Heroes at schools

Heroes of education are probably teachers who stand in front of a class day by day and attempt to transfer their knowledge to their students in an understandable, creative and interesting way. Teachers who stand up every morning with the aim of raising the attention of their students and of brining the most out of all students. Teachers who are not only educators but also trainers.

However, there are other heroes at schools. We could not imagine how many! Who are they? They can be famous historical or literature people (all Readers must have thought of them), but heroes can be grammar concepts, mathematical terms, institutions, organizations – anything, only our phantasy limits it. How can they be heroes? We only need to bring theatre into education.

How can we identify heroes in literature? How can we know that a person is a hero? Heroes have three characteristics: (1) main quality (identity); (2) aim; and (3) obstacles hindering them to achieve their aim. Just take Robert Langdon as an example (the hero in the Da Vinci code; Angels and Demons; Inferno and Origin). His main quality (1) is that he is a scientist of symbols. His aim (2) is to discover secrets, and the obstacles standing in front of achieving the aim (3) are the religious regulations.

This logic can be simply fitted to education, and we can use it in any subject and any course. Maybe we assume that only alive persons can be heroes, or animals or plants. However, this is not true! We can visualize this method in the example of addition. So, our hero is Addition (we assume it is a male). His main quality (1) is “being always more”, his main aim (2) is the continuous increase, and its obstacle (3) is subtraction. In our classes, we can give the task to our students to define a learned concept as a hero. We will be extremely surprised how many ideas the students will have!

What are the main advantages of this creative method?

1. It requires creativity from the teachers and the students, both.
2. It is easy to memorize because of its uniqueness.
3. It is a simple and creative way to test how much a student understands the relations.
4. It is easy to adapt to all subjects and courses.

I have learned about this method in the Innovative teaching methods training organized by the IDEC.