Photo by Maxim Hopman on Unsplash

Novigado invited different stakeholders to respond to the two questions: How should active learning look like in a school? What would you recommend to teachers? Here, Jacek Staniszewski , history teacher and director of the Primary and Secondary School of the Academy of Good Education in Poland, shares his perspective on how active learning should look like in schools.

At the beginning of the article, Jacek demonstrates a strong paradox. Everyone agrees on the fact that education is one of the main tools in the fight against poverty, social inequalities, intolerance and populism. Schools support this purpose and constitute the foundation for building a better, more prosperous and peaceful world for future generations. However, most countries still lack sufficient investment in education and, as a consequence, the prestige of the teaching profession remains low and the purpose of education unaccomplished.

For Jacek, the ‘school of the future’ places the students at the center and gives them the opportunity to follow their abilities and interests. The role of the teacher changes, he/she becomes a tutor who teaches a young person to enter adult life with a pool of appropriate skills. Special attention is paid to developing the soft skills of learners through various types of active methods. Those active methods require the student to forget the role of the listener uncritically receiving information from the teacher and enter the role of the subject who can actively shape the didactic process.

Read the full article of Jacek Staniszewski, to find a more thorough description of his perspective on what active learning is. Jacek looks at the different areas on which the success of this process depends through a chart and he also analyzes the numerous components of the educational ecosystem one by one: the students, the teachers, the schools, the parents, the environment, the system of education and the students once again. His analysis, which gives great emphasis on the necessity of re-shaping education and school operation, is of particular interest and importance.