NUACHTÁN MIDDLE SCHOOL | June 2022
ACADEMIC ASPECTS
By María del Pilar Mones Urtuzuástegui | Academic Coordination
Developing skills in our students
On May 2nd, some of our students were invited to the first FAAME contest, an event that promotes coexistence between schools in an academic and cultural environment, offering a space to show their talents and skills. Our students participated in three categories: oratory, scientific challenge and photography. By participating in this type of event, students can show and put into practice all the skills they have worked on and developed through the learning approaches acquired during their time in the PYP and MYP programmes.
In the scientific challenge they built a catapult, for which they had to follow written instructions to the letter to carry out the experiment and make it functional, they had to read to understand the instructions provided to them and thus execute their challenge, using information management and communication skills. In terms of social skills, they worked in a team of three members, negotiating to delegate and share responsibilities when making decisions, identifying obstacles and challenges, each one assuming their role within the group, defending their ideas and points of view. Self-management skills were present, using absolute awareness, attention and concentration, and organizing the time given to them, to successfully conclude the activity.
In photography, the competition consisted of capturing 3 images with different themes: perspective, with model and free. The students participated in triads demonstrating several of the learning approaches such as communication skills, when offering and receiving comments from the same team; social, by achieving consensus, listening to the opinions of the group, negotiating with self-management effectiveness working organizational skills, through the effective use of time, planning tasks, meeting deadlines and, finally, they developed creative thinking through the knowledge acquired to generate ideas and innovative options, evidenced by their photographs.
Finally, 3 of our students participated in oratory where the theme to develop was «Being young today», in this category they had the opportunity to convince the public through their speech giving their opinion and supporting it with different arguments, developing their communication skills, transmitting their way of thinking through the organization and writing of their oratory in a logical and coherent way, putting into practice their critical thinking by structuring information to formulate their arguments.
Our students Ximena Fontecilla España and Fernanda Zapata Cruz won 1st and 2nd place, respectively, in this category.
These competitions allow students to acquire, practice, develop and perfect the skills of the learning approaches, which help them «learn to learn», as well as constitute excellent tools to explore meaningful content favoring their participation, deep understanding, skills transference and academic success.
«The main purpose of approaches to learning in MYP is to help learners develop the self-awareness and skills needed to adopt a lifelong learning attitude» (ibo.org. 2014).
IBO (2014). The Middle Years Programme: from principles to practice. Retrieved May 09, 2022 from https://resources.ibo.org/data/m_0_mypxx_guu_1405_5_s.pdf
DEVELOPMENT OF OUR ADOLESCENTS
By Psi. Tania G. Guillén Ortega
The role of empathy in conflict resolution
In recent years, several studies have been carried out that seek to understand the role that empathy plays in the behavior patterns of each individual in conflict resolution, considering empathy as an inhibitor of aggressive behavior, which promotes better coexistence.
We understand empathy as the ability of each person to put him/herself in the other person’s place, thus being able to understand his/her current situation, as well as the feelings involved in such situation. Considering then that being empathic helps in the solution of conflicts, since reaching an agreement in some type of problem depends on the handling that the parties involved give it, understanding that if both parties seek to understand the position of the other both will collaborate to find a solution that benefits them, improving coexistence, avoiding aggressive and competitive or hurtful behaviors.
The work of empathy during adolescence is essential because their daily life involves a constant resolution of conflicts, so working on the understanding of the other seeks to strengthen their communication and reflection skills, preventing impulsive behaviors that result in failures when building interpersonal relationships. Although conflicts are a natural part of human relationships, the coping tools of each individual will play an important role in their personal and social development, so prior to understanding the other is important to understand oneself, as this will lead to the knowledge and recognition of emotions, skills that once established can be taken into account when solving problems because they can take into account the emotions of the other individual and ones own.
3 important components to start working on empathy:
- Self-awareness: Knowledge of one’s own emotions and internal states: What do I feel? Where do I feel it? What do I do with what I feel? What do I say about what I feel? and What can I do to feel better?
- Self-regulation: Control and management of emotional responses.
- Prosocial activities in diverse environments: participating in activities that involve helping others is an invitation to understand them without necessarily knowing them.
Bibliography:
Corrales Pérez, A., & Quijano León, N. (2017). EMPATÍA, COMUNICACIÓN ASERTIVA Y SEGUIMIENTO DE NORMAS. UN PROGRAMA PARA DESARROLLAR HABILIDADES PARA LA VIDA. Enseñanza E Investigación En Psicología, 2, 58-65.
Lucía Sierra, O., Urrego, G., Montenegro, S., & Castillo, C. (2015). Estrés escolar y empatía en estudiantes de bachillerato practicantes de Mindfulness. Cuadernos De Lingüística Hispánica, (26), 175.
Grado en Magisterio de Educación Primaría – unican.es. La empatía como base de la resolución de conflictos. (n.d.). Retrieved May 15, 2022, from https://repositorio.unican.es/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10902/5437/OrtizGomezEva.pdf?sequence
DATES TO REMEMBER
• JUNE 17th – Administrative Discharge
• JUNE 20th to 28th – Final Exams
• JUNE 24th – CTE
• JUNE 29th & 30th – Camp
