7 july 2016

The trace of time involves the irretrievably change of educative structures.  Whether due to political, social or technological changes, education is one of the fields that changes most with the progress of societies. The arrival of the new technologies, as well as the change of social policies are changing, little by little, the world’s appearance. But, is it actually affecting education?

The question is not if these changes are affecting education, but if education is responding to them accordingly. Children today see the world through a different prism from their parents, they have access to new tools and they don’t have the same worries as their parents. That is why it is so important that teachers know to adapt to this new perspective, and that they get to offer an education in accordance.

César Bona reflects about all these points on his book La nueva educación. Bona is teacher of 5º of primary school in the school Puerta de Sancho of Zaragoza, and he is considered by many people as the ‘best teacher of Spain’. So much so that, the last year, Bona was in the list of the 50 candidates for the Global Teacher Prize (also know as Nobel Prize in Education).

‘La nueva educación’ navigates in the current educative panorama, and presents not a methodology, but a new way to understand classrooms and children. One of the most important things in education, according to the book is to enhance and gain the interest of students. People don’t stop learning because they grow up, but because they lose the curiosity. That is why Bona emphasises in the importance that teachers try to keep alive that sparkle of curiosity in their students.

Student’s autonomy is also important. Children need to have something that make them cling in the lessons, and that is teacher’s confidence. If teachers let their students explore and expose their own doubts, they will find a way to teach them through real examples with which students will feel identified.

Other of the key points that Bona treats is the reflection about homework. There is a intense debate in the educative field about if homework are counterproductive or not. In this case, Bona exposes it as follows: if we want that our children to be creative, we must give them time for it. If teachers give too much homework of their own subjects to children, with taking not account of the total accumulation of tasks, children will go from school to homework and to bed, with any space of time for being, pure and freely, themselves.