The beginning of the year has become a real headache for the political authorities, terrified by a wave of school infections, and this has led to a not minor problem: the agenda that was left halfway in 2019-2020. Because the students have attended the third term from home with an improvised methodology and the gaps are evident. After the multisectoral conference on Thursday, Minister Isabel Celaá assured that this scenario is foreseen in the June agreement with the autonomies: “It should be the centers that make the curricular adaptations to readapt the essential learning contents, although obviously they must be guided by the educational authorities of their communities ”. If she added: “The ministry, as always, is available to help the autonomies in this work. Now it is not only necessary to do a cognitive accompaniment in the needs of the students, but also an emotional one. The educational centers have already prepared their protocols ”.
Vicent Mañes, president of the federation association of directors of primary and infant centers Fedeip ―which groups 2,500 professionals―, reports a great involvement of the cloister in this pedagogical facet. "In the Valencian Community, where I live, they have made the protocols and I have evidence that also in most of the communities because this emanated from guidelines from the ministry. Although then the degree of regulation is different in each community ”. Nicolás Fernández Guisado, general secretary of the ANPE public teachers' union, nonetheless believes that this aspect has hardly been addressed.
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“The general approach in the last quarter was to recommend not to advance content, that everything be reinforcement and that all this be concentrated in the didactic programs of this course. We are talking a lot about thermometers, gels, outings ... and not academic content, ”Mañes continues. Remember that in June the schools had to make individualized reports of the students with the contents that had stopped working and with the degree of achievement of the third term work. “This is the starting point for programming this course. There are several options: dedicate the first two months to working on the contents of the previous course and then schedule the next course in a different way, or integrate the contents not worked on in the course in its programming ”. Different options because "it is left at the free disposal of each center as there is pedagogical autonomy," says the Valencian teacher.
Raimundo de los Reyes, president of the federation of high school directors (Fedadi), explains that in high school content progress was only made if there were guarantees that the entire class had access to the information and, in any case, it was not evaluated. He has drawn up the protocol for his institute based on the so-called "continuity plan" drawn up by the Government of Murcia. “It explained how the programming had to be reworked, so that what had been left out was taken into account, and from that, what was essential to recover. And that, in turn, be taken into account based on the different scenarios [of isolation] that may exist ”.
"We are talking a lot about thermometers, gels, outings ... and not academic content"
The unfolding of the groups to avoid contagion will favor the review but the person in charge of ANPE doubts very much that the 41,000 contracts announced by the autonomies will end up being a reality. “I have not seen them. Let's see what part of them are retirements ”, he recommends. According to his calculations, 50,000 teachers would be needed in public education alone to increase the cloisters by 10%.
“The problem, more than the subjects, is the formula in which we have worked. In nursery and primary education we work not only on content, but on ways of working. Interaction and socialization are vital in these stages ”, Mañes continues. That is why she believes that at those ages the contents at this stage are easier to recover. “Now we have to focus a lot on the emotional aspects - there are children who have been affected a lot - and on adapting the methodology to the new conditions. We will not be able to work in groups ”.
Information about the coronavirus
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- Search engine: The new normal by municipalities
- Guide to action against the disease
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