In week 39, University of Agder had visitors from an Erasmus+ project called ValiDE – Values in Democratic Education. The project is a collaboration between University of Agder (Norway), University of Education Weingarten (Germany) and Pedagogical University Krakow (Poland). The project focuses on strengthening democratic education in primary schools, on the level of initial primary school teacher education
Mareike Brehmer is the course responsible for the course in Norway and is one of four academics from University of Agder that are working on this project.
What makes this project so important? - I think this is important because we live in a time where different values such as equality and freedom are discussed both in the media and in the schools and they appear in all the different curriculums. The meaning of these values is not always clear, so what we are working on here is to find out what for example freedom means in different school systems and how teachers work differently with terms like freedom. What some of the students said was that they knew all these values beforehand but were not clear of what their own understanding of terms like freedom could mean within the school context.
Mareike further explains that it is important for pre-service teachers (students who are becoming teachers) to be able to participate in the broader discourse on values in education and democratic education. Thursday and Friday in week 39 the students are cooperating with ARKIVET in Kristiansand, where they are working with educational concepts for peace and human rights. The participants are 12 students, four from Germany and eight from Poland. The students are a mix of bachelor and masters’ students, but they are all becoming primary school teachers. Two of the students who participate in this project are Amy Sepiol and Karolina Paulikonska.
What have you learned from this experience? - I have learned how to be a better teacher and how to develop my teaching career. I have also learned how to implement values in the classroom, for example in planning a lesson or even planning a school project. For my own career and for the development of my future students I think this is very educational. Although I already knew that curriculums were different in different countries, I can still somehow take those little steps to change education even though I am not doing it worldwide. Just by taking those small steps it can make a huge difference for the students that I teach, says Amy Sepiol.
According to Karolina Paulikonska the students explain that they have different perspectives on the project and therefore also have gained different knowledge during this week. - In my perspective it is quite different, Amy was talking about it from a teacher’s perspective and for me the best thing that I have learned here is how to cooperate with the school and how to manage all the projects. I have also learned how to adapt the curriculum which is helpful if I for example want to become a principal in the future. It was amazing to see different points of view in the Norwegian curriculum that are very different from the Polish one. The school system in Norway really amazes me in the way that it is conducted and planned.
Amy and Karolina say that they are happy to have participated and have enjoyed their stay in Norway so far. The course responsible says that this is the first of three years and that they hope to send Norwegian students on this journey in the near future.