The key role of teachers

AdultTeaching Unit

OneBillionVoices#

Duration: 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Materials: Projector, speakers, post-it notes, paper and pen.

Targets: 1. Highlighting the impact of COVID-19 on teachers. 2. Working on the topic via a Discover-Connect-Transform focus: a. Discover the teacher’s story and the key role of teachers during the pandemic and in the students’ education process, as well as their adaptation to the new learning channels, context and realities.

b. Connect through empathy with their situation. c. Transform to ensure the right to inclusive, equitable and quality education – both locally and globally.

Let’s go! Project the image of the shoes with the topic:

The key role of teachers

Discover 40 mins.

This year we want to connect with emotions, which is why we are proposing different activities to explore them individually and collectively.

We project Yaniksa’s picture.

Sticky notesThe teacher asks the questions: What connects us to this person? What separates us?

Students only see the image of Yaniksa, who is a teacher, and some boots with the topic title: the key role of teachers.

To answer the questions, students use sticky notes with the following meanings:

If I do not feel connected to Yaniksa at all, I will write a word revealing what distances me from this person, and I will stick it far from her projected photo.

Far away sticky noteIf I feel connected toYaniksa and I can empathise with her situation, I will write a word revealing what links me to this person and I will stick it near to the projected photo.

Close sticky note

Students are asked to tell the story of the teacher during lockdown, creating a shared discourse in the class, with the aim of interpreting Yaniksa’s situation.

The teacher only mentions the name and approximate age (45 years) of the character, leaving the students to complete the story.

One student is chosen to write the key ideas on the board, which emerge during the brainstorming activity, creating a shared map of the reality and circumstances that the teacher may have experienced during this situation.

To encourage participation, the following guideline questions can be used:

• How did she give classes during the lockdown?

• How did she communicate with her students?

• How did the administration respond?

• How many students does she have?

• Does she know their families?

• How do students hand in and receive their work?

After the activity, students watch the video of Yaniksa from Ayuda en Acción, which will reveal her true story.The teacher explains how she experienced the

We tell her story

lockdown situation from a teaching perspective, taking on enormous responsibility and lacking the resources needed to perform her work.

During the Teaching Unit, students will discover more about Yaniksa’s story.

The teacher also highlights how Yaniksa accompanied her students and their families.

To do this, students must think of a situation they have experienced depending on the emotion they have been given. The idea is shared with the assigned group and they choose which one (or more) to depict.

Each group must act out their chosen situation and explain why it generated the specific emotion/s. The group will be encouraged to debate the depicted situations, as it is possible that not everyone has felt the same emotions in the same situation.

For example, for some, applauding care staff at 20:00 (each day in Spain) could be a reason for happiness and release, whilst for others it could be a source of sadness as it reminds them of loved ones in hospital.

The teacher has the Appendix 1 containing more emotions than just the core six, as this activity will expand beyond the better-known emotions and let us identify the vast range that can be experienced,

In order to connect and empathise with Yaniksa, first we must correctly identify the emotions in play.

To do this, students form six groups, each assigned a different basic emotion (happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust and surprise), and each person prepares to present a situation featuring the emotion they have been given.

Source: Universe of Emotions, by Rafael Bisquerra, Eduard Punset and PalauGea (2015).

We discover the universe of emotions

helping students continue to discover the nuances that arise from each of the basic emotions.

According to Punset and Bisquerra, there are more than 300 emotions. The aim is not to discover them all, rather to reveal the vast range of emotions we can experience and to examine them further.

Opening our eyes to more emotions equips students with a wider emotional vocabulary, a vital tool in developing emotional intelligence Bisquerra, R. y Punset, E. (2015).

To enrich the activity in the world of emotions, students can express which lesser-discussed emotions they have been able to identify in each of the actions the groups have carried out. For example, in the case of happiness, they may have also identified satisfaction, pleasure, etc.

To start, students are shown photos of the objects (see Appendix 2) and are asked what they were used for and what is used today instead of these items.

Students must explain how they would adapt if they had to give a class in today’s situation using these objects, with no modern technology available.

The aim of this activity is to highlight the fact that teachers have lost face-to-face contact with students, the closeness and the resources they used until now, when they have suddenly had to adapt to a new situation and use platforms that had not been used before and equip students with tools so their classes can continue.

Just like teachers, students have also had to adapt and learn.

Ask the following questions:

Antiques Activity

To end the activity, the teacher highlights the importance of teachers and the right to an inclusive, equitable and quality education.

The teacher also points out the need for sufficient funding for this right to be possible, encouraging students to be active agents for change in demanding this incredibly important right.

• What challenges have you had to face in order to continue studying?

• What have you missed? What has helped you study more successfully? (This question can address both what they would have needed to perform the activity, as well as what they have not had whilst at home during lockdown, helping link up the final reflection).

Next, students take a selfie simulating the emotion that has connected them with the teacher in the story.

Students should reflect the emotion using body language and facial expressions.

When we have reflected upon the emotions, we watch the video again, so we can identify the emotions the teacher may have felt during the process of adapting to the pandemic.

To liven up the debate, the following guideline questions can be used:

• What did you feel when you heard the story?

• Does the story we created together differ from Yaniksa’s situation?

• What emotions does the teacher experience (For example, joy when she states that she carries the assignaments to the student’s homes because it pleases her, surprise when she says that they don’t have access to the internet in their zone, or anger when she points out that there are not enough resources for the students).

• What new situations have you discovered upon watching the video?

• What is Yaniksa’s situation?

• Why does this situation occur?

• How would you react in this situation

To close this activity, students analyse the sticky notes written at the beginning and discuss if they have discovered anything new about the concepts that connect them to Yaniksa. They have the opportunity to change the position of their initial sticky notes if their perception has shifted.

Having reflected upon the story from an emotional perspective, the next activity is used to delve deeper into the role of teachers during the lockdown and today.

Connecting with emotions

Connect 35 mins.

The teacher reads the different lessons and asks the students if they have experienced these lessons. The entire class draws the lessons they have taken from the situation they experienced during the lockdown, which we add to the teaching unit work (both from an emotional focus and as a measure of reflections encountered), along with the elements they feel make an ideal school. They must gather these ideas together thoroughly and see which are the most repeated ones, or the ones the class wishes to focus on, because at this point, they must choose which to contribute and use later for the centre’s mural. We can take this opportunity to collect all the lessons, which will be used to make the mural (explained below).

The time has come during the Global Action Week for Education to create a mural! This year, given the pandemic restrictions, activities held in previous years involving crowds will not be possible. Instead, to avoid large groups of people, we are encouraging each education centre to put a day aside during the Global Action Week for Education for students to create a mural.

Along with the other groups that have completed the Teaching Unit, the class creates a mural in the centre, where they can share what they have learned, along with Yaniksa’s story and their newly acquired

knowledge about emotions. They can display the conditions that must be met to ensure the right to education SDG 4 (guaranteeing inclusive, equitable and quality education).

Once finished, we encourage each school to take a photo of their mural, which will be used to create a final collage with other images from the centres that have participated in GAWE 2021.

To liven up this exercise, teachers can use the following questions:

• Which conditions (material, environmental, financial, etc.) must be met for everyone to have access to education? Does this happen in your educational setting?

• What can we do to transform this reality as individuals and as a civil society?

• What can I do to encourage the right to education? What can we do as a group?

• How can we express this in a public space to highlight its importance?

• How can we ensure these voices reach political spaces?

Final activity: Mural

In class, four lessons learned during the pandemic will be projected or handed out on papers, found in Appendix 3. These lessons have been selected from all the lessons worked on during the GAWE 2020 in lockdown and adapted to each age group.

Transform 30 mins.

Everyone should have the right to a quality education that adapts to his/her capacities

and situation.

Appendix 1: Emotions cloud

PeaceSuccess

EuphoriaRel iefSatisfactionEnthusiasmFunHappinessStabilityContentmentTranquillityConfidenceOptimismExcitement

Grat if i cat i o nGood Mood

HateEnvyJealousyImpotenceAnger

MistrustAnnoyanceAggressivenessContemptIndignationBitternessIndifferenceTensionResentmentRageFuryAntipathy

Hostility

Pa n i c Fe a rHorrorPhobiaDread

TerrorShockAlarmFearTimidityAweVulnerabi l ityHorrorPan i cFr i ghtA l a rmFearPhob iaTerrorHorrorDreadPanic

FearShock

Fright

Disgust

Disgust

RejectionAversionDisgust

RejectionRepugnanceRepulsionDisgustAversionRepugnanceRepulsionRejectionR e p u g n a n c e

ConfusionAstonishment

PerplexitySurpriseConfusionBewildermentSurprisePerplexity StrangenessConfusionBewildermentSurprise

Astonishment

NostalgiaInnerSadness

SorrowResignationFailurePainDespondencyReluctanceDeceptionBoredomDisgustApathyPessimismBitternessSufferingFrustration

Disillusion,LongingLoneliness

Interest Grief

Awe

Anger

Strangeness

Source: Emotions taken from: Universe of Emotions, by Rafael Bisquerra, Eduard Punset and PalauGea (2015).

Appendix 2: Objects

© Ayuda en Acción

Appendix 3: Best lessons cards

At home we are content with our children and we understand that under these circumstances, this is how it must be, but we need schools, teachers and their lessons to ensure they receive a complete education, with personal relationships, not via a computer.

As a teacher, I miss learning from my students, their complicit looks and smiles.

I greatly appreciate the effort and affection with which the teachers are working, and I feel highly fortunate to have this opportunity under these difficult circumstances.

Without education, the world stops.

OneBillionVoices#

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