Eve Battle | València (EFE).- Francesc Nogales, recognized nationally and internationally for his innovative educational proposals, has turned his experience into his first book, “Educate in class… and at home”, a “pedagogical journey” that claims to link the classrooms and the learning process with the social and family environment.
“It is about a journey in which we are growing”, from childhood to adulthood, explains Nogales in a conversation with EFE, “in which at first we replicated an education model that we have received and which we later renounced”.
Nogales, a teacher at the San Enrique de Quart de Poblet school (Valencia), was chosen as the best Primary teacher in Spain at the Educa Abanca Awards in 2021, and has also received numerous international awards for his educational projects that he puts into practice with his students, after more than 25 years of “trial and error”.
Education proposals that involve families and the social environment of students
The book published by Plataforma Editorial brings together seven of these projects related to reading, mathematics, the approach to “bullying” or Alzheimer’s with the recovery of the memory of the elderly, through proposals that involve families and the environment of the students and serves as a motivation for learning.
With his students he has written literary reviews that have been published in the media; mathematics workshops with the presence of families in the classroom; she has tried how to deal with situations that can lead to “bullying” with videos made by children for broadcast on YouTube; she has compiled the stories of the grandparents in “a town to remember” and worked with the families on frustrations with proposals such as “I will be when I was little.”
Nogales specifies that they are successful educational experiences after, in some cases, “many mistakes”, advice that interested teachers and families can access through “QR” codes and modify and adapt to their classrooms in a collaborative way.
The book is divided into four chapters: childhood, youth, maturity and old age, and is also accompanied by various musical themes with education as a theme, from Pink Floyd, Mecano, Fito y los Fitipaldis, Maluma or Social Security.
Traditional or innovative education
Nogales talks about the continuous reforms of the Education Law and believes that “now there is a very evident confrontation between traditional education and innovative education when the path, the debate, does not have to be that, but rather what we can take positive from traditional education and What does methodological innovation contribute positively?
In his opinion, “the laws are very good but they are of no use if we are giving classes like 30 years ago” and they should focus on “being useful.” “It is not a question of changing the law but of raising education as a social priority, that education be discussed not so much to debate and generate controversy but to generate unity”, he adds.
In addition, he defends that it have a more socially visible role, with proposals such as a section of educational information in the news, just as there is of society or culture, that shows the experiences in the classrooms that are being developed successfully. “There are many schools doing things that are worth telling and they don’t even tell them,” he laments.
Foreword by Pilar Alegría
The Minister of Education, Pilar Alegría, who contacted Nogales after his election as the best teacher in 2021 to learn about his work and that of other teachers with the same pedagogical vision, is in charge of the book’s prologue.
Alegría points out that it is a call to pride in teaching, to the privilege of being a reference for the new generations and a warning about the risks of always being on stage, since “a teacher who does not listen is a teacher who does not know what has learned”.
“A mature teacher is sensible and does not depend only on the book, he has good judgment and offers diverse and varied projects, and is also prudent and knows that each student needs something different,” reflects Nogales, who proposes that readers “join the action ” and embark on one of their proposals. “We can get incredible surprises,” says the teacher.