Practicum period III - Mandatory Assignment Unit 1

1. Instituto de Formación Docente Continua
Lenguas Vivas Bariloche (A-052)
Profesorado de Inglés – Opción pedagógica a distancia
Subject: Practicum Period III
Tutor: Aurelia Velázquez
Assignment number: 1
Student(s) name(s): López Deregibus, Sol
Martinetti, Romina
Viñolo, Bárbara
Deadline: 26th March 2021
Mandatory Assignment 1
The following assignment is a collaborative task. You may work in pairs or groups of
three. Each student must upload the assignment to the Campus.
Josef James, a former teacher who is passionate about education, reflects on the role secondary
school should play in society. His talk aims at inspiring some kind of change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSixbEDOYgA
After reading the suggested materials and watching the TEDx Talk, you should draw up your
conclusions of the distinguishing characteristics that define secondary education, its aims and
foundations. You should also describe both the learner and the teacher, bearing in mind today's
challenges and requirements.
Your final outcome may be a two- page reflective essay or a 5- minute video. You choose!

2. Josef James invites the audience to reflect on important issues regarding secondary
education, as he identifies what he believes are the main problems of its design are. The way
he questions the system due to its “one size fits all make it or retake it” design is something
we closely relate to, as it is an issue which worries us, to which we know there is no simple
solution.
Nowadays, secondary schools face the challenge of being constantly updated and
functional to the needs that students are going to face when they grow up. Maggio (2018)
refers to the abilities that students need to develop in order to become “useful members” of
current and future societies. Thus, the curriculum and teaching approaches that have defined
secondary education in the past decades must be revised and adjusted in order to ensure that
students receive the best possible preparation to adapt to the demands of what has been
called VUCA: a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world in which change has
become the only constant variable. As Gerd Leonhard states, the digital transformation we are
undergoing implies that the way we work will never be the same, just as neither will the skills
we need to fulfill our jobs successfully. As innovation takes the leading role in this new world
which is unfolding, secondary and higher education must ensure that students can innovate
on themselves, by developing their creativity and ability to think outside the box. Following
Ken Robinson´s tenets, we need an education system that will develop divergent thinking.
Maggio highlights the importance of developing deductive and inductive reasoning, critical
thinking and creative problem solving. All of this is fully aligned with the 6C’s that Fullan and
Langworthy (2013) identified as the skills that students need to develop so that they may have
a chance to stand up against the challenges they will face in their workplace.
When we stop to think about secondary teachers and students, we must consider that,
since secondary education is divided into subjects, it is imperative for teachers to truly excel
in the knowledge of their subject matter and be passionate about it so that they have the desire
for continued learning, being able to stay up to date with the developments within their field of
study, as well as with new trends in education. However, teaching secondary students involves
a lot more than following a curriculum to deliver lessons in the most creative and appealing
ways to get through to teenagers. As Josef James states, passion and drive are quintessential
qualities of secondary teachers who may succeed in inspiring young minds. Therefore, the
role of secondary teachers involves much more than making the content of a subject relevant
to students so that they may become engaged in lessons: teachers need to provide adolescent
students with emotional attention, so they should have solid communication skills in order to
build trust with pupils. Empathy, compassion and a good sense of humour are vital when
dealing with teenagers, so interpersonal or emotional intelligence is a key trait to have. An
empathic teacher will be able to deliver stronger lessons, since empathy will allow him/her to
relate content to real life situations, demonstrating the relevance of the subject matter to

3. learners. We feel that these qualities are embodied in Robin William´s performance of a
secondary teacher in the famous film “The Dead Poets Society”.
Josef James mentions how it is common for secondary teachers to cling to the motto
which equates “better grades with better job opportunities” to motivate students, as he refers
to Robert Kiyosaki´s ideas. His statement about the nature of secondary schools: “schools
were designed to produce good employers, instead of employees” reflect an obsolete system
that needs to be uprooted if secondary education is to meet the challenges which the VUCA
world entails. In this sense, secondary education has become abstract, and not totally
applicable to real life. To change this, teachers have to encourage change by changing the
curriculum and adapting it to the needs of new generations. Therefore, we need to move away
from teaching students to become workers and move towards the development of the 6C´s
that will allow entrepreneurs to blossom.
In conclusion, secondary education has to cut loose from the traditional preparation of
students to fit into a hierarchical system in which they had to be ready to start at the bottom of
the pyramid by getting a job, instead of making a job or having a job find them. As secondary
teachers, we should harbour our students´ passions and help them to leave their footprint in
life, by finding their own voice and making it part of a future change. As secondary educators,
we should build a safe place for learners, a place in which personal growth is more important
than grades, and students are able to be whatever they want to be by acquiring the necessary
skills they will need for the future.
REFERENCES
Maggio, M. (2018) Habilidades del siglo XXI: cuando el futuro es hoy: documento básico,
XIII Foro Latinoamericano de Educación. Buenos Aires: Santillana. Retrieved from
https://educacion.rionegro.gov.ar/admarchivos/files/ESRN/XIII%20Foro%20Documento%20Bas
ico%20WEB.pdf
Ministerio de Educación y Derechos Humanos. Consejo Provincial de Educación (2017).
Diseño Curricular de la Escuela Secundaria de Río Negro. Retrieved from
https://educacion.rionegro.gov.ar/admarchivos/files/seccion_238/anexo-1-diseno-curricular-
esrn.pdf
Robinson, K. (2016) Divergent Thinking. Available on https://youtu.be/BHMUXFdBzik
Comentado [A1]: Excellent analysis! Great job!