Tydzien Siedemnaście / Week Seventeen - Personal

At Stan's house

This week saw the conclusions of all our university classes as well as our final days of placement. At the end of each class we were given a certificate with our grades which was very nice to get, particularly as we all did very well. One lecturer even went so far as to invite our class to his house at the end of the week. This was a great opportunity for us to see what a Polish home is like, something we had not yet been able to do. I found the afternoon to be a particularly enjoyable experience as it was my first time inside a house in four months (!) and I hadn’t realised quite how much I missed it. Student halls definitely do not compare to a proper house! Stan’s invitation was a real example of how hospitable the Polish people can be and we all really appreciated it, especially all the buns his wife had baked.

At the Euro 2012 Fanzone

As the week continued, and we made our way through our list of things we wanted to do before leaving, I was able to compare how I feel about Poznan and being on Erasmus now, and how I felt while writing my first few blogs. I definitely found the first few weeks here quite hard and took a while to settle in. Although it took me a while, I did eventually settle in and I really enjoyed being on Erasmus. I am extremely glad that I decided to take this opportunity, particularly as I nearly didn’t and then ended up applying late. One of the reasons why I hadn’t originally applied for Erasmus was because none of my friends wanted to go and I didn’t want to go alone. I then decided to just apply alone and I was grouped with Anna and Michael, two people who I barely knew. After spending four months together the three of us are great friends and I know that I am really going to miss seeing them every day, particularly as we spend most of our time together constantly laughing. I think this is something which will take a bit of time to get used to, particularly as Anna and I are roommates here and so really have got to know each other very well. Had I not have applied for Erasmus I would have most likely gone through university without ever getting to know these two people due to not having had any classes together. I feel this would be a real shame and I am very thankfully to have made two great friends.

One of our final meals together

While I was sad that the three of us wouldn’t be able to spend as much time together any more, it will obviously be easier to meet up with Anna and Michael than with the other friends I have made during my time here. My two teachers from school, Kasia and Jo, arranged to meet up with me for lunch the day before I left which I really appreciated and it was nice to spend some more time with them before leaving. Towards the end of the week we also had several leaving parties with our Erasmus friends which meant that we were able to spend some quality time together before going our separate ways. Poznan was beginning to get particularly crazy as many of the Euro 2012 football matches are being held in Poland. This meant that the city was starting to fill up with football fans, including thousands of Ireland supporters. I feel that I left Poznan at a perfect time. I was still happy to be there, so I left with happy memories, rather than staying longer and becoming homesick and fed up.

As I finish my final blog, I am able to reflect on the past few months and know that I made the right decision to go on Erasmus and make the most of an opportunity that I am not likely to ever get again. 

With my class

Some goodbye cuddles

Do widzenia, 

DarÓma. 

Tydzien Szesnaście / Week Sixteen - Professional

Treasure hunt!

This week I was given the opportunity to take part in a sleepover in school with my placement class. This was a great opportunity for me to be involved in an aspect of school life which I have never even heard of before.

Every year each class goes on an end of year trip for at least two nights. Many of the children have never slept away from home before and so this school sleepover tradition began as a way of helping the children get used to sleeping somewhere that isn’t home, but as it is in school it is in a familiar and safe environment and is also close enough for their parents to come and get them if necessary. At first I was quite shocked to hear that every class in the school goes on these overnight trips, particularly the Kindergarten class in which the children are only four years old. Through participating in the sleepover I was able to see how beneficial an experience it was. 

Several of the children were extremely upset when their parents had to leave, even having to be restrained by a teacher to stop them running out of the school. After an hour or so these children had calmed down, relaxed and were beginning to enjoy the sleepover. It is clear that experiences like this will help them when it comes to going on overnight school trips.

I found many aspects of the sleepover to be quite strange, mainly as it is something that would never happen at home. For example, while transforming the classroom into a bedroom for the night, many children were asking me where I would be sleeping and if I would sleep with them and share their mattress. This was something which I felt quite uncomfortable with but the teachers assured me that it was fine and that they would be doing the same. It definitely was a very odd experience to wake up in the morning to lots of little faces staring at me and asking if I had slept well!

Experiences such as this are extremely beneficial for strengthening the bond between the students and the teacher, as it allows teachers to show a different side of their personality. Partin (2009:14) suggests that, ‘Positive teacher-student relationships provide the foundations for effective instruction and constructive classroom management.’ Allowing the children to spend time with the teacher in a non-formal way such as a sleepover is a very effective way to build positive teacher-pupil relationships, hopefully having a positive knock-on effect on classroom behaviour. Being able to be part of the sleepover has enabled me to see how experiences such as this can help me to develop competencies as stated by the GTCNI. For example, I feel it has helped me to further develop two competences. Competence six (2006:13) states that, ‘Teachers will have developed a knowledge and understanding of the factors that promote and hinder effective learning, and be aware of the need to provide for the holistic development of the child.’ Planning activities like this for the children will help to contribute to their complete education as well as being a great opportunity for further developing social skills. Competence seven (2006:13) states that, ‘Teachers will have developed a knowledge and understanding of a range of strategies to promote and maintain positive behaviour.’ This really came into play in this instance as the children had to work towards earning the sleepover as a reward for good behaviour. As well as developing these competences I have also developed a bit of an English accent when teaching as I have found that the children often struggle to understand my accent, particularly words such as ‘eight’, ‘late’ and ‘there’. This has encouraged me to always be aware of my pronunciation and pace and will no doubt be beneficial for me when teaching in the future.

Time for sleep!

References:

-General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland (2006) Teaching: The Reflective Profession :Belfast.

-Partin, R. (2009) The Classroom Teacher’s Survival Guide, 3^rd edition, Jossey-Bass: San Francisco. 

Tydzien Piętnaście / Week Fifteen - Cultural

Gathered in the main square for the finish line 

This week Anna and I went on our very last trip of our Erasmus semester. Although we had previously been making use of the excellent railway connections between Poland and many places throughout Europe, we decided to fly this time and spent a few days in Milan. On our first day we realised why it had been so hard to find a hotel to book as the city was full of fans for the cycling race that was taking place over the weekend – the San Remo race. This was an interesting part of Italian culture to be able to see, particularly as the city was full of very enthusiastic fans creating a great atmosphere.

Inside the cathedral

Milan is known for its shopping and I was very keen to delve into this experience. Unfortunately, however, I could not take part to the extent I would have liked to as my suitcases are undoubtedly going to be well overweight when it comes to packing in two weeks time. I therefore had to force myself to stick to window shopping in all the beautiful shops, including my all time favourite – Chanel!

One of the biggest tourist attractions in Milan is the huge cathedral - Duomo de Milano. Although clearly impressive from the front, it was only when I walked around it that I realised the scale of how huge it really is. As shorts are not permitted we had to go on the second day when we were dressed more appropriately, but it was definitely worth a visit to not only view the grandeur of the interior, but also the views of the whole of Milan from the top.

Beautiful Lake Como

The highlight of this trip was the day spent at Lake Como, under the advice of Anna’s placement teacher who used to live there. The day didn’t start out so successfully (having spent three hours in Milano Centrale train station looking for our train) but upon arriving in the beautiful town we knew it had been worth the effort to get there. Lake Como is definitely one of the most beautiful places I have been to and we spent the day happily exploring, sunbathing and of course keeping an eye out for George Clooney who has a house there!

Being away from Poznan for a while allowed Anna and me time to reflect on our feelings about the two weeks we have left and so we have created a list of everything we want to do before we leave Poznan. This includes visiting our favourite restaurants, renting bicycles to cycle about the city, going tubing and of course Michael’s all time favourite – karaoke! As well as reflecting on the activities we still want to try and squeeze in, we also reflected on the many opportunities we have had here to experience new things, particularly as we would not have been able to do any of these had we decided to stay at home this semester. We came to the conclusion that by not going on Erasmus we would have been passing up a great opportunity, especially in regards to travelling.

Lovely Milan

Relaxing in the sun at Lake Como

Tydzien Czternaście / Week Fourteen - Cultural (14.05.2012 - 20.05.2012)

Anna in the military museum 

This week marked the beginning of a cultural week, not only here in Poznan but in many European cities.  The Juwenalia Festival marked the start of this week, with the mayor of the city handing over the keys of the city to the students. There were parades through the streets involving many Erasmus students as this week is also the 25^th birthday of Erasmus, so the two celebrations were mixed together.

Another part of this festival was the Noz Muzeow or ‘Long night of the museums’ which involved all the museums in Poznan being opened late into the night, with free entrance for everyone. This tradition began in Berlin in 1997 and there are now some 125 cities taking part in it. Many of the teachers in school had told us it was an important part of the culture here that we shouldn’t miss, so Anna and I looked up the timetable online and set out to begin our night at the Islamic museum. However, some confusion over the directions ended up with us wandering about a slightly dodgy neighbourhood with no idea where to go so we gave up and decided to head to the Stary Rynek (the main square) where we knew there were several museums. After making it there safely we did enjoy looking around the exhibitions but we realised that we hadn’t quite thought our plan through properly as all the talks were in Polish, as were most of the signs and information. While in Stary Rynek we visited the Museum of Fights for Independence, the Ethnography Museum and the National Museum which we actually walk past several times a week, but have never actually bothered to look inside.

Some street entertainment in the main square

Anna and I both enjoyed getting to take part in this interesting part of Polish culture. We were able to talk with many Polish people while in the museums, something which we actually don’t do a lot of, due to mainly being around other Erasmus students.

As many of the museums are in the main town square, there was also a concert there and many street entertainers as well, which made the square really come to life. After being so cultural Anna and I enjoyed a relaxing dessert in one of our favourite spots – the chocolate cafe! This was a lovely end to another fun week in Poznan and I am becoming very conscious that we now only have three weeks left here. As a result of this we plan to cram as many fun things into our final few weeks. 

This week Anna, Michael and I somehow all managed to get full marks in our Polish oral exam, which certainly shocked everyone! Next week we have the written exam, which isn’t likely to go so well, so we should probably get revising... 

Being cultural!

  

In our favourite spot - the chocolate cafe!

Tydzien Trzynaście / Week Thirteen - Professional (07.05.2012 - 13.05.2012)

As I spend more time in my placement school I am becoming more familiar with the principles of the curriculum they follow – the International Baccalaureate- and the benefits that these can bring to the classroom. This week I have been thinking more about the ‘Key Concepts’ used when teaching the Unit of Inquiry, which for my class at the moment is Natural Disasters. There are six Key Concepts which are used in every class to help structure learning.

The Key Concepts:

Form: What is it like?

Causation: Why is it like it is?

Change: How is it changing?

Connection: How is it connected to other things?

Perspective: What are the points of view?

Responsibility: What is our responsibility?

Reflection: How do we know? 

These concepts are written on large keys, as their purpose is to help unlock knowledge and understanding. The teacher selects the specific ones which are appropriate to the lesson and uses these to establish what the children already know and what they want to know, similar to the use of KWL boards in Northern Ireland. Isbell and Raines (2012:296) highlight that, ‘KWL charts are useful for keeping track of the inquiries that drive the children’s investigations and as a way to document what has been learned.’ While similar in their objectives, I feel that KWL charts can be more effective as they provide a visual stimulus and reminder, whereas the Key Concepts are only done verbally and therefore can be easily forgotten by the children. Hoffman and Schallert (2008:145) discuss the benefits of, ‘coordinating the presentation of verbal and visual information to maximise learning.’ While noting this, it is important to consider that the Key Concepts could be used in a variety of ways like this to make them more effective.

The Key Concepts help to make connections between what is being learnt in the classroom and real life. For example, in this Natural Disasters Unit of Inquiry, the children are not just learning facts about volcanoes, but also the impact which volcanoes have on people’s lives. This helps to make the learning more real and relevant and something which the children can relate to more.

While observing these ideas being used in the classroom I was able to compare these with the ‘Change over time’ strand of the World Around Us section in the Northern Ireland Primary Curriculum (CCEA, 2007:87) such as ‘Change over time’, ‘Interdependence’ and ‘Place’. These two primary school curricula seem to be rather similar, particularly as in the IB, the Key Concepts are only used when teaching the Unit of Inquiry which is very similar to the World Around Us subject area in the Northern Ireland Primary Curriculum.

The GTCNI Competence 14 (2006: 14) states that, ‘Teachers will set appropriate learning objectives/outcomes/intentions, taking account of what pupils know, understand and can do.’ Through experiencing the focus on methods such as using Key Concepts I feel I am further developing this competence and a variety of strategies which can be used to fulfil it.

Thinking ahead about how little time I have left to explore more into this education system, I am looking forward to the ‘school sleepover’ I have been invited to attend in two weeks time, in which all classes stay overnight in the school! I am very excited to see what this will be like, as it is definitely something I have never heard of in Northern Ireland!

                The three of us enjoying the 30 degree heat!

References:

-CCEA (2007) The Northern Ireland Primary School Curriculum, Belfast: CCEA Publications

-General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland (2006) Teaching: The Reflective Profession: Belfast.  

-Hoffman, J. and Schallert, D. (2008) The Texts in Elementary Classrooms, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associated, Ltd.

-Isbell, R. and Raines, S. (2012) Creativity and the Arts with Young Children 3^RD edition, Cengage Learning. 

Tydzien Dwanaście / Week Twelve - Personal (30.04.2012 - 06.05.2012)

Hanging out with my friend Gandhi 

This week we continued travelling and ventured further afield to Vienna and Prague. While our workload here is not as heavy as it would be if we were at home this semester we are still extremely busy most of the time. Having to get up at 5.30am two mornings in a row each week is more than enough for me, so we were very glad to have some time without class or school which we could just spend relaxing and having some well earned lie ins. One of our Erasmus friends is from Vienna and although she did provide us with a map and information about all museums, we decided to have a slightly less cultural visit, and began with a trip to Madame Tussauds and a theme park! Visiting this German speaking country allowed me some more time to try and use my rusty German skills. The longer I am on Erasmus the more I am finding myself growing in confidence when it comes to trying to speak with people such as shop assistants in their own language, regardless of how bad I sound while trying to speak it. 

At the opera!

One our second last night we went to the Opera as we had been told that no visit to Vienna is complete without this. Although this is something I would not usually be interested in, I did enjoy it and thought it was a worthwhile experience, particularly as it is something I may never do again. We decided to spend our last day in Vienna visiting Schönbrunn Palace, which was once a royal palace but is now the property of the Austrian Republic and is open to the public as a museum. The whole complex includes a zoo which claims to be the oldest one in the world, a maze, a palm house and a sundial house as well as extensive gardens. This was a lovely end to the Vienna part of the trip, before we boarded our overnight sleeper train to bring us to Prague. This was a very nice place to visit, but I definitely didn’t think it compared to either Krakow or Vienna. We found the old town to be very similar to many of the old towns in cities in Poland such as Poznan, Krakow or Warsaw and so enjoyed spending time there, but apart from that we didn’t find the city to be as enjoyable as others we have been to. Nevertheless, we did enjoy our time there and found the few days we had flew by before it was time for our ten hour train journey back to Poznan and back to reality. 

Enjoying some local food 

Schönbrunn Palace

Tydzien Jedenaście / Week Eleven - Cultural (23.04.2012 - 29.04.2012)

I am definitely becoming more appreciative of the opportunities provided through Erasmus. As we had some time off university and school due to national holidays, Anna and I decided to make the most of it and started our adventure in Krakow. I found Krakow to be quite similar to Poznan, albeit on a larger scale and it was also a lot more touristy, something which was noticeable from the moment we arrived. Our first day consisted of exploring the local area and we got a private tour on a golf buggy around the Jewish Quarters and the Ghetto, which was extremely interesting.

Memorial in the Ghetto

Upon deciding to come to Poland, I knew Auschwitz was somewhere I had to visit. While this doesn’t fit into the idea of a ‘fun holiday’ I felt it was important that we visit somewhere which is such an important part of recent history, particularly for the country we have been living in for the past three months, helping me to gain a better understanding of the history of Poland. Death camps such as Auschwitz are something which I have always struggled to fully comprehend and so the visits helped with this in some way, although I still can’t quite get my head around what happened there. Being in the concentration camps – Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II–Birkenau – and recognising places from famous photos and movies was quite surreal and chilling. One part which I found particularly disturbing was the section of ‘Standing Chambers’ in which victims were forced to spend the entire night standing alongside three other prisoners before being sent back out to work the next day. Often this could continue for twenty nights. Our Polish tour guide was unsurprisingly bitter about many of the stories she told us and helped me to understand why the Polish nation is now such a proud and patriotic one. She gave us examples of scenarios to help us understand how the Holocaust actually came about. One example centred on explaining how people ended up in Auschwitz. She had us think about our own countries being in economic trouble, with high rates of unemployment. It was relatively easy to understand how ‘foreigners’ could become targets to blame for the shortage of jobs and allow people an easy group to direct their anger at, similar to what the Nazis did. While in no way does this explain or justify the horrors of concentration or death camps, it helped me to understand how many of these people ended up with no other place to go. 

Auschwitz II–Birkenau

This led me to think again about immigrants living in Northern Ireland. It is no secret that these people are so often treated badly. Smith (2009:45) notes that, ‘Over half of all migrant workers in Northern Ireland reported having experienced some form of racism or racial abuse. The PSNI recorded an increase in racial attacks from 643 in 3004-2005 to 746 in 2005-2006.’ These figures are rather shocking and so it is unsurprising that Belfast was given the unfortunate title of the ‘Race Hate Capital of Europe’ (Chrisafis, 2004). From my time on Erasmus and through travelling, I am developing further understanding of the need to have tolerance and respect for people from different communities and cultures, and the benefits that this can bring. 

References:

Chrisafis, A. (2004) Racist war of the loyalist street gangs, Available at:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/jan/10/northernireland.race (Accessed on 29th April 2012)  

Smith, M. (2009) Transnational Ties: Cities, Migrations and Identities, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.