The school acquires meaning as a possibility for change. It is a place where children and adolescents can share collective spaces that promote practices and dynamics focused on the generation of wellbeing in others, the protection and adequate use of natural resources. The CDA seeks to promote respect for identity through the application of rules and procedures generated and experienced from each individuality.
One of the principles of this program is that parents are fundamental actors in the educational process of their children in the educational environment. There is no dissociation between school and family. Parents participate actively in the education of their children. They are managers of the basic emotional-affective structures, therefore, they actively accompany the education that is projected and applied in the educational institution.
At the methodological level, curricular content is addressed through the use of concrete material, projects and other tools that help children and adolescents build notions and concepts and categorize them.
Objective
To facilitate and promote the formation of habits of autonomy and identity in each child and adolescent, beyond their bio, psycho-social reality, as multiplying agents towards the families and the community in which they live.
Axes
CONSTRUCTIVISM
PREPARED ENVIRONMENTS
METHODOLOGY
EDUCATORS
CONSTRUCTIVISM
In constructivism, teaching and learning are privileged with dynamic, active, participatory or assembly processes, in which the formation of knowledge or cognitive structures is an authentic construction generated by the child and adolescent, with the participation of the adult who interacts and who, at the same time, is in a learning process. This methodological approach is based on the postulates of theorists such as Jean Piaget, Maria Montessori, Lev Vigotsky; Humberto Maturana, Daniel Goleman; Zubiria Bros. and David Ausubel, among others.
PREPARED ENVIRONMENTS
In order to meet the methodological objectives, children and adolescents carry out their activities in prepared environments. These are of three types:
Open environments:
They are spaces where children and adolescents play. They set their own rules and play times. They are accompanied by the educators, who do not intervene in these dynamics (their role is to observe and support them when they need it or have any difficulty).
Semi-structured environments:
These are spaces where activities require more concentrated rules and where projects are carried out, which may be inter-subject or single-subject, and which make it possible to achieve knowledge through exploration and research. In these spaces there is a program that responds to the environment previously prepared by the educator.
Structured environments:
These are spaces designed for children and adolescents to summarize what they have learned in the activities developed, either in projects or with the use of concrete material. What has been built and applied is placed in a systemic way with the use of tools such as texts, notebooks and folders. The portfolio of each child and adolescent is objectified.
EDUCATIONAL PROCESS
Activism:
Activism is an essential practice in the teaching-learning process whereby children and adolescents structure their knowledge through exploration and experiential research. This pedagogical approach overcomes the idea that knowledge is achieved only through the reception of information provided by the teacher, by texts or only through an informative memorizing practice. It is the sensory-affective activity that generates practical memory. Activism enhances the knowledge structures that every human being has, regardless of age, while generating the conditions to build new knowledge through trial and error.
Non-directivity:
Once the educators have reached a consensus on the activity to be carried out, they take on the role of companions and referents so that the children and adolescents themselves can solve the problem by themselves through accommodation and assimilation of the problem.
It is the children and adolescents who, progressively, plan their activities for the day; for this purpose, the assembly is structured, where there are levels of decision making, according to the stages of development.
EDUCATORS
What is an educator:
At CDA, the classic concept of the “teacher” as an entity possessing absolute knowledge has been replaced by that of the tutor. This approach is based on the idea that the teacher is a facilitator of the teaching-learning process, whose practice is based on evaluating and knowing beforehand the socio-cultural condition of each child and adolescent whom he/she will accompany in the performance of his/her activity. In addition, the educator is a promoter of practices and principles of inclusion and respect for diversity. This person is required to be constantly updating his/her knowledge, capable of building his/her own learning and adapting to the educational environment in which he/she works.
HOW EDUCATORS WORK
With children:
Children and adolescents carry out their activities during the course of the educational day in prepared environments. They carry out projects and make use of concrete material as learning tools. Starting at the middle school level, each child or young person plans his or her work, which is accompanied by the educators. Once a week there is an assembly of students (middle and high school) where the school processes are analyzed with the opening of spaces for questions, complaints, suggestions and the educator’s indications.
The curriculum is strengthened through the implementation of active projects that facilitate the appreciation and experiential identification with their natural environment, as biotic beings that depend on each other in balance with nature. We have the farm, the orchard, we have direct contact with the geographic zones of Ecuador, etc.
Technical Colloquium:
The Technical Colloquium is the instance of planning, evaluation and psycho-pedagogical monitoring for each of the spaces and instances of the CDA. The resolutions for the educators, administrative staff and actions to be taken with the children and adolescents come out of this space. Actions are coordinated with the families and the dispositions and indications of the Ministry of Education and how to apply them are analyzed.
FATHERS AND MOTHERS
Parents are actively involved in the educational process. Their actions are a determining factor in the methodological practice applied by the educational institution, since each child and adolescent forms his or her basic structures at home and takes them to the school environment. Parents periodically attend the school; they carry out projects and accompanying activities in a process of integration and empowerment of constructivism.
CDA FAMI
It is the instance of the Educational Institution Centro del Amanecer “CDA” that offers advice to parents, in order to help children and adolescents to build their autonomy from home to school, in receptive, reliable and friendly spaces. CDAfami supports the family in the construction of identity of its members and to enhance the affective, motor and cognitive development of children and adolescents. They are oriented to the generation of habits and practices focused on the consolidation of a culture of peace and respect for the environment.
CDAfami carries out actions so that the family and the school generate alert, prevention and detection mechanisms for any situation or problem that could be affecting the children and adolescents of the educational center and that implies a violation of their rights and personal integrity.
In this same sense, CDAfami is a space for the ongoing training of its professionals, so that they engage in continuous processes of training and updating of content, theoretical models, techniques and strategies on issues related to counseling in the constructivist educational context.
ENVIRONMENT
What is the environmental component in the CDA:
We start from a thought that was established in CDA’s educational process three decades ago: “Respecting the BEING of the child and adolescent is the principle of ecology”. It reaffirms the idea of unity between human beings and nature; it overcomes the vision of separating human nature and the environment. The CDA echoes the approach that human beings respond to a genetic imposition in search of the satisfaction of their needs, as does nature as a whole. The dual vision of human beings versus nature leads to the destruction of the environment.
How to apply:
If we put into practice the principle of respecting the natural and genetic growth processes of children and adolescents, we are helping to create the conditions for people to live in harmony and balance with the environment.