Week 18: Personal Blog: 14.06.13 - 21.06.13

The final blog!  I can feel the tears welling up in my eyes as I write this blog however, “Everything has to come to an end, sometime” (Baum, 1985).

This week I had to say goodbye to my class in ISOP. I had just begun to feel really settled in the school and I've made friends with many of the staff at the school. I will really miss the staff, who have been so friendly and welcoming to me and have helped me to gain so much more knowledge about multiculturalism in education. Due to my good relationship with the teachers, I hope to keep in contact with the school so I can conduct some research about multicultural teaching for my dissertation. I will also keep my ears open about any teaching positions which might open up in a couple of years time.

This week, Stary Renek was alive with music and market stalls, due to the annual summer festival. The annual festival lasts two weeks at the end of June and includes many concerts and events and it has created a brilliant atmosphere in Poznan’s town centre. 

As part of the festival, on Friday thousands of people attended Noc Kupały, an event which was set to attempt to break the Guinness world record for releasing lanterns into the sky. I later found out that this lantern festival was not without its controversy, as last year a lantern had fallen and damaged a tram. Not to mention the fact that people, despite many attempts, could not successfully release the lanterns! However, we enjoyed watching them try!

Noc Kupały

Saying goodbye to our friend Jiří from Czech Republic

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Poznan and have met so many fantastic people. I have already spoken to some of my friends about travelling together over the summer or next year. Regardless of this, it is still very difficult to say goodbye. On the one hand I am eager to get home. However on the other, I know when I get home I will want to be back. Thankfully I have already made plans to meet a group of Erasmus students this summer for a reunion party in August!

Enjoying 

I have learnt so much from my time in Poznan, about teaching, culture, language and myself. I will never forget how wonderful Poznan is and I am sure I will be back! Thank you ESN, to everyone I have met here, to everyone at home who encouraged me to do this, and last but not least, thank you Poznan. 

“There’s a trick to the 'graceful exit.' It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, or a relationship is over — and let it go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its validity or its past importance to our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving up, rather than out.” (Goodman, 2013)

With that all said, I hope that the end of Erasmus will be the beginning of a happy new chapter in my life.

References:
Baum, L,F. (1985) 'The Marvelous Land of Oz' Puffin Classics.
Goodman, E. (2013) available at: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/endings accessed on 22.06.13

Week 17: Personal Blog: 7.06.13 - 14.06.13

My Penultimate Blog: Where has the time gone?

My journey

This week was the final week for most of my classes. I presented my last performance in acting craft in Polish theatre class and watched the other students perform their journeys. We also got to talk about our stories after, which for me was the most interesting, as we got to hear the explanation behind their physical movement journeys.  Some people had been very creative and their stories reflected their emotions which was very fascinating.

 I also gave a presentation on ‘Education and Multiculturalism’ in Social Capital class this week. This assignment has given me an opportunity to really research the topic of Multicultural Education, especially giving me an insight in relation to the criticisms the topic has received.  I think that this assignment will really help me to begin my research for next year’s dissertation on Multiculturalism in Education.

For our last class the professor from 'Critical thinking Through Educational Designing' class

Some of us at Professor Dylak's house

kindly invited us to his home for the last class, which was a very nice way to end the semester. In general, I found this class very out of the ordinary, as we had several different teachers throughout the course who all taught in very different ways, however I think it was a very effective way to teach this subject as it definitely developed my ability to think critically, something which often I find hard, like many teachers.

However, the main event for me this week was when I unexpectedly received a prize for the ‘Let it happen in Poznan’ blog writing competition (Study in Poznan, 2013). I never usually enter these types of competitions, however the ESN president, Natalia, had encouraged me to enter and I thought about the phrase ""Forget regret, or life is yours to miss" (Larson, 1997) so I entered. 

I was invited to Poznan’s town hall to receive my prize.  The people I met to collect the prize talked to me about the relationship between Ireland and Poland, especially after Euro 2012
and how attitudes towards Poland are changing. Poznan called the Irish supporters 'Kings of the craic' and, from what I've heard from friends who went to Poznan for it, they definitely had some craic!

 I received spa vouchers, vouchers for restaurants, a certificate, which will be added to my CV and  a double room in a four star hotel. 

At last!

After much consideration, I decided to book Lutfullah and myself into the hotel over the weekend for a much needed break! After being so busy trying to get assignments finished, I finally got a chance to relax in a very luxurious hotel, which also provided a free buffet breakfast and had a sauna! One word - Heaven! 

Room service!

Even though the week has been so enjoyable, reality has begun to hit me. I have one more week of Erasmus left, and then I’m leaving Poznan.

References:

Larson, J. (1997) "Rent" It Books

Study in Poznan (2013) available at: http://www.poznan.pl/mim/studia/en/news/results-of-the-blog-contest-iii-edition,61935.html accessed on: 15/06/13

Week 16: Cultural Blog: 31.06.13 - 7.06.13

Irish Birthday Brunch
(Complete with home-made Irish soad bread)

This week I’ve been doing a lot of essays and finishing off my coursework for classes, so apart from celebrating Lutfullah’s birthday on Thursday, I haven’t been out much.

Next week I have to hand in my ‘Poland for Beginners’ essay which is a comparison against Northern Ireland and Poland’s primary education systems. During my research for this paper, I found out a lot about the transformation the Polish education system has undergone.

Working hard.. or hardly working?

Under communism, Poland’s educational system focused on finding young people jobs. The system was made up of a strict tracking system which sent the academically weaker 50% of the country’s students into basic vocational schools, directly after Primary school (Pearson foundation, 2013). After the reform, since 1999, Poland’s education system has undergone major changes and restructuring, aiming to improve the general standard of education in society, raise educational opportunities for society, and improve the quality and equity of the education system (The World Bank, 2013). In addition to radical structural changes to the educational system in Poland, schools were asked to construct their own curricula, within a broad framework.  The modification of the curricula was intended to not only alter the content of Primary education but, arguably more importantly, change the philosophy of teachers in Poland and improve the professional customs of schools.

Poland’s educational transformation has been commended for achieving “impressive achievements in a short time” (The World Bank, 2013), and over the past couple of years has been considered to be 9^th in the world in overall reading scores according to PISA, making Poland the only transition country to go from being below the OECD average to above average. However, I found that Poland's educational reforms are not over. The structure of the Early years Primary school will be changed again as from the beginning of the school year 2014/2015; the age for compulsory education will drop from the age of seven to the age of six.

 As I am very proud of the Northern Ireland’s innovative approach to teaching, especially in relation to the early years part of the curriculum, I discussed in my paper how Poland could learn from Northern Ireland, how to implement these new educational changes for early years teaching.

However, as I delved deeper into this subject of educational systems learning from one another, I realised a very obvious issue that I had not truly considered before. 

I had been busy writing about how great the N.I’s curriculum was, when I realised something crucial. No matter how much we teach children how to accept people who are different and live together in our shared community, as long as our education system remains segregated, it seems pointless. Derek Wheeler said, “Keeping people apart makes you imagine what the other people are like. People on the other side of the fence are demonized – they grow horns and tails and you lose out on the opportunity to interact” (Burchill, 2002) and the scary thing is, I can relate to it. 

I believe that there is no ‘right’ answer to education, however it seems ludicrous to me that, on the one hand Northern Ireland’s education system is evolving yet the most obvious issue is staring us in the face and so far we still haven’t changed it.  

Drinking a well deserved Iced tea

References:

Burchill (2002) available at: http://www.pur.honorscollege.pitt.edu/docs/v22n1-integrated-education-burchill.pdf accessed on 10/06/13

Pearson Foundation (2013) available at: http://www.pearsonfoundation.org/oecd/poland.html accessed on 10/06/13

The World Bank (2013) available at: http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/ECAEXT/0,,contentMDK:22767787~pagePK:146736~piPK:146830~theSitePK:258599,00.html accessed on: 9/06/13

Week 15: Personal Blog: 24.05.13 - 31.05.13

Beautiful Stary Renek 

Before taking Mumi to dinner

It’s the last month of my Erasmus experience and I don’t know where the time has gone! Last week was my friend, Mumi’s birthday. Lutfullah and I took him out for a traditional Turkish meal, something which has become quite normal for me! We went to a bar after and chatted for a couple of hours, talking about the things that have happened over the last few months.

Lutfullah and Mumi were the first people I met who really took me under their wing and introduced me to their friends, and for this I am so grateful. When I arrived at Poznan, everything felt unfamiliar and a little scary if I am honest. In some ways, I agree with the statement made by the Italian Poet, Cesare Pavese: 

“Travelling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it” (The world wanderer, 2011)

However, this ‘off balance’ sensation pushed me into exploring my new world and meeting people, people who I now consider lifelong friends.

Lut and Mumi

 Mumi and Lutfullah have been wonderful friends to me throughout the entire Erasmus period and I hope that we will all keep in touch after our Erasmus experience ends. We have so many funny anecdotes and memories together which will never be forgotten. In order to preserve these moments, we created an Erasmus adventure photo album along with all our friends’ signatures for Mumi’s birthday.

Mumi's BBQ birthday party

Some of my Erasmus family

Later in the week, a group of us, who I like to think of as my ‘Erasmus Family’ got together and planned a surprise BBQ party for Mumi. It was a really warm night and as everyone was joining together and lighting their BBQs to celebrate his birthday I realised I only had one more month of this. We gave Mumi his birthday present at the BBQ and he was so appreciative that we took the time to make something special for him to remember his time here in Poznan. That night, I think it was on everyone’s mind that soon we would have to leave each other, People are already starting to leave and I really don’t know how I will cope with this. 

Giving Mumi his birthday present

Erasmus has been like a dream to me. It has given me the opportunity for self growth and to really understand people from other cultures. It has also made me change my perspective about a lot of things. I now think of the world as a very small place, with lots of possibilities. I have also started to consider a teaching career outside of Northern Ireland, as I had never realised there are so many opportunities for qualified teachers, especially when their native tongue is English! 

References:

The world wanderer (2011) available at http://theworldwanderer.net/2011/08/25/the-brutality-of-travel/ accessed on 31/06/13

Week 14: Professional Blog: 17.05.13 - 24.05.13

Miss Kasia

During my placement, over the last couple of weeks I have started to feel very at home in the International School of Poznan. The children in my class are very open-minded and intelligent and it has been a pleasure teaching them. However, as I have only been able to attend the school one day a week, it has taken longer than usual to gain their trust and respect.

I have been able to teach many English (language) lessons and this has given me a great insight into what children find difficult, when learning English as a second language. The children often mix the present simple tense and the present continuous tense when speaking and writing. They also find it difficult to use definite and indefinite articles in the appropriate way. For example ‘I am playing the football in a school’ instead of ‘I play football in school’. I had never thought how complex the English language can be. Remembering which article to use is especially difficult for children whose mother tongue is Polish, as the Polish language doesn’t have definite and indefinite articles (a, an, the).  Many of the language lessons that Miss Kasia prepares for the children focus on areas the children may find confusing, for example homophones. The children are literally like sponges; they readily absorb this information and effortlessly use this in their speech afterwards.

An example of a language homework

I also have been able to teach some maths lessons. In contrast to the usual ‘Aww no’ that echoes in the classroom when a maths lesson is about to begin, the children in this class seem to really enjoy maths, and most of them are very talented at it. I think that this may be because mathematics is somewhat ‘international’ as Natanael West stated "Numbers constitute the only universal language" (Good Reads, 2013). The children can think in the language which is most comfortable for them and the symbols have the same meaning and value.

Music class in ISOP

 There is a definite sigh of relief when a mathematics lesson begins after a language lesson, and I can understand their frustrations. English is difficult! I can also understand their frustration as I am constantly confused and baffled by the Polish language. I really admire these children for their perseverance and determination to speak English, even when they are upset or angry about something.  In the staff room I was discussing this with some of the teachers, and we agreed that we were also truly envious of these children as they now have have the abilitiy to speak and understand another language which will open so many doors for them in their future. As stated by Ludwig Wittgenstein, “The limits of my language are the limits of my world” (Language Land, 2013).

There is a famous quote ''In teaching others we teach ourselves'' and I have learnt a lot from teaching at this school. I think what I have learnt is important to remember in my future teaching career when I am teaching children in a second language. 

Being on Erasmus has made me realise the importance of learning other languages to communicate and socialise

References:
  
Good Reads (2013) available at: ttp://www.goodreads.com/quotes/78894-numbers-constitute-the-only-universal-language accessed on 25/05/13

ISOP (2013) available at http://isop.pl/en/mission-statement/ accessed on 24/05/2013

Language Land (2013) available at http://noviceinlanguageland.wordpress.com/2012/01/03/20-quotes-for-foreign-language-learners/ accessed on 24/05/13

Week 13: Cultural Blog: 10.05.13 - 17.05.13

This week, I was researching something which became a little ‘too close to home’ for me. The research paper, for my ‘Equity and Social Justice in Education’ class is surrounding the topic of Heterosexism and education. For those who may not know, Heterosexism is “an ideological system that denies, denigrates, and stigmatizes any non-heterosexual form of

Belfast Gay Pride Support

behaviour, identity, relationship, or community” Herek (1990). It usually refers to discrimination against the LGBT community (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender community). As I have a close family member who is homosexual, as well as many friends, I am very passionate about this topic.

 This research paper should discuss whether this type of discrimination exists in your country and your personal opinion on the issue. It also should cover the more controversial topic, of whether we should teach it in schools.

One of my friends
celebrating at Gay Pride

Whilst writing this paper, I discovered a lot. Firstly, of course Heterosexism exists in Northern Ireland. It exists in an institutional, unintentional way, such as filling out a membership form for a gym and also in an individual way, unintentional sometimes and unfortunately sometimes intentional.

However, through doing my research, I was reminded that in Belfast we have a very strong ‘Gay community’. There is also a lot of support for this community, especially among the younger generation. In 2012, almost 35,000 people joined the Belfast Pride march to show their support (12% of Belfast’s population), making it one of the top ten Gay Pride festivals in the U.K. (Gay Pride, 2013). Not to mention the bar and nightclub area known as the ‘Gay Quarter’ which has a calendar full of events catered especially for the LGBT community, although everyone is welcome.

I had thought this was fairly normal, until I attended my ‘Poland for Beginners’ class in Ogrody, Poznan. This class is very mixed, with students from U.S.A., Canada, South Korea, France, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Spain and Latvia. The mixture of different cultures and opinions always creates a very interesting discussion. We were discussing the use of religious symbols in Schools. In the midst of the discussion, someone asked suddenly, ‘Why do gay people want to get married in churches?’ Margo, from France began to talk about how they should have equal rights, they want to feel they have a choice and they may be religious themselves. The class erupted into debate about whether this was true and the lecturer tried to get control of the class again. She asked the two students from Uzbekistan about their views.

My Poland for Beginners Class

They told us that several years ago there were three people who were found to be homosexual in their country. They were arrested. We asked how the public felt about the government’s actions. They replied that this was applauded by the public. I then asked them what their own feelings were about this. They replied that this was the correct thing to do, that homosexuality is wrong. Furthermore, they said that now there are no homosexuals in their country and that homosexuality is a ‘Western Idea’. This caused a huge uproar in the class. People began arguing that there are homosexuals in their country, but they are hiding and that it isn't a ‘Western Idea’. I asked them that if one of their close friends came out as gay, what they would do.  One of them said that they would take their gun and shoot them.

Generally, I think that I am open minded enough to accept other’s views, even if I don’t agree with them. However, I found this opinion very hard to swallow.  It showed me that there are still people who have this opinion, in fact, entire countries. I understand that the strict Muslim values that Uzbekistan holds, shapes public opinion, values and law. However, I was still surprised that students that were on Erasmus in Poland would have these views! 

I was interested in why they had such opinions, however I decided to let sleeping dogs lie, and not push the topic any further.

References:

Gay Pride. (2013) available at: http://www.belfastpride.com/ accessed on 15/5/13

Herek, G. M. (1990). The context of anti-gay violence: Notes on cultural and psychological heterosexism. Journal of Interpersonal Violence,

Week 12: Cultural Blog:3.05.13 - 10.05.13

This week I attended “Wieczor Strawinskiego” in the Poznan Theatre House which translates as “Stravinsky Evening”.

 My friend Zane, from Latvia, had seen a beautiful advertisement of the ballet, and as she regularly attends ballet in Latvia, she was eager to go. Despite not being a regular spectator at this sort of event, I decided I would join her for the experience, as I have always admired the elegance and grace of Ballet dancers, the tickets were only 24 zł (£4.90) for students and ever since selecting the ‘Acting craft in Polish theatre’ module, I have wanted to see a performance in Poland for myself. We joined a number of excited Erasmus girls at the Theatre, found our seats and awaited the spectacular show. However, within five minutes, we realised that this show was not one we had expected.

This was not an elegant, graceful ballet show. This was an Opera-oratorio of the Greek Tragedy Oedipus the King. Yes, the one where the King gouges his own eyes out in despair with Jocasta’s (his mother/wife) dress pins. Just to add to that, it was performed in Latin,

Zane and myself outside the theatre

therefore the subtitles were in Polish. Even though I couldn’t understand very much, I understood that it was a very dark and quite unusual performance. The melody of the orchestra and the singing were performed slightly off-key from one another to give the audience an ‘on edge feeling’.  At the end of the show, once everyone had finished clapping, we began packing our bags to go home, when we were told that this was only the first part of the concert. 

We stayed to see the second half, and to our delight, it was the Ballet “The Rite of Spring” by Igor Stravinsky. I’m not an expert, but even I could appreciate how elegant, timely and flawless their performance was. 

After seeing the performance, I spoke to a friend who is studying theatre in France. She said there is a stark contrast between studying theatre in France and in Poland, as Polish theatre focuses more on body movement.  According to Lust (2012), it has become increasingly vital for actors to use body movement to bring "authenticity and believability to a character". Thinking back, it was very obvious that the performers were using a lot of body movement to represent feelings, emotions and communication, with the other performers and the audience, which is why I understood a little bit of what was happening. 

Some of us from Acting Craft in Polish theatre 

                This emphasis on body movement in theatre is also very apparent in our ‘Acting craft and Polish theatre’ class. We have been creating individual physical movement 
sequences, which hopefully we will perform at the end of the semester. Last week we did a very interesting exercise exploring the use of the voice. Using a piece of text we had each selected from our own country, he conducted us like an orchestra, playing around with several elements such as volume control, pitch, rhythm, speed, staccato and legato. This exercise was used to remove our own ideas, meanings and memories from the text, enabling us to have more freedom with the text, and add it to our journeys in a more creative way. It really worked!  Last week I was having difficulty separating the meaning I had given to the text, restricting me in the way I could use it through my journey, however, after this activity, I felt confident and experimented with the text, using it a metaphorical way, rather than a literal way. 

My Polish friend Ada and me relaxing
after a hard week in our favourite bar!

I am sure that when I return home I will use many of teaching ideas from this class, if not all of them, as I truly admire my teacher’s approach.

Lust, A (2012) 'Bringing the Body to the Stage and Screen: Expressive Movement for Performers' Scarecrow Press

Week 11: Personal Blog: 26.04.13 - 3.05.13

What an eventful week! It was Poland's national holiday this week and my friend, Lütfullah and I booked to travel around Italy during this time.

Duomo di Milano (Milan Cathedral)

From the beginning we ran into difficulties! We realised that the only train available to Wroclaw was leaving at 8.30pm, leaving us in Wroclaw 6 hours earlier than we needed to be! We ended up spending 3 hours in McDonalds and then slept in the airport for 2 hours!

When we got to Milan, we were greeted by rain and wind. Wet and tired, we walked the forty-five minutes to our hostel, the website said a ten minute walk, only to be told we could not get into our rooms for another four hours. Despite our difficulties in Milan, we still managed to enjoy ourselves visiting parks, the cathedral and a bar, of course and it got nicer as the day went on. 

In the main square of Milan

Beautiful day in Venice 

In Venice, we had booked to stay in a campsite on the mainland, as it was cheaper. As it was a little out of the way, we found it difficult to find at first, attempting to hitchhike part of the way. Nonetheless, the next day we traveled to Venice and it was the most beautiful place I have ever been and definitely want to return for longer.

In Bologna we were met by our ‘host’, through the ‘couchsurfing’ website, Anna (Couchsurfing, 2013). She took us on a tour around her city, showing us the historical sites, such as the cathedrals, the Mayors building and the 3 main squares. In the evening, Anna cooked us a delicious authentic Italian dinner and she invited her friends who were German, South Korean and of course Italian!

Our Couchsurfing Host in Bologna, Anna

Unfortunately we were very tired the following day in Florence however I still appreciated the beauty of Florence, especially the views from the bridges overlooking the river. In the evening we bought ingredients and tried to imitate Anna’s beautiful pasta dish in Bologna. That night was very special in Italy as it 30^th April, the day before International Worker’s day. In every street corner, bands were playing; people were singing, dancing and laughing, it was a lovely way to remember Florence.

Just before the party started!

At the Spanish Steps

The sun was splitting the trees the following day when we visited Rome. Every corner we turned in Rome seemed to be picturesque, with a story to tell. We got so distracted with Rome we almost missed our flight back to Budapest!

The Colosseum

In Budapest, we booked to stay in a hostel called ‘Grandio Party Hostel’. We arrived at 1am

Grandio Party Hostel

at the door, which was locked. We waited for someone to come and check us in for an hour! Eventually the person on duty woke up. Needless to say, we were a little annoyed. The Hostel itself was very interesting, covered in artistic graffiti; however it was obvious that some of the guests were contributing to this! We enjoyed our day in Budapest walking around the markets and sitting by the river.

We then had to visit Vienna for a day as our train was fully booked to Krakow. We went to a carnival in Vienna. Afterwards, we accidentally walked into, what seemed to be a protest to legalise marijuana! People were walking around with marijuana potted plants in their hands, dancing to drum and bass music, whilst the police stood by and watched. It was very surreal to say the least! I researched this after to find out it is called the ‘Global Marijuana March’ which occurs on the first Saturday in April (Gottfried, 2004).

Vienna Carnival

The Beginning of the Vienna Global Marjuana March

Austrian Man we met

In conclusion, from graffiti covered hostels to Marijuana marches, my eyes were opened on this trip. I was very sad to see the number of people who are homeless and the amount of poverty within Italy, Hungary and Austria. Despite being in tourist destinations, it was still very apparent, we passed many people sleeping in doorways, on park benches, on the subway, with their suitcases and shopping carts beside them. We spoke to an Austrian man who had recently become homeless and he seemed tired, depressed and fed up with life, but was still very friendly to us. I couldn't help but feel guilty for all the luxuries I enjoy in my life, when all he wanted was a place to call home. “Home is a notion that only nations of the homeless fully appreciate and only the uprooted comprehend” (Stegner, 1992).

References:

CS available at; https://www.couchsurfing.org/ accessed on 03/05/13

Gottfried, T. (2004) ‘The Facts About Marijuana’ Marshall Cavendish

Stegner, W. (1992) ‘Angle of Repose’ Penguin