“Teachers exchange – international conversations” – educational project

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Dear teachers!

 

I am writing to invite you to a project which was created for Polish teachers. I would be very grateful if you read the project assumptions and let me know what you think about it and if you would like to be a part of it.

 

As a Polish teacher I know that the language barrier, which we often encounter in Poland, limits the possibilities that nowadays world offers to us. If we want to learn how to be better teachers we need to learn from the best. And since Dutch school system is regarded as one of the most successful ones, I decided to come to the Netherlands and study in Zwolle and Harderwijk. Since then I have been trying to share my knowledge and experiences via various means like for instance by writing a blog, articles to the magazines, having a Youtube channel, attending conferences and workshops. I think this is my perception of how education should look like: we, teachers and educators, should share what we have learnt. We should exchange our knowledge not only with our students but also with our colleagues. That’s why I am trying to pass my experiences to others. In order to spark better communication between the teachers from Europe I developed an idea for a project which I would like to pursue in the near future. To make it happen, I am collecting members for my team. There’s no need to worry about the load of work. I only need a little bit of your time and some will to take part in it.

 

I want to call it “Teachers exchange – international conversations”. The main idea is to create a group on Facebook for teachers in which they have a possibility to exchange information about other European educational systems (articles, researches, experiences) and ask questions they couldn’t find an answer for. I will use these questions in interviews with educators (including teachers on all levels of education, university lecturers and specialists) so that I can gather the answers to them. What I find important and valuable is to interview as many people as possible so that I might find similarities and disparities in the views of my interviewees. And this is the part you could be involved in. I’d like to conduct an interview with you. We can meet on Skype or Whatsapp (I think that’s the most convenient). I will record the conversation (I don’t have to record the image of you) to prove that I didn’t answer the questions myself. I will post a short trailer of the meeting on Youtube (just one of your answers or an introduction). Additionally, I would like to write about this project to the newspapers and explain why it is important to learn from each other. All of the answers and interesting notes will appear on my blog as articles.

 

To sum up, I am asking you for help which contains your time, knowledge, experience and some of your personal information (I would need to write your name, country and profession).

If my project has attracted your attention, we could do something like this other way round! I am ready to share information about Polish educational system with you, if you wish :).

 

Project assumptions:

The main goal is to broaden horizons – learning from each other. Using the experience of others in the process of improving our professional skills.

Creating a database of school’s systems in the world, from which every Polish teacher will be able to draw knowledge and ready solutions at any time.

Establishing cooperation with as many teachers from around the world as possible – it will give a diverse picture of education and help you to use the best possible methods and techniques.

Building relations between teachers, supporting oneself in undertaken initiatives, motivating for self-realization and perhaps… Organizing professional cooperation in the long-term perspective.

Steps:

  1. For each country we will create some database of knowledge and materials, for three

weeks on the Facebook group there will be a post – in which comments we can ask any

questions, describe doubts, give topics to discussions etc. on the currently discussed

educational system.

  1. After this time, I will translate the questions and prepare them in the form of an

interview and they will be sent to familiarize myself with the teachers with whom I have

established cooperation.

  1. Conversations with foreign teachers will be conducted approximately every 2-3 weeks.

Each conversation will be recorded by me.

  1. Short recordings (trailers) will be available on Youtube channel.
  2. The answers given by teachers will be translated by me and saved in the form of an

article / interview on the Educational Eden blog (educationaleden.pl).

  1. On a regular basis you will receive information on what stage of work we are and what

materials I can share with you immediately.

  1. In the meantime, on the group we will exchange interesting articles, materials and

films on educational topics.

  1. I hope that teachers answers will encourage us to start discussions and create common

tools based on them.

 

Below you can see a list of the countries (in the order in which they appear in the program), from which teachers were willing to cooperate with us:

– Finland

– Spain

– Italy

– Turkey

– India

– Wietnam

In the longer term, if the project will attract interest, I would like to apply to Dutch, Norwegian, American and several Asian countries teachers. I hope that “Teachers exchange – international conversations” will be a breath of freshness in our education and a huge dose of energy to work.

 

Best regards,

Joanna Obuchowska