On October 20-26, 2019, our school hosted students and teachers from 5 European countries: Finland, Germany, Italy, Spain and Croatia as part of the Erasmus + From ME to WE – Networks for Empowering Teachers and Students (NETS) project.
An international group has joined forces to once again tackle difficult subjects related to education. After a lively discussion with the Group of principals on school reality, which took place in April 2019, the time came for ideas related to the teaching profession.
As part of the project, students worked with different methods and learned about the ins and outs of teachers’ work:
- could empathize with the difficult situations that teachers face each day
- discuss aspects of the work of their educators (Socratic Seminar)
- learn how future generations of teachers are prepared for the profession
- get acquainted with the teachers’ career path during a conversation with representatives of the Board of Education in Nowy Sącz (Mrs. Małgorzata Belska and Mr. Stanisław Szudek) and the Representative of the City of Nowy Sącz (Deputy Mayor of Artur Bochenek)
- discuss changes that are needed in education (rotational brainstorming )
- learn a new method of creating movies (stop-motion videos- Lars Gulden)
- but above all they had the opportunity to get to know each
Flash mob- soft skills we learnt
During the last day of our meeting in Poland- 2019, as a part of evaluation students were asked if there were any soft skills they felt they had practiced or learnt the most during our meeting.
First step was a visual presentation and sketch, later all together we went to Nowy Sącz’s main square and presented human sculptures representing chosen skills.
Erasmus+ meeting in Poland was unforgettable. The week was fun and Poland was very beautiful place. My host family was caring and lovely. I miss them already.
Erasmus+ project is very awesome and it is so fun to get to know new people and get new friends.
Elli-Noora Kirsilä, Pietarsaaren lukio, Finland
Article about the meeting
On Sunday the 20th October we arrived in Poland for the Erasmus+ project. We met our host families and slept the first night in Nowy Sacz.
On Monday morning we started with a Welcoming ceremony and a nice tour through the school. After a little break we had a workshop to break the ice and get to know each other. We presented our projects about „the perfect teacher“ which we prepared in each country. After that we went for a Scavenger hunt around the city, which was a lot of fun, before we went eating traditional polish food with our exchange partners.
At Tuesday we met in school for another workshop where we had animated discussion about „what the perfect teacher is“. Also we learned about stop motion and made little stop motion videos with creative ideas. For some free time activities we went to the escape room and went eating pizza and burger with all Erasmus+ students.
For Wednesday we had a tour to Krakow planned which was a lot of fun. We also had a meeting with students which are future polish teachers and had a interesting seminar about new teaching methods. After that we had a lot of fun during a tour through the Old Town of Krakow. Then we had time to improve our skills in making slow motion videos while making some with the theme “From ME to WE“. After some free time we drove back home to our exchange families with a little break to eat schnitzel and mashed potatoes.
Thursday morning we had a interesting workshop about Intercultural competence , leadership and delegation before we met the City officials responsible for the education from who we learned a lot about the polish education system. In the evening the Erasmus+ students went for Bowling together
On Friday which was unfortunately our last day we summarised the results from the week and had a official closing ceremony. After that we went shopping in our last free time together with or hosts before the flight back. In the evening we had a fun Halloween party with a lot of funny and creative costumes, good music, food and dancing.
After a emotional goodbye from all the country’s we wouldn‘t see again we went to our host families to pack our luggage and sleep a last night in Poland.
On Saturday morning we took, after a last goodbye to our host families, the to Krakow airports to take our flight back home to Germany.
We are very thankful for the welcoming atmosphere and all the stuff we learned and experienced. It was a exciting and meaningful week with new friends and a lot of interesting discussions and opinions. We are very excited for Erasmus+ to come to Germany and are hoping for a week as nice as ours in Poland.
Luisa Richter (16)
Comments from the survey:
- It was a lovely experience. I felt a little bit like a parent which was nice.
- I enjoyed the time spent with my host, everything went without problems.
- I felt great and loved. Everybody was really nice to me and I feel like I couldn’t have been in a better place!
- My host family was very nice and friendly. I felt welcome and they took good care of me
- It was a great experience to collaborate with people from so many countries.
- It was a great week!
- I’m so happy that I was able to take part in this event
- It was absolutely great and I really want to go back. But that’s sadly not that easy.
- This exchange was the best one I’ve been to. I wish I could turn back the time and do it again!
Erasmus+ Project: From Me to We 