Science and art in the school

Creation of scientific and artistic environments for developing life skills in primary school children, through a pedadogical proposal, based in planning significant estructures (giving meaning to the curriculum, through creating and solving problems), supporting cognoscitive activities (organizing learning experiences through research projects and cultural activities) in community .

After reading some authors ( Brunet, Ausubel, Galperin, Hidalgo, Piaget, Coll,Lave, Polya and Schwab) , talking for hours and sharing our experience working with children, we developed this educational  proposal that has been worked for years in some schools, but ,it has found the best place in the primary school REVOLUCIÓN MEXICANA,to grow up.  

Our proposal starts making a story with a deep scientific meaning. This story needs to be adapted to children age,so they can understand most of the vocabulary. There is one basic condition: the story must encourage children to ask all the questions they can. With the questions, one of the characteristics of modern researchers are developed. The questions made by most of the children are written in the board. Later, the children gather the questions in groups called meaning fields. This stage permits to select and organize scholar topics in significant structures.

The next step is called researching tasks. The group ,including the teacher, proposes several tasks for researching the tópica. These tasks incluye bibliographical researching (developing academic reading and writing skills), field research (involving persons enquire), experimentation,exploration, measurement and calculation, drawing, making diagrams and codexs. In this stage,we need to find people with certain skills in art, science, etc., to help us and to support the tasks. And they must help us for free or for a lower amount of money.

The last step is sharing with our wokteams ,with other groups or with our community what we have learned in this project, inside the group or in a special event, called PUBLIC EVALUATION,so the whole community can learn with us.

Our state, Oaxaca, is considered the second worst Mexican state in education. Most of our children hardly read and write comprehensively and they cannot solve  math problems. In this global world, they are not enough prepared to find an employment or to create a  job.They are exposed to be part of gangs or to be illegal immigrants.Mexican Government has blamed  only teachers for this situation. However, we, teachers, think that the problem is how we teach and how to get artistic and scientific environments with low budget, that can affect children life forever,giving them life skills and expectations.

Breaking the vicious cycle of low educacional rates, related with poverty and no expectations, because of the lack of life skills. If they developed these skills and they find solutions, they will be happier and proactive, creative and enterpreneurs.

Making a survey in the schools to the parents, to know the impact in the community. Checking the rates of official surveys about years in school. - 100 suburban schools in México, at least.

It is difficult to say. The focus is developing life skills  with a low budget and a lot of volunteering. We need technology, but the issue is looking for it at a lower price or being sponsoured. 

Because it emerges from the children and people interests and needs. They ask for solutions, they are involved in providing their time and work.

Our leaders shared the proposal , talking with teachers, and these teachers have shared through Whatsapp, Facebook, etc. The best way to share is talking and demostrating.

Some  financial resources are provided by the school parents and local non-profit organizations. The most important resource are people. However, for doing experiments or using technology (telescopes, microscopes,etc), we have problems. However, somebof our volunteers need to finance transportation or materials.

It needs very committed teachers, with a strong sense of being part of the community. This is the main problem. In our school, some teachers don't want to get involved at all. They don't want to spend more time out of their job.

We need funds. We have been solving it with our own resources. Our salaries are low and some of us are involved in banking debts, but we are determined to continue working, looking for volunteers that can teach art or science to our children.

MARÍA TERESA YESCAS NAVARRO (LEADER)JUAN LUIS HIDALGO GUZMÁN, ROEL SALINAS ANTONIO, FLOR DE MARÍA RAMOS NAVARRO, VÍCTOR HUGO ISMAEL HERNÁNDEZ RAMOS,ERASTO GUZMÁN ROSALES, MARTHA MESTAS REVILLA, ALICIA RUIZ, LISSETT QUITZAMÁN FLORES, CATALINA SOSA.

We don't have them.