80 years ago the French pedagogue and educational reformer Célestin Freinet moved to Saint-Paul-de-Vence with his wife Elise where they both worked as teachers.At that time C. Freinet had already developed most of his major teaching principles which he called techniques (in opposition to methods which he associated with a top down approach). Each of his techniques were meant to connect learning in school to real life outside school and to encourage students to be productive, explorative, critical and collaborative while learning.
Freinet's students regularly left the school building to join their teacher in exploratory walks during which they gathered impressions and interesting information about their natural and social environment. Back to their classroom the students composed their own "free texts" which they discussed with their classmates and used a printing press to publish their "authentic" and most of the time collaborative work in newspapers. Gradually these newspapers were used as meaningful and rooted learning material instead of the preestablished curricula schoolbooks and they were exchanged with those of other schools.
These exchanges of "culture packages" between the Freinet's and René Daniel's students marked the beginning of interschool networks which became one of the characteristics of the Modern School Movement.
Besides the printing press Freinet's students used other instruments like photography, slide shows or audio-tape recorders. The instruments and techniques established a different relationship between students and teachers, between students and school as an institution, and most important between students and knowledge.
Freinet's efforts to establish collaborative teaching through interschool network was also motivated by the strong conviction that collaborative reflective teaching is essential to any serious school development and a necessary ground for reaching beyond rigid top down curricula and the latest teaching tricks, methods or ceremonials in fashion.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI am a student at the University of Luxembourg and I have a few questions on how to prepare children to be able to write free texts in primary school and how to prepare such a project.
Are there any exercises to get the children used to write freely and not being afraid of writing mistakes. What kind of input do I have to give? Should I let the children work on their own or is the regular control of the teacher nessecary for them to succeed? Should I correct their texts? In this case, what should I correct? Only grammar mistakes or the discourse too? Can these corrections cause the pupil to develop a writing restraint or do they help him to learn to write correctly?
As the children should work together in small groups, I would like to know if I should organise them in heterogeneous or homogeneous groups.
I don't think you need any exercices - only encouragement to write. The subject could be anything - as it's free.
ReplyDeleteConcerning mistakes : It is difficult to convince people to ignore mistakes if the same person was used to focus on mistakes all the time. If you are the same person - you should talk about the situation with your students and that you are going to change your attitude on evaluating writing.
If you are not the same person, and if you have children who try to avoid writing, because they have lost self-confidence or because they won't trust you, when you say that spelling and grammar won't count, tell them that you won't take the copy if they don't feel like giving it to you. In that case it will be enough if they read the text to you or to a group of children.
What input do you have to give? Show some real interest in what is important to them. Ask (honest!) questions, beginning with "that is interesting, how did this happen? I would be disappointed, angry, if this had happened to me. How did you feel about it? ... Oh yes, now I understand, maybe you could ad this in a fews words ..." and so on.
About correction : Read through some of my articles on http://www.olefaschool.org/community/ (http://www.olefaschool.org/resources/wiki/Education/Freies_Schreiben.shtml). Have also a look at this website http://www.freinet.org/pef/gra4page.htm . Did you read Gerard Gretsch's book "Computer im Schreibatelier" - and watch the video? There you can see children engaging in writing and discussing their texts.
Concerning groups : I think deviding your class into "homogeneous groups" is somehow artificial and not necessary. First concentrate on the content and not on the form. And pass this message to your students when they work together or when they give each other feeback. Try to model this behaviour like with the questions above, so that your students can imitate this attitude and make it their own. That's all you need to know to start. Keep it up!
We're studying at the University of Luxembourg too and in our coming internship we're going to organise a "Schreibatelier" in a third grade according to Freinet's ideas. We're actually reading some books (like the one by Gérard Gretsch you mentionned) concerning this activity but we have still have several doubts: When can we consider a text as finished? If one child considers his text to be finished even if he has a lot more time left, shall we "force" him to continue his writing or shall we accept his decision? Shall we impose a language or shall we leave this choice to the child as the main goal to be achieved is the free writing? Is it possible that an imposed language influences the children's writing motivation?
ReplyDeleteA text is finished when the author has said what he wants to say (or to reveal), when there is a feeling of satisfaction with a job well done, when there has been reflection and negotiation on meaning enough and when you come close to a deadline.
ReplyDeleteIt's just the same as in real life.
The main goal for me is not "free writing". Free writing is a technique to learn to read and write through creating meaning and sharing inner worlds.
I don't know what you mean by imposing a language. So I won't comment on this.
Maybe you could give some explanations.
Regarding "influence" - That's what teaching is about.
Influence and respect can be but are not necessarily contradictions. Teaching is not about just letting it happen.