit a Technical School which includes also a Gymnasium.
It is for students over 16, after they have completed compulsory education.
The 3 years of gymnasium are especially for those who want to go to university. They work on projects and study the subjects they will need to pass the entry tests at university.
The technical school offers a wide variety of specializations, from house painting to gold-working, from computer programming to wood-working.
In Iceland, school is not seen (only) as a regular track that you finish once for ever.
We have learnt by know that students have individualized curricula.
If they are extremely good at a subject, they can finish studying it before the natural end of the course. If they are good at English, for example, or at maths, they can take the final exam when they and their teachers deem good. And if they pass the exam, they will not have to attend that subject any more, ore use those ours to attend other courses that they can find interesting.
The curriculum is therefore flexible. Students with special needs (ranging from disabilities to the study of Icelandic for newcomers) have the possibility to skip some classes to focus on what they need more in that special moment.
And again, Icelanders may abandon school (after compulsory education), but they can also come back to it when they are older, or when they need new qualifications.
What has happend in the past years, is that Icelanders left school
en masse when economy was doing very well. Then, after the crisis of 2008, they went back to school to get new qualifications. Now, that economy is doing well again, especially because of tourism, they are abandoning school again.
The school we visit is a private one, but funded by the state. Is is the result of the merger of very old schools and academies, like the ones to become sea captains or airplane pilots.
Learning is based on projects. Here, for example, they are preparing the final exam in house painting.
Students don't have a specific time schedule. They are followed by a mentor who is available at specific times.
Unfortunately, today all the classes in Gymansium are out of school, or they are sitting final exams.
Therefore, we visit the vocational section, with its great workshops.
Wood-working
gold-working
computer design
book-binding
In all workshops the unmissable
koffi machine:
There is a big canteen, where prices are not necessarily better than in town:
A very interesting thing is that students, especially those specializing in creative subjects, produce every year a magazine with their profiles:
The idea sounds rather good and effective, because students can use the magazine as personal portfolios, and they can show it to those who might hire them for a new job:
The school seems very active, encourageing creativity and project-work. The atmosphere is very relaxed, as you might expect more at a university than at a secondary school.
The school uses social media to interact with students, answering questions and giving them help.
AFTERNOON:
Seminar on Professional Development
Back at Vaettaskoli, we have lunch with delicious salmon.
The afternoon is devoted to the presentations of those of us who will have to leave early tomorrow, and to present good practices that might be used by colleagues.
Exchanging ideas and experiences is probably the best part of the whole week.
Elena form Greece tells us about a project work of her primary school pupils who produced models of the solar system; colleagues from Spain proposed flipped-classroom activities on poetry; Tiina form Finland presents a project-work which uses the whole city of Helsinki as a textbook, where students have to perform activities related to memorials or statues which commemorate national writers; Markus from Germany speaks about a project where students observe wild nature in local parks.
Many more ideas and projects are presented.
One that I find especially easy to apply to my work at school is suggested by Carlos, from Tenerife.
He proposes to use poems to rewrite them: imitate them, parody them, partially cancel them.
Our Portuguese colleagues show the wonderful technology they use at their school: they really look cutting edge in this field, and we should ask them to share their skills with us!
I have spoken about the need I feel in my school to escape from the national obsession with culture, and to lead students to ask, and not only to answer. This might stimulate their curiosity, lead them to formulate hypothesis, and look for answers.
It might also be a way to let them ask question about us as teachers, avoiding the neutrality we are normally plunged in and becoming human beings who have experiences and stories to tell.
REFLECTIVE JOURNAL
Technical
school visit. Students learn a variety of subjects. The school is private, but
funded by the state.
Creativity is
encouraged. Students produce a magazine every year that can be used as personal
portfolios.