MY STAR EXPERIENCE

Hello everyone, It´s Holly here, and I have been this week’s STAR of “Keep Calm and Keep Organized”!

First of all, I would like to say that it has been a very nerve racking but extremely fun experience. Well, after seeing some of my group members be the stars, I was so nervous because I knew the responsibility and effort they had to take and show to be able to do what they did; also keeping in mind how nervous they got; there was even a point where I got nervous for them! It really is scary being the star ha-ha.

But, like I said earlier, it was a really fun experience because this week´s topic, as well as being an interesting topic, it was kind of easy to represent and find information about it, mostly because most of us know a lot about it anyway. We all know textbooks aren’t a very good resource for teachers to use in their classrooms; they are actually very inconvenient and awkward for students, in many different ways:

«  They are way too heavy for the students to have in their bags

«  They cost a lot of money

«  We lose trees because of them being printed

«  There are too many concepts to learn and hardy enough time to learn them

«  They are not neutral

«  The teachers are restricted to predetermined classes because they do not go outside of the textbook

On top of this, we done some investigating online and found that in Finland, the majority of the schools do not even use textbooks, or if they do, they do not let it get the better of them, what I mean to say is that the teachers plan the class in their own way, selecting the specific content they want from the textbook, not even following the sequence or order of activities if they don’t want to. Obviously, comparing this situation to Spain, Finland has the right idea on how to teach children properly; although in Spain there me be some teachers out there that despise the textbook, the majority still use it in all of their classes because it’s the most convenient thing for them; that way, they don’t have to plan as much, organize as much or think of the activities that will be developed in the classroom each day, the textbook does it all for them; and that is what our argument is, the textbook should not be used as the number one resource!

In our infographic, you can see everything we wanted to express regarding the dark side of textbooks, and there is one particular thing that stands out; there is a phrase that we wrote which is worth telling you guys: “As carpenters do not only use one hammer to build, teachers should not restrict themselves to a textbook.” With this, I think we say it all.

Getting back to the presentation bit, I think it´s safe to say that all of us had a lot of fun, because beforehand, Clara from our group, had the idea of having Darth Vader from Star Wars to represent the Dark Side of textbooks (obviously we all thought it was a brilliant idea) so, I had planned a little dialogue between a teacher (that was going to be Noelia) and Darth Vader(me), to do in front of the whole class but do to the circumstances, we couldn’t act it out because the presentation of this activity was different (a museum themed activity, just like the first activity on TPCK. It consisted in every group going around looking at the various Infographics/comics that are up on the wall while the stars stayed in one place in order to answer any questions the others may have had). I liked this because I felt kind of relieved I didn’t have to prepare a speech for in front of the whole class, but I was still kind of disappointed because I wanted to act out the dialogue I had prepared.

Due to the fact that we couldn’t act it out, we decided to do something a little different; I put on my Darth Vader mask while I was standing waiting for a group to come by and look at our infographic, and played the theme song to Darth Vader (Imperial March) I´m pretty sure you all know the one I mean! Awesome tune!

Well anyway every time a different group walked by, the music would be playing and I would look at them and say “Hello, welcome to the dark side!” I found this hilarious and just so funny and awesome to do, it really was cool. Everyone else, by the looks of it, also found it amusing and said it was really original with the music and all. They are also those who turned their nose up at the whole thing, but personally I think it´s just jealousy and they probably wondered why they didn’t think of the same.  Haters gonna hate.

All in all, I had a pretty awesome time representing the Dark Side. And because I would have loved for you all to see the dialogue I planned, I will write it for you below:

*Noelia with photocopy of textbooks in her hand, pretending to be a teacher*

Darth Vader (Me): Teacher, Do not use textbooks any longer. Change your ways. GIVE YOURSELF TO THE DARKSIDE!

Teacher (Noelia):  No! NEVER!

Darth Vader:  *looks at audience*THE FORCE IS STRONG WITH THIS ONE!

Teacher: Textbooks are the best resource to help children learn!

Darth Vader:  I find your lack of faith disturbing *takes book forcefully*

Teacher: …… *moves out of way*

Darth Vader: *looks at book* YOUR DESTINY LIES WITH ME

*QUEUE MUSIC: IMPERIAL MARCH* *DARTH VADER RIPS BOOK*

It would have been a right laugh in class, but still, what we done rocked!

To finish up, I would like to leave you with some pictures:

Hope you liked reading this and seeing the pics :)