2nd PROJECT – "OUR IDEAL SCHOOL" (Simona)

In our second project we had to make a video about the ideal school. It was important that the video sums up all the important criteria that a good school should have, regarding the structure of the building itself, the work between the staff (professional community), the working environment and last but not least, the most important thing: the work in the classroom with children. As listed below, I will comment on each group's video.

The questions I will answer to are the following: What are the main ideas? Why is it creative? What do I like the best?

·      Futupasta:

This group decided to make a video using a scene from Futurama. The main idea is that a group of friends travels to the past and to the future to be able to find out what has to be done to improve school. I think that they included important ideas and most of all I liked the part where "Paloma" is reading a tale to the kids, telling them about the ideal school and how the structure should be. We saw in the video that it is important to respect the children and let them learn in different ways according to their interests. Furthermore, they show how a school and teachers (robot) nowadays fail if they are not scaffolding for the children or don't let them learn autonomously. I think that they adapted very well the ideas and included a lot of methodologies that have to be changed in our schools. It is also very creative and you can understand perfectly what they say in the video.

·      The differents:

A very funny video, that shows in his first part a scene from Simpsons, where they transmit the problems that our schools have. We can see that the children don't like to learn, they don't respect their teachers, don't develop or to things they like. To describe the bad reputation of teachers they show a scene with Homer that wants to be a teacher, saying that it is easy and everybody can do it. I liked that idea, because what happens nowadays is that a lot of people who are not qualified choose the career of a professor only for the reason that it is easy to get in. In the second part, one member of the group draws the structure of their ideal school, which is very well done because it contains a lot of important facilities where children and the staff can feel comfortable. The part I like best is the one where the group learns an English song through moving and dancing. Movement, songs, and such creative things are the best way to learn things.

·      Rigatonys:

I found their video amazing and very funny. The main ideas they treated were the situation in some of our current schools, where we saw a teacher shouting at his class. That teacher was the exact opposite of how a good pedagogue should be and was unhappy with his class and his job. So in the first part the group tried to transmit us, where our school system fails nowadays. The second part they did consists of interviews with teachers and students of a primary school. I found it very interesting and I also think, that the questions they asked the pedagogues were well chosen. They asked them for example, what they would change. Some of the answers were: less books, more activities, more experimental classes. The hear the children's opinion was also very interesting to hear, since they commented that they like to work in groups (cooperative learning) and they find that they get way too much homework. In the second part, three teachers decided to travel to the future to see how a school should be. They learned a lot of things that they should improve and got to know new technologies.

In the third part, they show videos of the structure of their ideal school, which is separated in two buildings (school itself and sports facilities). From my point of view, the video is very good because it shows first the organizational issues our system has. Furthermore, it is creative and funny and the group combined a lot of ideas. What I liked best, was the interview with the children, because I think that we should ask them more often about what they feel.

·      La Banda del Patio:

The idea of this group was to make a video, using a scene from the well known animated film for kids "School's Out", produced by Walt Disney, which I also used to watch as a child. The main ideas were that the children thought about how they could improve their own school, relating to the work in class and the teacher's community. They emphasized that it's important to have facilities for people with disabilities and that it is important to support the student's critical thinking. Although it was a little bit short, I think that they did a good job in choosing a scene from soap for children, which fitted very well on the topic of this project.

·      Rolkids:

This group combined a lot of different things, which I personally liked a lot. They decided to present the main theoretical ideas in form of a magazine. It included important things that describe an ideal school. Related to creativity, they absolutely did a good job and also chose very nice and interesting videos. The first one was about Pedro, a deaf boy, and his first day at school. The barriers that such children have in school are shown as a monster, which can only be beaten if all work together and do their best so everyone can be able to understand the content, learn and do the best out of his potential.