Antonio Pérez Moreno is a professor of Physics and Chemistry at the IES Sierra Luna de Los Barrios (Cádiz). He has recently been proclaimed winner of the Educa Abanca award for the best teacher of 2021 in the category of Secondary Education and Baccalaureate. He also has a YouTube channel called 'AntonioProfe' in which he explains the entire syllabus of the subject he teaches from the second year of ESO to the second year of Baccalaureate through videos of about 20 minutes in which he includes the solution of practical cases . His lessons have attracted more than 76.000 subscribers.
What does it mean to be the greatest Secondary and Baccalaureate teacher? What has made you worthy of this award?
that I am doing something right, but above all it is an injection of motivation to continue working along the same lines. I am convinced that there are thousands of teachers in Spain who deserve this award as much as I do, but I imagine that what has made the winner is the application of innovative methodologies in the classroom, specifically, the adaptation of the teaching process to reality of the XNUMXst century. Specifically, it introduced video channels and social networks massively in my classes.
Teach Physics and Chemistry is not an easy task. What does the flipped classroom methodology that you use consist of?
What most impacts my students and families is that I "do not explain" in the classroom. My students have the theoretical classes and the most important problems of this unit on my YouTube channel "AntonioProfe". They see the theory at home, as many times as necessary, in fact the only homework I send them home is to watch these videos, and we leave the classes to solve doubts and do exercises. We have turned the teaching process on its head.
"The only thing that is achieved by forcing a student to do some studies because they have more professional opportunities is to turn them into an unhappy adult"
How to motivate students in learning?
As we leave the classes to do exercises in groups and practices, the motivation is greater. They are the protagonists of their learning: they do the exercises, they resolve doubts among themselves... On the other hand, the preparation of practices, which we send to the "Society in Solidarity" channel, is also an important source of motivation. Highlight that the methodology applied with the practices is project-based learning and collaborative learning. In short, the funds raised through this channel go to UNHCR, the UN refugee aid agency.
Why create this channel to explain this assignment and solve Secondary and Baccalaureate exercises and, what is more important, achieve 76.000 subscribers, when there are some teachers who cannot avoid yawning in their twenty students?
I decided to create the channel because students constantly go to YouTube to learn and they like it, but most of the channels found on the Internet only deal with the content that gives them “views”. With this idea, I decided to create my channel, but with all the contents that they should study and in the same order in which they appear in their books, so that they could study the subject only with the channel.
"In general, there is little involvement of families with training centers: finding a parent delegate is of course difficult, and if we talk about parents for the school council, it is almost an impossible mission"
Do you think that families are very involved in the education of their children in the early stages of Infant and Primary and then they disconnect more? How should their involvement in Secondary and Baccalaureate be?
Unfortunately, many families with disruptive children do not show up at the institute, so their level of involvement is zero in many cases. But, in general, there is little involvement. To give an example, finding a parent delegate is of course difficult, and if we are talking about parents for the school council, it is almost an impossible mission. We must encourage the participation of families in the centers, with open classes and joint parent/student/teacher activities, but it is very complicated due to the large number of non-teaching tasks with which teachers are being burdened.
What advice do you give to students in their final year of Baccalaureate who have to face the difficult choice of a professional career?
I have this question very clear: they should study the career they like, period. The only thing that you achieve by forcing a student to do some because they have more professional opportunities is to turn them into an unhappy adult. In addition, I advise them to study training cycles, especially higher cycles, where there are very attractive degrees and with good future prospects.
What would be, in your opinion, the three pending subjects of our educational system?
1º Select the future teachers very well. Teaching cannot be the career that is studied when you do not have the grade to enter others. A few days ago, I read a proposal from the Ministry of Education in this sense that I think is very successful.
2º Reduce the ratio, where it can practically be done for free. Last year, due to the simipresencial, it was again made clear that much more is achieved in a class with 20 students than with 30. And why do I say that it can be done for free, because if we reduce the school day by one hour in Secondary and Baccalaureate, and I am referring to the students' day, the teachers would be there the same hours. It looks good, doing this, for every 100.000 teachers that are free about 16.000, which you can use to drastically reduce the ratio, move teachers back by classroom, increase teacher training in schools, etc.
3º Greater teacher training, especially in innovative methodologies. This could be done with a two-year master's degree, with a full year of internships supervised by teachers with recognized experience and validation, and with a real evaluation. If in addition to this, we introduce a professional career in such a way that good teachers can progress and get incentives, it would be perfect.
