Science Area
The Science Area has built a transversal project on sustainability, with the main objective of reinforcing the school’s commitment to Colombian society through the generation of awareness, skills and values necessary for a more just, equitable and sustainable future. In this sense, the aim is for the school community and the students in particular to generate awareness, knowledge, skills and values to create a more just and sustainable future. We seek that they relate science to everyday life and are capable of changing their attitudes, so that, no matter what profession they choose, they make environmentally responsible decisions.
The area seeks to familiarize students with the scientific method, with the way science approaches the study of nature, developing the capacity to think critically, show reasoned arguments and draw their own conclusions and inferences based on evidence and not on loose commentaries.
The three axes of the science area are: physics, chemistry and biology. Due to the fact that in science there are no isolated events or processes and everything is integrated and part of evolution, teachers must know the processes and systems of daily life in order to explain them from the physical, chemical, and biological points of view. Therefore, we use the scientific method to create, design, observe and solve. The practical work, with multiple results, invites to the question, to the analysis and to accept the error as a natural part of the investigation. We seek to influence the lives of our students so that they become better people and build better relationships with the environment.
Mathematics Area
Mathematics develops analytical-graphic and numerical thinking to make inferences and establish projections as a means of interpreting contexts, both in the scientific and humanistic fields. Mathematics has its origin in environmental phenomena that are linked in a series of abstractions, generalizations or formalizations, theories to produce concepts and systems of ideas in general. For this reason, the Mathematics Area bases its structure on the development of five types of thought (numerical, variational, metric, spatial and random), which help the student to approach the world that surrounds him, to study it, modify it and model it, that is, to interpret it. This way of seeing the world is built in teams and recognizes personal contributions and limitations, individual and group advances and weaknesses.
The preparation of productive and autonomous citizens who can develop efficiently in a society that is constantly evolving is the purpose of the mathematical education provided in the Gimnasio. Education in this area, besides being an essential requirement for the study of a great variety of disciplines, provides students with knowledge, skills and ways of reasoning that are required in their daily lives. The aim is for the student to develop habits and routines typical of mathematical work, which will allow him to stimulate the construction of his own knowledge, teamwork and critical participation in both personal and social decision making, both personal and social.
Technology Area
The Technology and Information Area helps students to see technology in a structured way and aims to develop skills, knowledge, attitudes and abilities that will allow them to interact in a comprehensive way in their context or daily life. Two strategies have been proposed for the use, handling and application of new information and communication technologies. The first is general literacy of computer concepts, and the second is support for the other areas where ICTs are an important tool for disciplinary and subject-specific learning in the curriculum.
The commitment of the Technology Area is oriented towards the identification, analysis and management of problems susceptible to a technological solution through a critical, ethical and reflexive look at reality. It also contributes to the development of the school’s transversal projects, recognizing that the presence of devices and applications currently crosses all dimensions of the experience.
The development of the multiple logics in mathematics, science and technology encourages different points of view with solid arguments, which favor critical and constructive thinking in different situations.
Area of Spanish and Literature
The Spanish Area has as its main objective the strengthening of the native tongue and the values of the humanism that has always characterized the school. In the Spanish and Literature Area, students are trained in the linguistic and discursive skills that allow them to communicate with precision and coherence, orally and in writing, in any context or communicative situation. The area promotes universal literary culture, so that the student is able to understand any type of text, analyze it, synthesize it, as well as assume an argued position before those texts. Its teachers promote the aesthetic enjoyment of reading through imagination and literature, its infinite possibilities to understand problems and contexts in another way, with the purpose of favoring the development of the reading and writing processes, the knowledge and the good use of language.
The student, through interpretation and faithful to the humanist spirit of the school, is concerned to encourage a critical and reflective conscience with respect to life. They live the exercise of free expression and question their actions based on the sensitivity and understanding necessary to face the difference in all its areas. For this task, he finds in the Cultural Agenda a space for deepening the knowledge of the authors of universal literature. School media such as El Aguilucho, El Pichón, El Huevito, The Radio Station, the School Journalism Project on television are the crystallization of these efforts and the most authentic way of expression of the students.
Languages Area
The main purpose of the Language Area is the education of students who, in addition to being bilingual, are knowledgeable about the world, open-minded, and willing to function in a global society. The area will try to guarantee the development of the learning skills of the 21st century. The main objective of the area is to seek a high level of competence in languages such as English, Spanish, French and Portuguese. Through new strategies and methodologies for teaching languages, always in accordance with the philosophy of the Gimnasio Moderno, students will create and strengthen cultural awareness, build their own expectations in the acquisition of the new language and develop an understanding of language as a system.
Learning languages at Gimnasio Moderno also offers excellent opportunities for students to develop leadership skills, solve problems, acquire research skills and increase their communication abilities. The Language Area contributes to the education of a bilingual and multicultural student, with a wide vision of the world and a great interest in the knowledge of local and foreign cultures.
Social Sciences Area
The Social Science Area works on the education of ethical citizens, with a wide vision of the socio-cultural phenomena of Colombia and the world, creating awareness of cultural diversity and of the different social expressions. Likewise, by promoting the development of leadership skills and conflict resolution, it emphasizes the student’s relationship with himself and his immediate environment (family, school, country). It promotes research through the interpretation and analysis of information and sources of various types, the cultivation of interdisciplinary knowledge and the ability to exercise leadership in different disciplines. It guides the student in nation building through the Peace Master Class and reflections aimed at action in possible post-conflict scenarios.
The Social Sciences Area contributes to the education of ethical and reflective citizens of their acts, with critical thinking skills and a close commitment to their personal development, that of their community and their country. These integral people, capable of posing questions, seeking sources of information and proposing their own research, will be responsible members of their community and promoters of peace through their words, actions and initiatives.
Area of Physical Education and Sports
Physical education seeks to awaken in students, through games and physical activities, a greater awareness of their body and the caring for it, to strengthen values that allow collaboration and fellowship, the following of rules of the game and respect for others. It also seeks to awaken in them the capacities that will allow them to better face defeat or victory, always in an environment of healthy competition.
Physical education aims to provide a comprehensive training adapted to individual skills and differences. Direct and close contact in class favors a sincere and open relationship, where students express their feelings and emotions with greater freedom. It is here that physical activities play a definitive role in the development and formation of students’ biological and cognitive processes. A graduate of Gimnasio Moderno knows, practices and values physical activity as an indispensable element to preserve health. He accepts the rules for group functioning, respects personal autonomy, participation and the appreciation of diversity.
Music Area
The area seeks to strengthen musical skills (interpretative, auditory and creative) in children and young men through vocal, instrumental and appreciation workshops. Students are guided in the acquisition of forms of artistic expression through the interpretation of the different codes of musical language, with the objective of educating sensitive young men with the capacity for analysis, who can relate cultural contexts on a national and international scale, taking advantage of the use of technological resources. Additionally, extracurricular spaces are offered for those interested in deepening their knowledge and developing their artistic talents in the Music School.
The Music Area contributes to the recognition and acceptance of sensations, emotions and feelings, to cultural education, to the acceptance of the norm within the parameters of respect, limits, difference and tolerance.
Arts Area
The Arts Area gives the student a way of being and feeling free. Art, beyond being a tool or an instrument at the service of communication, culture and pedagogy, is above all the sensitive form that man has used since ancient times to generate bonds of coexistence, expression and experimentation. Men also use it to develop, know and learn about his own experiences. Art classes at school, focused on the development of the self, are connected to the child as a form of interpretation of one’s own perceptions through expressive, free, spontaneous and creative production. Because of this condition, art at school has the need to complement, stimulate and expand the radius of action of each child’s natural, unique and diverse impulse.
In the face of the free and autonomous possibility of choosing between the lines of artistic expression (corporal expression, plastic expression and expression in new media), the area offers the students the opportunity to experiment with them and to know which one will be able to have a relation with their future, either by vocation or particular taste. Likewise, it increases in the student the security to read images and express in oral or written form a personal look from texts produced in class or in their research projects, with a language of art. This develops a critical sense based on the experience and knowledge acquired in class.
Area of Faith Education
According to the Preamble of the Statutes of the Fundacion Gimnasio Moderno, religious education is important as part of the mental and moral education of students. The objective of Education in Faith in the School is to teach the Catholic religion from its intellectual, cultural and human aspects. In this way, religion classes are taught from the perspective of humanism and understanding of other cultures, with an emphasis on Christian values. It should be noted that the ultimate purpose of this program is that the students of the School develop a spiritual dimension, become better citizens and better people, through a deep contact with themselves and their inner world through practices such as reflection, gratitude and self-observation, among others.
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