Learning how to teach

During this EVS experience, my first challenge has been the fear of teaching, especially to the older kids.

In fact, after only one month of workshop there're some facts that I already notice and, also, the evaluation forms that the kids had to fill can confirm my theories.

But, before getting to that part, it would be better to describe the different activities that we use in the workshop, in order to give a more complete picture of the situation.

Well, let's start saying that of course EVS consists in a non-formal method of education, so that means that we don't use the old school method of the frontal lesson with the kids. Therefore, the activities and the methods that we use are designed to let the kids think about the situation and fid their own solution, without judging them in any case.

That's why we and, basically, most of the EVS projects are based on workshops, that is by definition a “mental space”, a “forma mentis”, in order to interact with reality to comprehend it and/or change it.

That's why the workshop can be used basically for every kind of subject, from the informatics 'til the specific ones, for example in chemistry, biology, etc.

The reason why this teaching is very popular is because with it, basically, the student masters is own learning, because through the actions, he gets to the result on his own.

Regarding to our teaching strategies, we use a mix of them, because every module is focused on a specific one. In particular, we use:

• the Brainstorming, that gives total freedom to the student, giving him the chance to express himself in a total safe space, without the risk of being judged;
• the Role playing, where the students actually play a specific role;
• the Case study, that means giving to the students a situation that could be real or not, in order for them to find a solution or just thinking about it.

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2.

1. Example of role play with the VIth grade

2.Example of role play with the Xth grade

So, the first thing that we can notice from these two pictures is how the older kids tend to be more shy in the interactive activities, while the younger ones enjoy them more.

This has been reported also in the evaluation forms; for example, many forms from the VIIth grade recomend to “use more role play” or just in general “to be less serious”. Instead, the forms from the Xth grade, say that the workshops were “ok, but sometimes boring”, in relation in particularly to the role play activity that they found “childish”.

Another difference that we can observe related to the age is their level on english and how it effects their participation to the classes: many people would say that probably the english level is better for the older one, so these workshops work better with them. Well, atualy is the other way aroud: the younger kids, even though don't speak english very well, participate more to the workshop. Thaks to their curiosity, they use every instrument available to communicate their opinions, like asking to the teacher to translate for us or ask one of their classmates to do it.

This doesn't happen with the older ones: the ones that don't speak english very well don't participate that much and I think that it's due to the peers pressure, meaning that they're afraid to make mistakes in another language in front of their classmates.

In conclusion, I can say that luckly we are getting good outcomes from all the kids: most of them seem to enjoy the activities and are really interested in the topic.

Of course, our work needs some adjustments in order to get everyone's attention, disregarding the age, and with time we'll get there.

-Giada