HIDDEN CURRICULUM

HIDDEN CURRICULUM

DIFFERENT SCHOOLS, DIFFERENT WAYS OF TEACHING

I’m going to become a teacher, I’m studying hard for that, but now that I’m going to face my firsts exams in this degree, I wonder if all the teachers are ready to work in all the schools, as all of them are different. For instance, I am going to talk about two different schools, which are named as “A” or “B” and have different characteristics.

So, to start with, School A and School B are two very opposite schools with the same aims but with a different way to get them. In A the classes are generally smaller, with 20 students per class, and a specific teacher for each subject. In addition, each class has an interactive and electrical blackboard as it’s more practical and at the same time students are more motivated with new technologies. However, in B the classes are bigger, with 30 students per class and with the same teacher in two subjects, so the teacher is not a specialist in both subjects but at least has some knowledge about both of them.

Moreover, if we see how the subjects are being given, they have very different methods. As a has  a gym and swimming pool, they practice sports in these two places in Physical Education, but in B there aren’t any of these places, so they  have to practice the sports in a park. In Science, on the one hand, as the first school has a farm and a vegetable garden, they are able to see the animals, to plant different vegetables and see how there are growing little by little, in general they are closer to nature. On the other hand although the second school doesn’t have these things, they have some plants in the class so they can also see how they are growing.

The dining hall where pupils have lunch is very big in both schools, but the food has some differences: in A there is a buffet, where you can get whatever you want and in B I there is a menu, so you are not able to choose because it’s the only one. But I have to admit that the foot is better in the second one.

So…Are teachers being prepared to impart class in these two very opposite schools? Which one do you prefer?

                                                                                                                        

My PEER GROUP!

My peer group is very heterogeneous because it is formed by eight girls and all of us are very different. I won’t be a liar saying that in this peer group the arguments and conflicts don’t exist, because if I did that I wouldn´t tell the truth, but I really believe that it’s a great group, as we know each other since we were five years old and we know our best virtues and our worst defects. We love doing things in common, we can spend hours talking to each other, we like going to a restaurant to eat and then spending all the afternoon together in the cinema, in the bowling alley or even in the theatre, and we adore travelling together at least a whole week during the summer.

We don’t really have a leader in the group, but Laura is the one who usually makes the plans and call the others to tell us where and when we are meeting; she likes doing that and we also love it because by this way we don’t spend time thinking plans. Clara is the one who loves the party, so she finds out where the best party of the weekend is going to be placed and spends all the week trying to convince us to go there. Maria likes going out too, but she prefers doing quite plans such as going to a musical or to the theatre instead of spending all the night at the disco. That’s why Clara and Maria discuss a lot. Sandra is the funniest one, she can makes us smile even when we are really sad. Rocio is the sportswoman of our group, she plays basketball and has even taken to all of us to the stadium “Santiago Bernabeu” to see her favorite team winning by a mile. This is a topic which makes as discuss as well, because some of us love football but others hate it. Raquel is one of those who hate it, she can’t stand it. She prefers spending her time talking about famous people or of telling news about people we know, as she is the gossip of the group. Blanca is the one who usually adopts a neutral position in the conflicts that appear among us and helps the others to solver it; she is very patient with us. Instead, I can’t do that. Finally, I am the best listener. They know that they can tell me everything, because I will be there to listen to them whenever they need it. Moreover, they love the pieces of advice that I given them and I really love to help them.

Now that you know better all of us I will tell you our slogan, which is: “Fridays together, always together”. And this is because we have a custom, which is that at least we have to spend the Fridays together, and we do this because if not we would be a lot of time without seeing each other. When we started going out together we didn’t have any problem as we spent all the time together, but now that we are at the university, we have to study harder, some of us have boyfriend and others love going to their villages to spend the weekend, so our time together was disappearing little by little, until we realized that we couldn’t allow it if we wanted to continue being such a good friends, and now we know that it would be more difficult to meet all of us if we didn’t agree to make plans together on Fridays. Then, we have Saturday and Sunday to do other things with other people, if the exams and works allow it.

FROM AN ALIEN'S EYE

I would like to talk about one of my experiences in the Earth, which is the strangest planet I have ever gone.

To begin with, I was really surprised with some things: all the people had to go to a building called "school" or "university" (depending on the age), where they studied. And what does study means? It consists on memorizing a lot of words and phrases by heart.  After a week there watching them I don´t really understand why they have to study. Moreover, I saw that some students took notes writing with their hand, but others did it using a kind of machine that they called "computer"; it is something very primitive if we compare it with ours, which are so much more sophisticated. In addition to this, the students had to listen to another person who explained the leassons. That person was called "the teacher". 

Oh, yes, I would like to return, but I don’t want to study like them, I just want to find some answers.