Memorization vs. Comprehension

Do we really believe that our pupils learn properly? Why are they have so many difficulties in understanding what they are studying? Why PISA and PIRLS reports about educational evaluation  tell us that we are so far from the average of those best qualified countries? Is there anything we are doing wrong? Are we unskilled teachers?

These are some questions I wondered last year when I was thinking about my Final Degree Project topic. After analyzing some texts and their reading comprehension questions, I realised most of them don't help children to understand what it is told in any text. Children are just memorizing some data from the texts but they aren't understanding that information indeed.

So should we carry out a revision of our educational approaches? From my point of view, I think we should make an effort to improve our children' comprehension. What do you think about this?

Is he really understanding what he's reading?

The teacher I liked the most in my life!

I always will remember Father Vicent as the best teacher I've ever had. I remember as it was yesterday he came to my row the first  day class and he asked me if I was David. I answered yes and he sent me to the other row with some new partners. I'm only ten years old and it was  a bit shocking but I didn't care.

Why happened this? Because he had problems with my brother a few years before so he avoided have them with me. Two years later, as I wasn't a conflictive child, I had Father Vicent as my first English teacher at Primary school.

Since then I learn a lot from him. He had a peculiar and amazing way of teaching. He had never taught English but he got we were interested in learning English. His style was based on asking us every day. There was no day we do a short test! It could be stressful but I loved it!

He was a person who always concerned about his pupils. Although he was a very very serious person, he spoke to us with affection and respect. Even he often was kidding us!

He was the school Director and he was tough but it is said he was the best Director in this school. Unfortunately, he died several years ago when a driver ran over him when he was going for a walk, like every morning.

I hope in the future I can be as good a teacher as he was.

Welcome to my monger corner!!

Hello everyone!

I'm David and this is my first experience as a blogger. I'm a Primary School teacher, unemployed right now. I'm a Physical Education teacher as well and, at present, I'm learning to be an English teacher, a great challenge for me.

In my spare time, I'm a basketball coach. I've been training for over twenty years... I thought this season I would rest a bit but that's impossible for me. I need it so, at the end, I'm working as an assistant coach and head coach at El Pilar club.

I would like to tell you some different and interesting stories about Education related to different topics and I hope they're useful for you.

So let's start and enjoy it!