New School

           By Orgeta Maria

 

The “New School” law promotes a school which is closer to the needs of a modern society which includes learners of different social, religious, cultural backgrounds. It  does not offer certain fixed material which the learner must learn by heart in order to get a mark and move on, but on the contrary motivates the learner to seek and find information and knowledge himself with the guidance of the teacher or even of his peers because the New School encourages group work.  The teacher is not tied to a specific curriculum he/she must follow but has the opportunity to intervene and make changes to fit the learning process of learners with different backgrounds who will work in a comfortable environment which is not teacher – centered anymore but learner- centered with a specific target. The New School  makes use of technology in the classroom and at home,  the curriculum of all subjects is unified and differentiated. It allows teachers to cooperate and also involve environmental and cultural issues or art in the learning process. Finally all the work done is evaluated in different ways so that the teacher can reflect on his/her work.

            An example of the “New School” is the teaching plan created by mrs Κωνσταντίνα Κώτση for an English lesson in the 6^th grade of Primary school, the reading of “Little Red Riding Hood”. Reading her plan we realise that the New School law enables the teacher to have autonomy and feel free to use material which is not included in the school book. She therefore does not follow the class -book step by step but decides to experiment on new material which she has created on her own with the help of the internet. The New School promotes such practices and the teacher can free herself from old fashioned teaching methods which are no longer effective in today’s classrooms. Students attending Greek schools today, come from different social, cultural even national backgrounds. In my opinion, the choice of this fary-tale is very successful because it is one of the most popular fairy-tales world wide and also appeals to both girls and boys. So, by just showing the cover of the book to the learners (step A), the teacher immediately catches their attention. Moreover, the weaker ones feel more confident because thy already know the story and they will have motivation to do the tasks. I believe that even the shy ones will have something to say about the tale and those from different countries can tell some variations of the story as they have heard it.