words by Ewa Grynicka
Much is said in Polish schools about developing the competences of young people – students from primary and secondary schools. The definition of this word emphasizes that competence is the ability to take specific actions, and thus put into practice everything we have learned before. It is important not to confuse the competence with skills (which, according to my observations and conversations, happens among teachers), which are parts of the so-called competency triad (knowledge, skills, attitudes). The standard approach to the lesson, of course, assumes goals to be achieved (it is good if they are given to students, which is not a common practice at all). Nevertheless, it would be much better if the teacher specified the expectations by answering himself three questions:
- What knowledge will my students gain or deepen today?
- What skills will we deepen?
- What attitudes will they shape?
Preparing each lesson with the above questions in mind increases the chances of developing in students what is useful in life. Just think about how many hours a week, on average, children and teenagers spend at school. Certainly enough to develop in a person the competencies listed by the European Union as key throughout this period. We will focus on initiative and entrepreneurship.
First – communication and teamwork. Young people like working in groups, more multiplayer than pairs. The reason is simple – there will always be those in the team who “feel” and understand the given topic better. And here the role of the teacher is important. You need to know the class and select students in such a way that different characters and personalities appear in the group. One prefers to look for examples in the text, another to take notes, a third to create the presentation. The cooperation is visible to the naked eye and its effects – and this is important – are presented by the whole team, according to the assumption that entrepreneurship competence education involves encouraging students to perform in front of a larger or smaller audience and joint responsibility for actions and effects of completed tasks.
The version described above is the idealistic one. More realistically – the teacher, especially in the younger grades, often faces friendly animosities, dislike of a colleague, accusations of laziness and doing work for someone else. So, when developing entrepreneurial competences, maybe we should start with teaching planning and organizing our own work before moving on to group activities?
And this is another difficult problem to solve. In the era of attractions brought by the world, it is difficult for a school to be competitive and to convince that managing your own activities is worth attention and brings benefits. After all, it takes time, and social media, the next must-attend classes invented by parents, getting the next good grade do not allow young people to focus on what is important – developing planning skills. And so a vicious circle is created – there is no time to develop the aforementioned competences, because there are dozens of other things that are done sloppily. without any idea, quickly, because you don’t know how to organize your activities. In addition to all this, there is also stress, which consists of, for example, fear, shame, anger. It is difficult to control it and it is difficult to see a young man as an enterprising person who will be effective in his adult private and professional life.
What about a creativity and willingness to take risks that make up the entrepreneurial competences? In small children, they are still quite a natural reflex, children’s fantasy knows no bounds. The older the student, the greater the control so as not to embarrass himself with his ideas in front of his classmates. The solutions here seems to be either written work (you can “hide” and show only the teacher – provided you trust him – your innovativeness), or project activities, even going beyond the core curriculum of a given school subject. In such situations, it is somehow easier for students, because you can add a brick of your independence and ingenuity and associate it with the concept of a colleague from the group to which you belong. This was the case with the projects I created – cooperation with the Saturday Polish School in London (for grade 6 of primary school) and afternoon poetry workshops (for grades 7 and 8 of primary school).
Finally, I will return to the word that was mentioned at the beginning of the article. Communication. I didn’t consciously refer to it directly – until now. But it resonated, I think, in every paragraph of this text. You cannot be entrepreneurial if you do not have the developed competence to freely communicate with others. There will be no opportunity to present your ideas to colleagues, to show creativity, to cooperate in a group and to achieve the set goals. Therefore, the school should give students as many opportunities as possible to – just – talk. Talking about various topics that young people absorb, from the trivial ones to the important ones that shape the personality of an entrepreneurial man who can find himself in the world and among other people.
