Digital natives cannot think of a life without internet. For Education this is a challenge. A change in the dynamics of the classes is essential if we analize the results of the PISA tests and the employability difficult of the region

By Martin Padulla*

In several countries of Latin America, the ones who are 40 years old or more, heard in our childhood the songs of the great argentinian artist María Elena Walsh. One of the songs was called “The Upside Down Kingdom” and it describe the like of a wonderful kingdom where “the birds swim, the fish fly, the cats do not  say miau but say yes because they study English”

What is going on in the Global “Kingdom” and in the Latin American one in particular, is that school as institution is generating skills which do not satisfy the competences that the labor market demands. This gap seems to become bigger and bigger because the speed of change of one and other universe is different. In this gap the challenge of employability, development with inclusion and employment is defined. The PISA test is an indicator which we have already dealt with in staffingamericalatina http://staffingamericalatina.com/en/el-informe-pisa-pide-acciones-urgentes/

In this context, initiatives turn up and generate controversies. One of them, is the one which turns upside down an important quantum of educational traditions when it proposes a model of upside down classes, a flipped classroom.

I heard this concept for the first time in a brilliant interview that the prestigious latinamerican journalist, Andrés Oppenheimer, made to Salman Khan, the Khan Academy foundator, a 37 years old entrepreneur, distinguished by the Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. This man after getting 4 university degrees in the MIT and Harvard, worked in an investment fund in Boston and help one of his cousins with maths lessons in the evenings. The Khan family, very big family, started to require the efficient Salman´s services, who started to upload videos in YouTube to help his cousins. Salman soon realized that his videos were watched by lots of people. Two years later and with one hundred thousand people watching his videos, Khan left his job and founded his non profitable online academy, which today has more than 60 million visitors per year, free videos, interactive exercises and Spanish website www.es.khanacademy.org

It is the same concept of the upsidedown kingdom of María Elena Walsh. Students learn at home and do their homework at school with the teachers´help.

The Khan Academy is already used by more than 30 thousand classrooms in USA, said Khan in the interview carried out by Oppenheimer.

The key, like in Colombian Vicky Colbert´s Escuela Nueva, is the personalized learning, each pupil can improve at his/her own pace.

The most important part of this new technology is the ability to know in which stage of the learning process each pupil is, so as to give him/her problems which are at his/her level, and to give teachers the possibility to follow each pupil´s progress.

As a linguistic paradox, in Spain, this phenomenon is known as “flipped classroom” and it is defined in a very simple way, the teachers trough virtual conferences, sends basic information about certain issue and knowledge is done in class trough practice. A less sophisticated variant of Salman Khan´s methodology.

Definitely, these models propose a substantial change in the teacher´s role: the teacher as a facilitator and mediator who helps in the social construction of knowledge.

This kind of initiatives seems to be functional to transcendental concepts for the employability and the entrepreneurship such as autonomy, responsibility, team work and result orientation. The concept of passive pupils disappears and the one of active learner appears strongly. The concept of passivity and submission is left behind to go to a most creative model of exchange and which would help to the social construction of reality.

Personally, I do not believe in unique solutions but I celebrate any kind of initiative which promote the updating and flexibility of models which no longer adapt to the needs of our region. It seems that in this process of adapting to change in which we are immersed, it is the school´s turn to become a more suitable place for our millenials

About Martin Padulla

Managing Director of Staffingamericalatina. Martin Padulla is Sociologist (USAL), MBA (UCA) and labour markets expert. He published “Flexible Work in South America” and “Regulatory framework for employment agencies in Latin America” two books about the new realities of work.

mpadulla@staffingamericalatina.com

About Staffingamericalatina

It is the unique independent digital media specialized in Latin American´s labour markets.

Produce and spread contents, researches and developments about issues such us Employability, Youth Employment, Training for Employment, Decent Work, Private Employment Agencies, Active policies for employment, Teleworking, Public and private actions for the creation of decent work, Green Jobs and Corporate Social Responsibility.

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