Tosee Saderat Iran Middle school Tehran

IEARN Learning Circles Online Course OCT 2007 Thanks to our teacher Shohreh Modaresi And our teachers facilitators Barry, Minoo

Thanks to

Practical courses in middle schools We have three books in each grade of middle schools. Subjects in books are diverse and cover some practical skills needed in real life. Subjects are o Carpentry, wood working and preparation and tools o Electric circuits, safety and hazards and tools o Heath and wellness o Cooking, sewing and textiles, embroideries and … o Metal working and soldering and brazing o Gardening

We have one and half hours a week for this course and totally it is 48 hours in school year for this course. We go to workshop and make something every other week….we stay in class and we study books. In class, teacher describes current subjects. In carpentry, we learn about all kinds of wood and saws used for them. In electric circuits course we learn about different kinds of wires and circuits, and also learn about safety measures when working with electric appliances and circuits.

Almost all students like the practical part of this course. We make wooden objects; we make electric circuits with switches and lamps. Girls have more about sewing and boys instead work on soldering and brazing. In this way the theoretical parts of the class is not the same for boys and girls.

I like to learn repairing my utensils. For example I dont like to call someone to set my lamp. I like to learn electronics too. Khashyar Hooman Erfan I like to learn more about electric circuits. I want to make some lamps and lighting in my room myself. I like to know about cars and motors. I want to know why sometimes it breaks down.

Fereydoon: Everything seemingly trivial will be useful someday try to learn trivial Sure will help you someday. Mahdi: My shelfs door was not fit. I sawed it.

What do other students do? Perth Andover Middle School has two practical courses. They are Broad Based Technology, and Food and Textiles. In Broad Based Technology we learn how to use carpentry tools and computers. We do modules, which include different activities such as working with digital cameras and videos cameras. In food and textiles, we learn how to cook with different utensils and ingredients, and how to sew, using many types of materials and threads. No textbooks are used during these classes, only our hands and minds. Lisa

What do other students do … Broad base is the favorite course. The cars were the most favorite projects and the favorite projects in food and textiles is cooking. Some of us do use what we learn in these classes, like the sewing. Example- when my sofa ripped I used the technique I had learned and fixed my couch. I know not only I use what I learn in the classes. I may be the only one to admit it but we learn very important things in the courses and we will all need to use what we learn at some point in our life. Mariah

What was our reply. Hi Lisa, Jordie and Mariah, We have a book for practical courses and we have a workshop. The book contains the subjects of practical course, differing for each year of middle school. The subjects are electricity, carpentry, sewing, health care, gardening, …. We go to workshop every other week. There, we can make some wooden objects or electric circuits. Its useful for us, but we think its a too short time and we do it in groups and not individually. We hope it will be longer and we need more freedom to choose activities. Our final mark out of 20, has two equal parts, 10 for the theoretical and 10 for workshop. We will send some photos of our workshops and we will be happy if you send us pictures of your cameras and cooking classes. Do you bring your own camera or your school has enough cameras for all to work with? And about your cooking class, we want to know if you have kitchen and utensils in school. Omid and Amin

Wooden Masterpieces

In the workshop

Classmates in this report Houman, Pouya, Armin, Iman, Payam, amir, bardya, danyal, mehdi, Amir ali And our friend who helped us : Omid, Amin, Khashayar