NUACHTÁN PREPA CELTA | February 2021
PREPA CELTA NEWS
From Claudia Molleda’s desk | High School Principal
Dear Community, this month we will continue working hard on the Vocational Guidance Program, so we will have some virtual visits to universities with which we have agreements such as IBERO, UDLAP and Anáhuac. For us it is very important that the students from 10th grade begin to have a broad vision of what they expect from their future and how they are going to achieve it, the importance of setting goals will greatly facilitate their progress.
At Prepa Celta it is very important that our students develop their skills and exploit their full potential, that they learn strategies to guarantee success in their lives. That is why, during the classes, we give a contemporary approach, attending to the needs of nowadays and with examples so that the students relate their life to the academic area, that they can understand social, economic, scientific phenomena, etc.
One of the strategies that we have used, is that university professors share their knowledge and great experience with the students from Celta High School. An example of this is the virtual visit of Professor Lu-Shien Tan, from Lincoln Academy, Maine, USA. The teacher gave a demo class about “Entrepreneurship and Marketing” to the 10th grade students.
On the other hand, with great success, we had the delivery of MYP Personal Project Diplomas to students of the 11th grade, who during their stay in 10th grade managed to successfully complete this important challenge that marks the closure of the programme and that allows you to see the attributes of the IB Community Profile in them.
We are excited to continue in this wonderful work of building the leaders of tomorrow!
With pride, Celta I am!
IB IN HIGH SCHOOL
Alicia Silva | MYP Coordinator
Learning from failure
‘So it is well to cultivate a friendly feeling toward error, to treat it as a companion inseparable from our lives, as something having a purpose, which it truly has’ -Maria Montessori-
In the last newsletter we talked about awarding certificates and taking the IB programme a step further. However, not everything is as easy as just receiving the certificate and moving on.
Today I want to talk to you about what failure means and why it is so important to learning. At this point, self-management, reflective and thinking skills support this part of learning.
A study in the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy published that studying in a way that offers more room for mistakes and engaging in self-reflection can strengthen critical thinking skills. Even if a student doesn’t get a correct answer on the first try, the act of self-reflection after making a mistake strengthens skills that will help them make well-informed decisions in the future. (Johannessen, 2004). According to Wenzel (2002) errors and failure develop tools such as problem solving.
And although students can learn in the classroom and gradually recognize the advantages of taking failure to their advantage, the reality is that the adults around them are the ones who are shaping this positive behavior into failure.
Mistakes can be inevitable, but so are learning and growth. If we allow ourselves and our students the freedom to fail a little, it can ultimately lead to lasting success (Wenzel. 2002).
REFERENCES
Johannessen, L. (2004). Helping «Struggling» Students Achieve Success. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 47(8), 638-647. Retrieved January 13, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40016898
Wenzel T. J. (2002). Using mistakes as learning opportunities. Analytical chemistry, 74(15), 439A–440A. https://doi.org/10.1021/ac022078z.
CP
José María Reyes Retana Tamayo | Physics Professor
Physics in IB
The International Baccalaureate (IB for its acronym in English) opens the door to the students and teachers who participate in it to an international community – forgive the redundancy -intercommunicated and interdisciplinary that allows us to have an approach to knowledge in ways that would not happen in a standard educational model in Mexico. We are talking about the collective experience of more than 5000 schools in the world!
The world of the 21st century demands that we lead tremendously accelerated lives, there are never any more things to do and there are no longer times for reflection and questioning of how and why things happen, there is more information at hand than ever and it is now , more than in any other time, where we must be critical when coming into contact with this information and know how to separate the truths from the half-truths from the lies (now called “fake news”).
Not just quantity, the IB is about quality and academic rigor that allows us to foster a culture of critical, reflective thinking that is in context with a globalized world. This is where our subjects stand out from those taught in other types of academic programs.
Personally, I teach the two Physics subjects to the second-year high school groups, the eleventh grade. Topics covered over two semesters include the use of vectors for mathematical operations, classical mechanics – based on Newton’s three Laws -, bases of hydraulics, thermodynamics, electricity, and magnetism. All these issues are completely visible on a day-to-day basis, but thanks to the great advances of the last 70 years in science and technology, it is increasingly difficult to identify their application and critically understand how each of them impact our daily lives.
With an approach such as that presented by the IB, the classroom, now a totally virtual space, becomes the stage for analyzing the immutable principles of nature, for the translation of what exists into mathematical and analytical language, we are critical because we understand our role as citizens of the world and students as those who must receive the baton to continue with the growth and improvement of human societies.
PSYCHOPEDAGOGY
Jesús Ávalos | Coord. of Inter-institutional activities and Psychopedagogy
The importance of family
Many times, we speak of the term family as something very common, however, sometimes we do not give it the value it really has in the life of any person.
The family is the space built to accompany, understand, pamper us, get up, rebuild ourselves and with it go out into the world to make the best possible decisions.
Values, principles, beliefs, and objectives are transferred within families, which we learn in an experiential way, we introject them so strongly, that they are the instilled DNA, without barriers and much less, discussions.
In the exterior, families are that link of social transformation that allows us to project goals and objectives.
The family is strength, love, movement, identity, freedom, independence and action, all these qualities allow us to project ourselves in the present
It is our link with our roots and the comprehensive vision of where to go. Let’s remember to give our family the place it deserves, let’s give it the value it requires and take care of it.
