Célestine Freinet was a French pedagogue and an educational reformer from the 20th century. He did not believe in the traditional methods and made a shift in education. Freinet defined his own philosophy as “techniques for living” which has a grateful trust in nature, it also puts children’s needs and desires above all.
Freinet created several techniques to apply his philosophy in the classroom. In the International Class, the teacher explained us the “Learning Printing Technique”. He did not just talked about how to use this technique in class, we even did it ourselves, as the students would do.
In this technique, children can write freely about the topic they choose, then this text is presented to the class, discuss to be edited and corrected, and finally is printed. Children print their text manually and then they create a magazine or a newspaper. In this technique, students work by themselves and the teacher only helps them if it is needed. Students learn to be autonomous because they have to plan every single detail, from what they want to put in the text to the technique which they are going to use to print the text.
Freinet created different techniques. Even though they are different from one to each other, they share common characteristics. Some of the following points are the main ideas of Freinet’s methodology:
1. The class meeting: this is one of the most known Freinet’s techniques. It is the start of the class and students are responsible for regulating the dialogue about their feelings, beliefs and today’s work.
2. The wall poster: in this poster you can see three different parts. “We wish, We congratulate and We complain”. It is a tool to help students discuss and talk about the classroom dynamic. At the end of the week, it is time to revise the poster and see if there is any problem to solve.
3. Work schedule: pupils are the one in charge of deciding their own schedule for the whole week.
4. Natural reading: children start to learn to read and write with their own words, that is why they are not forced to learn abstract words that do not have a meaning for them.
5. Free text: children have the power to decide what they want to write, where, when and with whom. By giving them this freedom, children start to learn to organize themselves at an early age.
FREINET'S TECHNIQUES