Europe Girona meeting – March 2019

Generalitat de Catalunya Escola Pericot

Modern Odysseus in the arms of Europe Girona meeting – March 2019 2018-1-EL01-KA229-047725_5

From 18^th to 22 of March the Pericot School from Girona has held the second Meeting of the Erasmus+ project Modern Odysseus in the arms of Europe with the participation of 18 teachers coming from Greece, Portugal, Croatia, Latvia and Catalonia – Spain.

First day, after a full visit of the school we focus on Introducing Waldorf system based on the philosophy that imaginative and practical hands-on work is the best way to promote learning meanwhile children are introduced to lessons through music, visual arts, dance, writing, and myth. This education aims to inspire life-long learning in all students and to enable them to fully develop their unique capacities. We linked part of the Waldorf system as well to some of the main points of the Pericot School Project. All the artistics subjects are really valuable for the integration of the students who don’t speak Catalan neither Spanish, as they feel they are at the same level than the rest of pupils.

We had the chance to experience how Visual arts education helps to develop sensory awareness, enhances sensibilities and emphasises particular ways of exploring, experimenting and inventing. Through a practical workshop about how to encourage developing and understanding the art forms and art appreciation, the teachers experienced how to explore art media, looking for develop specific skills and techniques, using the visual arts elements further than the usual techniques as paper and colours. Also, creative expression workshops help the children to build a bridge for the gap between past and present, culture of origin and host society. The workshops provide a safe space for expression, acknowledge and value diversity, allow the establishment of continuity, and facilitate the transformation of adversity.

Through the dance and movement, as the first language we learn, we focus on the approach experiencing of creative dance in the education curriculum. Dancing is an integral way of learning, using the whole body, not only the brain, optimizes the learning process. It’s easier to remember something when you are using your whole body, this is why dance and movement is a good resource to teach other school subjects (languages, mathematics ...). You learn to observe and reproduce, to focus, and you see the necessity of repeating and strive to improve, without pressure, intuitively. You also improve postural habits, flexibility, balance and strength. Skills very valuable for learners.

Generalitat de Catalunya Escola Pericot

We saw as creative expression in drama workshops can be implemented successfully with different age groups, adapting the modes of expression to their varying developmental needs. Four aspects seem to play a key role in all the workshops: the construction of a safe space, the acknowledgement and appreciation of diversity, the establishment of continuity, and the transformation of adversity.

They can be replicated in different school systems and adapted to class programs for immigrant and refugee children, as long as three central points are kept in mind. First, a verbal and nonverbal means of expression must always be paired, to offer the children more than one way of expressing themselves and to circumvent the inevitable language barrier. Second, the program should metaphorically represent cultural diversity to allow a give and take between mainstream and minority cultures. Third, it is essential to provide a secure place for working through issues, and this can be done by alternating opportunities for personal expression and small group discussions to foster empathy and solidarity. Finally, the experience of the creative drama workshops raised the importance of sensitizing the teachers to the children’s life experience and of supporting them in this process.

Diversity in classrooms is a term that can have many different meanings depending on context. This practical workshop offered a comprehensive definition of the term, identifying how diversity affects the classroom and providing practical tips for promoting an inclusive classroom through the system called by ours as ‘wheels’, who consist is sequenced activities according with the pupil’s level. Children are often at the forefront of working out what it means to be a new arrival in a different country. They feel the anxiety that comes with being the new girl or boy at school. They are in an environment that emphasises integration, learning new rules, making new friends, possibly learning a new language.

Amid all of these changes, teachers must be aware of how important it is simply for children to feel included. Even making their home countries a feature of lessons in, for example, geography can help children feel more at ease. It is a valuable opportunity for them to contribute. If their identities are ignored these children may feel detached from school. This sense of detachment has been shown to negatively affect learning. It may also have more serious consequences for a child’s sense of belonging and, ultimately, well-being.

Robotics at school has been a workshop to show how working with robotics goes far beyond the obvious lessons surrounding building and coding—it’s also an effective way to teach literacy competency and other various “soft skills” that are essential in today’s world, and a perfect way to practise cooperative methodology.

Finally, the English Festival: Journey to Ithaca has been a sample of what we have been seeing and doing in the lectures and workshops during the week: arts, music and dance, all together in a story about the feeling of leaving home, the nostalgia of the homeland and the situation of refugees. Everything linked with Odysseus and his return to Ithaca.

Generalitat de Catalunya Escola Pericot

As Cavafy says, we all want to return home, to Ithaca, to view from the sea that island where we grew up. The legendary Greek island is the perfect metaphor for the purpose in life, one which we never stop pursuing. Ithaca could be nearly anything. It can represent the processes involved in reaching a goal or in recovering something we have lost. It might even symbolize the act of transitioning through life, from beginning to end, and to finally returning to one’s origins and the finding of a new place to start a new beginning after left your homeland.

The main goal of the Erasmus+ program is to achieve cooperation and networking of schools in Europe, to practise a learning experience in another European country, and to exchange good practices. In particular, this project concerns school partnerships with a view to exchanging good practices and promoting the respect and understanding of the other, so that the practices of the program become an integral part of everyday life of as many children and adults as possible. The fact that the educational, social and emotional success of immigrant students differs so widely across countries, and that countries pursue such different policies and practices in leveraging the potential of immigrant children, underlines that there is much that our schools can learn from each other.

Odysseus ship now has left from Girona city (Catalonia – Spain) and is sailing through Latvia, arriving on September full of new experiences.