How can we make our school a better place to learn and to enjoy?

 

Shared by Milagros López:

How can we make our school a better place to learn and to enjoy?        

On the one hand, I attach some photos in which I show the ways in which the aspect of our schools can be improved: murals, signs, temporary or permanent exhibitions using different materials.

On the other hand, I show you our school playground: sad, depressive… suitable just for those who want to play football or basketball. How can we improve it so that our students find a nice and relaxing place to have a break or even to attend some lesson? How can we make our “patio” an inclusive place where all our students find their own space?

The unit I have chosen is entitled “Street Art”, but I have changed it to “Art in my life” in order to design my unit project, which will be aimed to students of 3º of E.S.O. To engage my students, I will show them some patios from different jails in Spain. Some of them are quite similar to our patio/playground. Others are much better than ours. Then I will show them photos from patios/playgrounds in high schools, included our own. And finally, I will show them some photos from patios in high schools which are really nice places, where you would like to be during your breaks. In this gallery of pictures I will also include the inside of some hospitals and some high schools (depressingly similar) I will use the “I see” / “I think” / “I wonder” technique so that they can reflect on what they have just seen. In groups, they will share their thoughts and then the whole class will point out the best and the worst elements in each picture. The driving question would be:

“How can we make our school a better place to learn and enjoy?”

In this sense the audience will be the school community, as the project will be centered in our own school. The vocabulary I have chosen will be related to art (pictures and scultures) and to those tools and materials (reclycled things will be a “must”) needed to create art. Some of the cooperative tasks students will work with is the Jigsaw. Each group will be expert in the following fields: sort of pictures which can be used in walls, doors, stairs and so on; sort of scultures which can be placed in corridors, toilets or windowsills; materials which can be used to carry out their ideas; tools needed and how can we get them. Once they have investigated, they will do an oral presentation to the rest of the class. A debate can follow in order to analised the weak and strong points of the ideas presented.

Then they will work in different tasks which will contribute to elaborate the final product, which could be an exposition of all the ideas presented. This can be displayed in the hall of our school so that everybody can see it and maybe the project can be materialized and our school becomes a better place to learn and to enjoy.