The Rio Carnival in Brazil

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9. Cooperative kids

The concept of cooperative learning is alien to all of us who were taught the traditional way, but it offers our children the adventure of finding their own answers. Di Lilford reports.

If you took a doctor from the 19th century and put her in a modern operating theatre, she would have no idea what to do, but if you put a teacher from the 19th cen­tury into a modern classroom she would be able to carry on teaching without pause. Teaching methods have already changed in one hundred years.

The idea remains that students are empty containers which the teacher fills with knowledge, and that all stu­dents have to do is listen and write.

Education consultant Alyce Miller says: " This approach does not work in today's changing world. We are not teaching creative problem-solving. We encourage competition, believing that this brings out the best in

people." But this is not so. Encouraging children to concentrate on getting the best marks destroys motivation and takes the fun out of the classroom. She goes on to say that the teacher's role is no longer to feed stu­dents with information. " The facts are available in libraries, on CD ROMS and on the Internet. What stu­dents need are the skills to find this information, to use it and to think creatively in order to solve the problems of our world."

Miller believes that cooperative learning is the future of education and thinks of it as the best way to encourage responsibility, tolerance and helpfulness towards oth­ers. She says that good relationships are the key to effective learning.

In cooperative learning classes, the traditional classroom physical layout is abandoned. Children do not sit in straight rows of desks facing the teacher, but rather face one another to make it easier to share ideas. Pupils learn to work first in pairs, then in threes, and finally in teams of four. Students are required to parti­cipate actively in discussing and shaping their own knowledge. The teacher, who is still very important to the process, becomes the helper rather than the master.

Aarnout Brombacher, head of the mathematics depart­ment at Westerford High School, says: 'The incorrect assumption that many people make about cooperative learning is that it is merely group work. It is much, much more. It recognizes that pupils do not have the skills to work together. With this technique, most of the time in the classroom is spent teaching them these skills- life skills."

Brett Melville, a 17-year-old pupil at the school, agrees. " You learn the same material as you would using the normal method, but this way you learn how to work with others at the same time. In our class, we are given enough time to discuss issues and problems in detail."

He adds that it might take longer than simply listening to the teacher lecture, but the students remember much more afterwards.

One teacher, Lynne Gedye, has been using cooperative learning in her classes for two years. She says, " This year we have several pupils in the class who can hardly speak a word of English. I was tearing my hair out, wondering what to do, but I need not have worried. The children's response was amazing. The strong ones coached the weak ones endlessly, so that they could participate in the classroom discussion too.

All in all, it seems that cooperative learning turns the classroom from a competitive arena into a place where learning facts and life skills is both more fun and more effective for pupils and teachers alike.

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12. When it comes to interview questions, it pays to expect the unexpected. This is a true story of one candidate’s experience. This is how his interviewers greeted him: «We’ve been interviewing candidates all morning and we’re getting bored. Do something to impress us.» Then the interviewers got out their newspapers and started reading them.

The candidate said, «Well, I’ve been waiting in this office more than two hours because you’ve been running late. Actually I ’m not impressed by your organization and not sure I want to work for you. Goodbye.»

The interviewee walked out, was invited back the next day and was offered the job.

How would you act in a situation like this? That interview was rather extreme, but a lot of employers have turned to using «killer questions» or «shock tactics», such as these:

«Tell me something about yourself that you have never told anyone.»

«Which three famous people would you invite to a dinner party and why?»

Killer questions often come early in the interview and are aimed at throwing the candidate off guard. By surprising the candidate with an original or difficult question, interviewers can get an honest reaction and an unplanned response. They also want to see candidates think through their responses calmly.

Interviewers also ask candidates other kinds of difficult questions to see how they react under pressure. For example, they may ask a hypothetical question related to work, such as «Imagine you are an employee in customer services. What would you do if an important customer was very rude to you?»

However, some experts think that hypothetical questions are not useful because they only generate hypothetical answers. They prefer candidates to talk about their past experience.

So, what would you do in these circumstances? Imagine: an interviewer has asked you a «killer question» and you just don’t know how to answer it – your mind is blank. Remember, the interviewer is not interested in your response as much as the way you respond. So, stay calm, take a few deep breaths and buy some time, e.g. «Actually, that is interesting. I have not thought about it, but maybe I’ll…» It’s a good idea to practice asking and answering some of these questions with friends.

The Rio Carnival in Brazil

This festival is by far the largest in the world. Hundreds of thousands of visitors come every year for the cele­brations before the start of Lent, (a fasting period of forty days before Easter). The carnival takes place in the Sambadrome, a huge new stadium. There, samba schools compete with each other for the best costumes and dancing. They spend a lot of time and money on carnival preparations, making fantastic costumes, masks, decorations. mobile floats and teaching the samba. In the past, the carnival procession was held in the streets of Rio, where beauti­fully clothed people threw streamers and confetti and danced for four days. Nowadays, the world's biggest street party has become a pleasure only for those who can afford the entrance fee.