Debates

We need to star addressing that debates are very important tools to express our point of view with deep arguments. Having experienced our debates last week for the first time, I would say these were very interesting. Both debates pointed out attractive topics to reflect on. The first debate about “Professionals as teachers in schools” was highly well prepared and extremely excited at the same time. Both groups had good arguments and clear ideas. The team in favor of professionals in schools showed good management of the topic and presented some important facts. Nevertheless, the team against the topic made a high quality debate. Even though they did not have some many facts, they made an important contribution from the ethic point of view of education. Moreover, this group showed clear arguments and more passion defending education without professionals in charge and they presented important quotations from important educators.

On the other hand, referring to the second debate about “Voluntary Vote”, it was a mayor mistake. It was completed unbelievable to see both groups defending the same topic instead of one of them arguing against. However, this debate was interesting because the audience could interact and participate. According to improve, I would say that the in favor side could improve being a little bit more tolerant and more passionate. The second group against should improve looking for more facts and statistics. Referring to the team in favor of voluntary vote, they should improve their arguments being more secure and less nervous. Besides, they could have found more facts to give more support to their topic. In order to say which group won I would definitely say the team against Professionals teaching in school, for the main reason as I said before that they tried to make an important contribution from the ethic point of view of education. It does not matter if they did not have statistics or power points, but the team seemed to be clearly sure what they were discussed. Finally, I wanted to say many things at the end, but the time wasn’t enough.

What a complex task!

Keeping Students well organized and distributed in the classroom could be entirely a complex and difficult task for teachers, because of the fact that every class is heterogeneous. Every class is composed of diverse pupils with different abilities and needs. There are some students who need more attention and comprehension than others. Meanwhile, there are pupils who are very self- sufficient and independent. For this reason, having a good organization and design of a class, will help teachers to obtain optimum results in the process of student’s learning.

Referring to how to design, Jane Jacobs wrote an article called “The Death and Life of American Cities”. In her article she refers about the design of cities. Nevertheless, the main purpose Jacob’s text is to give us a reflection about how to design a classroom.

But, what teachers do to design a class? Commonly Teachers tend to separate problematic students, from those who are calmer and “smart”. Apparently this likelihood is not merely appropriated if we want to incorporate or promote interaction among students. Jane Jacobs in her work says “When two or more such hostile islands are juxtaposed the result is called “a balanced neighborhood”. (Jacob Jones, “The Death and Life of American Cities”, New York: Modern Library, 1993, page 5-7). This can be compared with a class design because learning through interaction promote a good develop of communication and respect for other’s differences. As a result we can have a “balanced neighborhood” as Jacob mentions or in this case, a balanced classroom.

On the other hand, some teachers try to put students all together in the center or in a “circle” where everyone keeps eye contact and good interaction among themselves. In this sense, this way of organization is one of the best because it encourages students to express themselves and participate as a community. Even though there exists many ways to designs a class, perhaps, the most relevant is that one who is design taking consideration student’s differences, interests, abilities, and needs. As I said before, every class is heterogeneous and it is composed of people who belong to a different context, culture and history. For this reason, before designing a class, it is imperative that teachers bear in mind carefully of this issue in every educational context.

" 11 Techniques for Better Classroom Discipline"

The article"11 Techniques for Better Classroom Discipline" written by Thomas R. McDaniel, is mainly a recapitulation of certain techniques of teaching to consider or apply in the classroom. One of the techniques that the author recommends is “Modelling” which consists in that a teacher teaches through their own behaviour. And this is because teachers are models to their students. What the author mentions is something relevant to bear in mind. While they teach, do not exactly teach just contents, but they also do teach values and students are able to perceive those. Moreover, the point of teaching values is something important to be aware of in this society which seems to have lack of these nowadays.

On the other hand, the article is not entirely useful is some way. Probably, the phrase “the teacher is the boss…”is not completely suitable to recommend us. A teacher is not a boss , he or she is a guide in student’s live, even if the teacher can have a kind of power inside the classroom. Nevertheless, according to this article, it is really interesting to read and useful to have a large knowledge of what types of strategies teachers can use for.