Francisco Javier Pericacho Gómez
Universidad de Nebrija, Madrid, España
Felipe Jiménez Mediano
Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla-La Mancha, España
José Luis Estrada Chichón
Universidad de Cádiz, Cádiz, España
Roberto Sánchez Cabrero
Universidad Alfonso X El sabio, Madrid, España
Educación y Humanismo 21(36): pp. 176-193. Enero-Junio, 2019.
DOI: http://dx10.17081/eduhum.21.36.3293
Primary Education schools and pedagogical renewal: Reviewing
experiences
Centros de educación primaria y renovación pedagógica: revisión de experiencias
Abstract
Objective: In this article we review the support of several representative Primary
Education schools in Spain (2015-16) for a pedagogical renewal that move away
from the traditional model. Method: The methodology focuses on the study of
outstanding bibliography, interviews with significant members, observation of
centres and analysis of the content of educational projects. Results: The centers
selected for analysis show multiple common pedagogical aspects, such as the
participation of the educational community, the promotion of creativity among the
students, as well as curricular, methodological and organizational flexibility.
Discussion and Conclusion: Despite the uniqueness of each project, all show
multiple common pedagogical aspects. This is due to the direct influence of the
Spanish pedagogical renewal developed throughout the 20th century which has
shaped the current renewing map of which this article analyses specific examples.
Keywords: Primary education school, Spain education system, Pedagogical
renewal, Alternative education, Educational innovation.
Resumen
Objetivo: A lo largo del artículo se revisa la experiencia de varios centros escolares
de educación primaria representativos en España (curso 2015-2016) por apostar por
una renovación pedagógica que los aleja del modelo de escuela tradicional.
Método: La metodología utilizada ha sido el estudio de bibliografía destacada,
entrevistas a miembros significativos, observaciones de centros y análisis de
contenido de los proyectos educativos. Resultados: Los centros seleccionados para
el análisis muestran múltiples aspectos pedagógicos comunes, como la participación
de la comunidad educativa, el fomento de la creatividad en los alumnos y la
flexibilidad curricular, metodológica y organizativa. Discusión y conclusión: Las
coincidencias y aspectos comunes en los centros evaluados se deben a la influencia
directa de la renovación pedagógica española desarrollada a lo largo del siglo XX
que ha configurado el mapa renovador actual del que en este artículo se estudian
ejemplos concretos.
Palabras clave: Escuela primaria, Sistema educativo español, Renovación
pedagógica, Educación alternativa, Innovación educativa.
Editor:
Patricia Martínez Barrios
Universidad Simón Bolívar
Correspondence:
Francisco Pericacho
pericacho.javier@yahoo.es
Received:
2018-12-07
Accepted:
28-02-19
Available online from:
09-04-19
DOI:
http://dx10.17081/edu
hum.21.36.3293
Copyright © 2019
Educación y
Humanismo
To cite this article / Para citar este artículo (APA): Pericacho-Gómez, F., Jiménez, F., Estrada, J. & Sánchez-Cabrero, R. (2019). Primary
Education schools and pedagogical renewal: Reviewing experiences.
Educación y Humanismo
, 21(36), 176-193.DOI:
http://dx10.17081/eduhum.21.36.3293
176
ISSN: 0124-2121
E-ISSN: 2665-2420
Open Access:
Primary Education schools and pedagogical renewal: Reviewing experiences
Introduction
After the progress made during the 19th century, the 20th century was decisive in
shaping and consolidating the Spain Education System. In this way, almost all the
quantitative severe problems of schooling that were being encountered in the second half
of the 20
th
century were resolved. However, despite significant changes in today’s
educational policy, new problems of quantitative nature are emerging. In other words,
since in developed countries the entire school-age population has guaranteed the right to
education, `it is now a matter of making sure that the teaching provided responds to the
real needs of learners and the complexity of today's society´ (Egido, 2002, p.220;
personal translation
). Given this situation, there is an urgent need to broaden, redefine
and orient educational action in the school environment taking for that experiences that
renew the pedagogical practice and move away from the traditional school model.
The concept of traditional school as a theoretical construct has continuously changed
throughout history, being this a term with semantic and conceptual implications
challenging to delimit if we consider its epistemological ambiguity. However, a historical
study of this concept reveals relatively clear connotations about its theoretical and
practical manifestations. If we focus on the contemporary history of education in Europe,
its possible implications show some common pedagogical patterns: poor relationship of
the school with the context, excessive use of the master class, didactic stagnation,
verticality in the educational relationships, lack of participation of fathers/mothers, etc. In
this work, the points that Frabboni (1998) establishes for its characterization are used:
centralist, bureaucratic, hierarchical and separate structure from the social environment;
teacher isolation and didactic centrality of the classroom; curriculum based on information
and the transmission of a given, inaccurate and unilateral knowledge; syllabus and lesson
preponderance with the teacher's absolute protagonism; great importance given to the
handbook and the individual practice; and finally, a rigid schedule structure.
The goal of this work is to describe, from an open and synoptic perspective, several
official Primary Education schools (students from 6 to 12 years of age) that are
representative in current Spain because they consciously move away from the traditional
school model characterized by Frabboni (1998) and value a vital part of the educational
ideals that have accompanied the history of the Spain pedagogical renewal. The work is
structured in the following way: first, a theoretical and historical conceptualization of the
Spain educational renewal is carried out; second, the methodology used is specified; third,
the schools are schematically described according to two categories: on the one hand, a
brief historical contextualization is given and, on the other hand, according to the chief
signs of pedagogical identity that confirm their distance from the traditional school model;
finally, we reflect on the most relevant conclusions found.
The work has three initial fundamental limitations that outline the theoretical
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Francisco Javier Pericacho , Felipe Jiménez , José Luis Estrada, Roberto Sánchez
boundaries of its nature and purpose: first, the large number of experiences that are not
described; second, the limited information provided by each school (only the one that is
consistent with the stated objective); finally, the limitations on the representativeness of
the sample in terms of the diversity and heterogeneity of the field of study. In this sense,
it needs to be clarified that it is not our intention to offer a panoramic view of a large
number of schools, nor the most representative, but only the proposal of five relevant
experiences –not homogeneous to each other– united by an extensive distance from the
model of traditional school described by Frabboni (1998). Therefore, from a theoretical
perspective, the main contribution of this research is to place value on and re-
contextualize the history of the Spain pedagogical renewal in the light of several Primary
Education schools during the academic year 2015-2016. This review of experiences
updates and broad part of the information obtained in other works carried out by the
authors individually or jointly, mainly from the following: Pericacho (2015 & 2016). We
would like to thank all the schools for their absolute cooperation and willingness.
Pedagogical renewal: a history of teaching commitment and pedagogical
innovation
From different pedagogical concerns and perspectives, throughout educational history,
there have always been alternative school experiences that have shown a different view of
the meaning of education (Mateu, 2011). Initiatives that have constituted a break with the
rest of schools, delimiting a part of the theoretical and practical outline of the Spain
pedagogical renewal. There is an extensive bibliography that theoretically bases all kinds
of historical experiences and current critiques on the traditional model and, in general, on
the pedagogical renewal. It is displayed in chronological order: Caivano and Carbonell
(1979); Viñes (1983); Mata (1984); Doménech (1989,1992,1995 & 2003); Marín (1990);
Viñao (1990, 2002 & 2007); Imbernón (1993); Martínez-Bonafé (1994 & 2003); Esteban
(1996); Sáenz del Castillo (1999); Rodríguez (2003); Pozo (2004, 2007 & 2014); García
(2005); Dávila (2005); Roig (2006); Feito and López (2008); Soler (2009); Feito (2009);
Costa (2009); Groves (2009), Groves (2011), Contreras (2010); Moscoso (2011);
Hernández (2011); Agulló and Payá (2012); Monés (2012); Rabadán and Hernández
(2012); Pozo & Braster (2012); Pérez (2013); Delgado (2013); Pericacho (2015, 2016 &
2018); and finally, Jiménez and Bejarano (2016).
In recent Spain educational history (19th and 20th centuries), pedagogical renewal
practices have been promoted by the most critical sectors of the scholarly community,
representing an innovative, committed and transformative way of understanding school.
This constitutes a constant historical process of generating new ideas and proposals for
the improvement of education, being at the same time a tool for the revision of theory and
the transformation of pedagogical praxis (Imbernón, 1993). It draws on an odd number of
thinkers, schools, organized teachers' movements, practices and multiple initiatives aimed
at overcoming the dominant pedagogical reality at any given time (Pericacho, 2016). A
particular culture and educational attitude that has constituted (simplifying its pretensions)
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Primary Education schools and pedagogical renewal: Reviewing experiences
the search for an integral school in its purposes, active in its methodology, democratic in
its structures, with transforming potential and open to participation with the environment.
A fundamental part of this activity is reflected (before and now) in two primary points:
firstly, the creation of different critical collectives of self-organized teachers; secondly, the
emergence of several schools that criticize the traditional pedagogical model. Focusing on
the second point (schools), the history of the Spain pedagogical renewal presents a large
number of educational experiences that have generated the critical evolution of discourse
and pedagogical praxis. However, their study reveals both the heterogeneity of theoretical
approaches and the plurality of instructional practices. Thus, experiences such as the
Institución Libre de Enseñanza (1876), the Escuelas del Ave María (1889), the Escuela
Moderna (1901), the Grupo Escolar Cervantes (1918), the Instituto-Escuela (1918),
Decroly School (1927), Grupo Escolar Milá y Fontanals (1931), Talitha School (1956),
Estilo College (1959), Base School (1962), or finally, the Escuelas Thau (1963) and Ton i
Guida (1963) prove this fact.
Methodology
The research methodology and approach are aligned with qualitative research,
understood as a type of research `that produces findings that are not reached through
statistical procedures or other means of quantification´ (Strauss & Corbin, 2002, p.11;
personal translation
), specifically within the ethnographic method. Ethnographic research
characterizes a type of multimodal, interactive and locally-oriented approach, requiring the
researcher's full immersion in everyday life. Of the different research tools offered by the
ethnographic method and in accordance with the objectives, the main ones are the critical
study of outstanding bibliography, open interviews with significant members of the schools
(mainly from the school management team), observations participating in the classrooms
(simultaneously with informal conversations), and finally, analysis of the content of the
educational projects. A non-probabilistic type of sampling has been used for sample
selection, namely intentional sampling (Latorre, Del Rincón & Arnal, 1996). Through this
sampling, some Spain Primary Education schools have been selected between 2012-2013
and 2015-2016, which are public, private and publicly owned schools. They are
representative schools according to the following characteristics: high degree of
methodological renewal with full effect on the entire school, significance achieved in the
groups linked to pedagogical renewal and different academic personalities related to their
studies, influence on other experiences, these can be located in different databases and
networks of experiences in the field, and solidity and continuity in the educational project.
Once a large sample of schools with the characteristics described above had been
selected, the possibilities of access and work on them were subsequently analysed. Only
those were selected where at least two observations could be made, and two interviews
were conducted with significant people because of their background.
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Francisco Javier Pericacho , Felipe Jiménez , José Luis Estrada, Roberto Sánchez
The entire observation process was carried out over four years, between the 2012-2013
and 2015-2016 academic years. The number of observations and their duration was
determined based on the possibilities of the schools and the agreements reached by
consensus. The length of each observation ranged between 1 and 5 hours. However, the
average was around two hours. The observation places were the schools selected from
the sample, specifically the classrooms of the three Primary Education stages. During
these sessions, a secondary role was adopted, as an observer, but to help the teacher in
the general routines of the class. This allowed us to get a first-hand knowledge of the
processes that were being developed, but in the same way, maintaining an adequate
analytical distance. From an ethnographic perspective, all kinds of notes were written
down in a notebook. After the study of the records made, we proceeded to the
subsequent grouping of the abundant information gathered, selecting only the relevant
one to our objective.
The interviews were open, with an average duration of 30 to 50 minutes. Significant
people (mainly from the school management team) were asked questions about the
history of their school and the most relevant methodological aspects that questioned the
traditional methodology. A total number of 31 interviews were conducted. The approach
was open, allowing all kinds of information to emerge. This openness made it possible to
show and contextualize the relevance of what was found. The content analysis lets us
know the underlying pedagogical model in the different educational projects. Thus,
patterns and meanings common to all of them were inferred, simplifying the sufficient
information gathered. For this reason, the interviews situate us within an integral scenario,
through which we collect concrete data, but above all references to the school ideology of
each centre. This implied a very important task of dissection and interpretation for the
extraction of general characteristics, which although it does not examine each of the
experiences described, it does give information about the nature of each centre.
Results: experiences
These experiences are the consequence of the implementation of a school model based
on a series of principles mentioned above. These are materialized through a type of school
that is transformed as a result of two elements: methodology and organization. The
experiences analysed below contemplate the nature of such change. It is a matter of
transforming school reality and responding to the new demands of society, through the
involvement of the entire educational community. On the ways of doing things, each one
of them is examined according to the analysis of each specific experience.
The following five schools are described: CEP (Primary Education School) Amara Berri
(Donosti-San Sebastian); Estudio School (Madrid); CEIP (Childhood and Primary Education
School) Trabenco (Leganés, Madrid); CP (Public School) Vital Alsar (Santander); and
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Primary Education schools and pedagogical renewal: Reviewing experiences
finally, CEIP Doctor Limon (Puertollano, Ciudad Real).
The following is a synoptic description of each of these schools’ realities. The analysis
process, based on observation and interviews, yielded a great amount of information that
is presented in a conglomerate and summarized in order to offer the sample of an
educational ideology and a comprehensive account.
CEP Amara Berri (San Sebastian, Basque Country)
`If life is not segregated, neither is school´ (teachers from the Amara Berri School,
currently working on educational training and advice on the Amara Berri system. Personal
communication during the visit to the school, May 2012)
The public school Amara Berri is located in the Autonomous Community of the Basque
Country, specifically in Donostia, San Sebastian. The school is the continuation of a project
initiated in the early seventies by a group of teachers in a private school in Durango and
Loli Anaut promoted what was known as the experience of the
Equipo de Durango
. Loli
Anaut was born in Irún in 1939. From 1959 to 1979 she developed her work as a teacher
in private schools, participated actively in pedagogical renewal movements generated from
the 1970 Reform. From 1979 to 2000 she worked in public schools. She starts and finishes
the Amara Berri project in Donostia: Globalization as a vital process within an open
system, lately known as the Amara Berri System. `In 1979 I started working at Amara
Berri, a school in the process of being created. From that same spirit of Durango, I wanted
to start this project in the Early Childhood stage, because it was the one that I lacked to
know directly, and I started, as always, giving classes in the classrooms.´ (Anaut, 2004,
p.211). There, the main pedagogical bases were created: A school `where the community
participates, the student body plays a leading role in its learning process, and the teaching
faculty takes on another role.´ (Freire, 2012, p.72;
personal translation
).
Amara Berri gives her name to a pedagogical system that has crystallized into a vast
network of 20 schools in the Basque Country that support and share a common
educational ideology, generating a willingness to network. An open system characterized
by research, experimentation and innovation, where the educational project and the
organization are harmoniously linked to the structure and daily life of the school
(Carbonell, 1995). Therefore, Amara Berri places each student as the axis of the project,
conceiving each one of them as a global being (Educational Project of the school, date of
consultation: 5 June 2014).
Methodologically, the textbook does not exhaust or centralize the students' work. Its
curriculum is not developed around content units but through activities full of playful
content, essential activities where the subjects are interrelated. It is what they call: social,
stable and complementary contexts –contexts that constitute the basic structure of each
cycle– (Pericacho, 2016). As Martin (2010) points out: `an organizational structure in
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Francisco Javier Pericacho , Felipe Jiménez , José Luis Estrada, Roberto Sánchez
which contexts are stable and rotate periodically and systematically allows the students to
deepen the body of knowledge that each context makes possible.´ (p.173;
personal
translation
)
In 1990, Amara Berri was considered to be an Educational Innovation Centre of the
Department of Education of the Basque Government. In this way, two functions that the
school had been implementing until that date were recognized: Research and pedagogical
renewal, as well as all kinds of actions related to the permanent training of teachers.
Estudio School (Madrid)
Estudio School (1940) is a private school that covers all the stages of education from
childhood to secondary education. It is located in Jimena Menendez Pidal St. (Madrid). It
was born in a turbulent period in the recent history of post-war Spain. It continued the
pedagogical ideas and working methods of the
Institución Libre de Enseñanza
(1876-
1936) and the
Instituto-Escuela
from Madrid (1918-1936). Some of his former teachers
had been associated with the laboratories of the
Junta para Ampliación de Estudios e
Investigaciones Científicas
(1907-1939) and had been teachers of the
Instituto-Escuela
.
The
Junta para Ampliación de Estudios e Investigaciones Científicas
(JAE) is a predecessor
of the
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas
(CSIC). He contributed significantly
to the pedagogical regeneration of Spain, thanks to the creation of different research
centres and a fruitful scholarships programme to study abroad. The school was founded
and run by three women: Angeles Gasset, Jimena Menendez Pidal and Carmen García del
Diestro (Pericacho, 2015).
The pedagogical renewal of this school is a bit historical, that is to say, at the moment in
which Estudio was founded was a difficult historical moment. These three women (who were
utterly enlightened), collected everything that the
Institución Libre de Enseñanza
had, in
some way, materialized in the
Instituto Escuela
and continued with these ideas at a very
difficult time in Spain both from a social and political perspective, that is, to educate children
and not to `do education´, I think, superficially. I believe that is the magic of this school,
which conveys an interest in culture. (Extract from an interview with a teacher at Estudio
School and representative of the 3rd, 4th and 5th grade Primary Education section, held on
21 January 2013.).
The school starts from a plural perspective of coexistence and integral formation of the
person. Its daily life manifests the intention of generating curiosity for the natural and
social context and fostering a high sense of tolerance and respect towards others.
Consequently, some of the leading signs of identity that define the school are as follows:
learning impregnated with an ethical sense; the inclusion of external activities that
stimulate creativity (a vital part of the student's training is considered the knowledge
achieved outside the classroom and especially excursions and visits); great importance
given to physical education; work through annual core themes; the absence of textbooks
as a single material for work; the use of notebooks and work files; the importance of
music lessons and manual work is given great importance throughout the school years;
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Primary Education schools and pedagogical renewal: Reviewing experiences
and finally, continuous evaluation, in which attitudes are valued (not just contents), each
teacher makes a report for the students' evaluation (Pericacho, 2015).
I believe that the real renewal is trying to make sure that everything children learn makes
sense. If it does not make sense... The contents right now in the century in which we live
have no weight; I think they have a minimal weight. We provide the children with tools,
instruments, illusion, meaning... I believe that this is our job if we do not succeed... I hope
we will always reach. (Extract from an interview with a teacher at Estudio School and
representative of the 3rd, 4th and 5th grade Primary Education section, carried out during a
visit to the school on 21 January 2013).
CEIP Trabenco (Leganes, Madrid)
CEIP Trabenco is a public school located in the Community of Madrid, specifically in the
city of Leganes. It was founded in 1972 in the lower reaches of a housing cooperative,
following its agreement with the Spain Ministry of Education, responding to the increase in
the area's population and the lack of public schools to provide schooling for children. The
aim was to develop an open and dynamic educational model in which the school would be
a participative and active community, with students, teachers and families as the main
characters (Pericacho, 2015). As the school’s principal points out: `Trabenco has an
organizational structure that allows direct participation where families and teachers –at
different levels of responsibility– share and take responsibility for the project.´
personal
translation
) (Extract from an interview with the Principal of CEIP Trabenco, conducted
during a visit to the school, April 2013).
This school is a notable point of reference in the Community of Madrid for all types of
groups involved in pedagogical renewal processes. Its objectives are oriented to the
achievement of an integral formation of students, a constant professional development of
educators and the socio-cultural development of the context in which it is found. Some of
the main features that characterize its pedagogical ideology are summarized through the
following points: expression and creativity, freedom of opinion and constructive debate
dominate the dynamics of the school, search for a critical subject with the possibility of
analysing and acting in its environment, work in values education on a daily basis, valuing
cultural diversity, learning through research and democratic and participatory
management of the school by all members of the educational community (source: Own
elaboration based on observations, interviews and the school's website).
In conclusion, Trabenco is a school that is concerned and busy both in consolidating a
comprehensive and meaningful education for students and in creating educational
processes that are synergistic with the family and socio-cultural context. Its long history
has allowed a large number of teaching collectives linked to pedagogical renewal
movements, researchers, individual teachers and educational institutions to learn about
their experience, generating an inspiring collective pedagogical imaginary and the creation
of initiatives in the original contexts. As Feito and Soler (2011) state: it is an innovative
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Francisco Javier Pericacho , Felipe Jiménez , José Luis Estrada, Roberto Sánchez
and enterprising school where, far from working with prefabricated curricular materials,
`the intellectual concerns –which are infinite– of boys and girls are the starting point.´
(2011, p.156; personal translation):
Trabenco has been making itself a little bit through the people that were here, always in this
line of investigation, research-action, then... We learn from Freinet, Freire... Significant
references... There are those who have also gained a lot from Summerhill... It is extensive.
(Extract from an interview with a Trabenco's teacher, conducted during a visit to the school,
April 2013).
C. P. Vital Alsar (Santander, Cantabria)
The Vital Alsar School project dates back to 2010. It is the result of a notable demand
from families and teachers with Cantabrian educational institutions for the achievement of
a public school where another type of education is developed. Some of the first things that
are evident in this school are the participatory, emotional and affective character of the
whole school community, as its Principal says: `Our school advocates above all for an
education focused on the emotional and affective´ (Extract from an interview with the
Principal of Vital Alsar School, held on January 15, 2016). Its pedagogical and
methodological principles are based on respect and trust; mutual learning; respect for
different learning paces and styles; free choice of the intellectual path of the learner;
respect for freedom of expression of feelings and emotions; and finally, the inclusion of
minorities.
As for the curriculum, due to its public and official nature, it follows the curricular
guidelines established by the Department of Education of the Government of Cantabria.
However, its organization probably represents the main novelty concerning the
homogeneity of the public system. The class schedule identifies the corresponding
curricular subjects through ``pseudonyms, ´ so it is observed that
`
barrio
´
(neighbourhood) corresponds to Mathematics, `editorial´ (editorial) to Language, and
`tierra´ (earth) to Natural Science. These subjects take physical form through their
spaces, which correspond to a particular subject or activity. So it has the `editorial´
classroom, the `barrio´ classroom, the classroom and the outer space (garden) of
`tierra´, the space for `isla´ (island) or a kind of multi-purpose room, and the `taller de
expression artística´ (art-expression workshop).
Students pass through all these spaces approximately four times a week, organized by
cycles. These are the ones who change classrooms according to the ``corresponding
subject matter´, and not according to the way of rotating matter in the group-class space
developed by the conventional model. As for the times, these are assumed in a very
flexible way. The hours are not separated by a bell that indicates the end of one activity
and the beginning of another, and sometimes breaks are usually spaces for the
continuation of tasks if these have not been completed and the student who works on
them decides so.
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Primary Education schools and pedagogical renewal: Reviewing experiences
Looking at the most relevant methodological strategies, their proposal for linguistic and
communicative work is of interest, for which they have developed a magazine in which
each student makes different contributions with the aim of producing periodical issues
with relevant news from the municipality, petitions or social denunciations that each
student determines autonomously. Another of the most significant methodological
strategies is the `travel agency´ activity. This takes place in the `barrio´ (mathematics)
space, and through it, the students design real trips to be made (themselves or other
people from the school: teachers, fathers, mothers...). By planning travel itineraries,
making hotel reservations or providing food for an excursion, the cognitive scaffolding is
set in motion in a comprehensive, real and active way. Equally significant regarding
methodology is the school market (a market with real products), orchard work, physical-
chemical experiments, or finally, the use of Montessori material for the development of
mathematics.
In short, it is a unique school and a benchmark in pedagogical renewal and alternative
education for the autonomous community of Cantabria, as well as for other Spanish
regions, as evidenced by the enormous demand for places by families from different
geographical areas. As the school’s Principal points out: `families from the whole
Cantabrian community come to the school and even from outside, we have families from
Castellón, Asturias, León (...) who have settled in Santander to enroll their children in
school´ (Extract from an interview with the Principal of Vital Alsar School, held on January
15, 2016).
CEIP Doctor Limon (Puertollano, Ciudad Real, Castilla-La Mancha)
Doctor Limón Public School –located in Puertollano– has been marked by social
exclusion for more than thirty years, in a context considered as a social ghetto, physically
disintegrated from the urban nucleus of the city and excluded its community from the vital
dynamics of the city and its inhabitants. However, the entrance of the new century marks
the beginning of a series of high innovative measures that the school has been planning
since then. Thus, this school is currently one of the most active in educational innovation
on the official and public education map of Castilla-La Mancha. Several measures in the
methodological and curricular field, which reach their maximum potential in organizational
matters, confirm this assertion. Two are particularly noteworthy for their significance and
relevance:
First of all, a reorganization of groups is carried out for the work of the instrumental
areas. This new organization implies an arrangement of students according to the different
curricular levels, breaking the general disposition by age. The first two sessions of the day
are therefore used to develop mathematical and linguistic skills. As the groupings
generated exceeded the number of courses and tutors, the specialists occupy, during
these sessions, teaching-learning tasks related to these areas. As the Academic Head
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Francisco Javier Pericacho , Felipe Jiménez , José Luis Estrada, Roberto Sánchez
says: `the early morning hours are much more productive, and we take advantage of
them to work on language and mathematics, which are of great importance in this
educational context´ (
personal translation
) (Extract from an interview with the School's
Head of Studies, held on 29 April 2013).
Secondly, they carry out what the school calls the
Comisión de Aliados
. It stems from
the need to bring all sectors of the community together to achieve two primary objectives:
firstly, to reduce the level of school absenteeism, by promoting the value of school in
families, and secondly, to stop the conflict in the school. A committee is created in which
all the social sectors of the neighbourhood are represented: families, neighbours’
association representing the town council, gypsy association, parish and school. One of
the first functions that this group set up was the `alarm clock commission.´ It consisted in
informing family by family and each day of the time children had to wake up to attend
school. Another function of this commission is to manage conflicts between families and
act as a mediator between them, to organize extracurricular activities for students and
families, as well as to serve as a visible body of any school and/or community issue that
may arise at any time and within the scope of students' families, as pointed out by the
Head of Studies: `this commission of allies has a fundamental function, which is to gather
forces, to provide all the demands of the school and the neighbourhood with the support
of the community´ (
personal translation
) (Extract from an interview with the School's
Academic Head, held on 29 April 2013).
In short, it is an innovative and social educational project that has contributed to
reduce the level of school absenteeism by almost 20% and to increase the levels of
curricular competence among students in the neighbourhood. This also means that many
families, due to the closeness and knowledge of a project in which they have participated
in previous years, begin to become more actively involved in the school with the
consequent improvement of school-community relations and the development of their
children.
Discussion and conclusions
This work has shown some of the Primary Education experiences that, within the
framework of formal education in Spain, mark educational trajectories that move them
away from the traditional methodology described by Frabboni (1998) and walk along the
path of pedagogical renewal. They are understood in this way because everyone
implements differently both effective methodologies and new realities of technical-
vocational, educational, critical, playful, artistic and cultural formation. In the same way
that they develop inclusion, promote conscious, active and coherent as well as meaningful
learning, and define themselves as cooperative and supportive schools to encourage a
climate of trust and personal security that favours the development and education of
students (Menchen, 2013).
186
Primary Education schools and pedagogical renewal: Reviewing experiences
These are projects that have undoubtedly known and been able to achieve official
recognition, both in the public and private contexts, and that has managed to articulate an
educational response understood as more coherent with real life and therefore more
useful for the correct formation of the human being. They have also been accompanied
and even promoted by the family context and the community environment that has
configured them as right promoters, vertebrators and energizers of the social life of all
families.
Apparently, if the Spain pedagogical renewal has changed over time, because the
country's social structures have changed throughout the 20
th
century, the different
tendencies among the projects analysed in this article are also noticeable. Thus, just as
the pedagogical renewal of the early 20
th
century, in which the development of the
graduate school, for example, marked the path of the Spain educational renewal (Pozo,
2007), cannot be equated with that of the current 21
st
century in which more
heterogeneous and diversified classroom structures and curricula (Gil, Gil & Vera, 2011)
can be established. Therefore, neither relations nor excessively general principles can be
compared. However, a series of standard characteristics and shared elements can be
inferred among these projects: community participation and the assumption of its vital
importance for school improvement, special appreciation of cultural diversity, curricular
and organizational flexibility, the use of diverse techniques and materials that de-politicize
the use of textbooks and the master class, critical reading of reality, and finally, the
development of creativity. These are some of the leading conventional features that define
these projects, which ultimately seek the path of respect for the interests and needs of
their students and, consequently, a real integral development.
We also see, and perhaps here lies the real common axis of all these projects, the
structural renewal they promote, which gives them the label of `renewing schools´
per se
and not just innovators. It is about the axiological plane, the personality of each school, all
assumed as projects for change that also put in the collective commitment to the
sustainable transformation of its structures one of its chief merits. Without a doubt, these
are schools projects from which all the teachers, organized and committed to the process,
are erected as real precursors of the process through creativity, solidarity and radicalism,
that is, from the root of the problems (Rogero, 1999) for the common purpose they
propose.
It should be borne in mind that some of these schools and others that move away from
the traditional school model have generated all kinds of criticism in part of the educational
community. The main ones revolve around the academic performance of students, the
construction of `pedagogical islands, ´ the scarce heterogeneity of students, and finally,
the possible future difficulties of students when they move to other schools with a more
traditional methodology. In this sense, the limitations of our work, as explained in the
introduction, are highlighted, since it has only been attempted to describe part of the
187
Francisco Javier Pericacho , Felipe Jiménez , José Luis Estrada, Roberto Sánchez
educational proposal of some representative schools because they are far removed from
the traditional school model with a high degree of pedagogical renewal. To answer these
questions that remain unaddressed in the article, essential and recent works such as those
of Roman (2008), Murillo and Krichesky (2012), Muijs, Kyriakides, Werf, Creemers,
Timperley and Earl (2014), Hopkins, Harris, Stoll and Mackay (2014), Martínez-Garrido
(2015); Murillo, Hernández-Castilla and Martinez-Garrido (2016) provide valuable
information.
In short, the Spain pedagogical renewal is undergoing a transparent process of growth
and notable upward evolution. Firstly, due to the diffusion of these new ways of doing
pedagogy, promoted in present-day Spain from the social movement `15-M´ (Carbonell,
2015). Secondly, and as a consequence of the foregoing, because as it is evident, this is
not merely a pedagogical movement, but rather an elaborate and pragmatic critique of the
current traditional systems, in a state of protracted crisis, due to the inadequacy of their
educational structures to the existing realities that mark a pulse to which the conventional
pedagogical model does not adapt and which requires people, projects and actions that
promote a coherent, critical, meaningful, sustainable and effective integral development of
the students.
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