“Lecture” by Finn Hagested and Dorte Vanghøj...

... Today we had lecture and workshops by these two teachers. 

                In my group we attended the music workshop first and the sports – juggling after. We sang childish songs(!), I learned a very pretty finish one about a bear that children believed it was sleeping (but finally she didn’t…poor children) and then we sang all together in kanon. The result of our song was very nice! 

                We took a break and then we entered the second class. After a very short introduction, we started working very intensively with some small balls. Step by step and without knowing (maybe we did but we weren’t sure) in the end of the class some of us were almost able to juggle a little bit with three balls. In the beginning I didn’t consider it a great achievement because I felt that I had no progress all this time but after Dorte’s note that we learned it in less than 45 minutes, I was really surprised!

                Summing up in the class, we had to think about a case that we were “in the flow” and as Rika told me (I totally agree), today’s experience was the best example! Everything that was mentioned in theory became action! The element that corresponded more of today’s sayings, was time!!! After all this (I won’t say totally boring because it is very rude…) not-that-interesting lectures we had, for the very first time I didn’t feel time passing… I didn't even think about looking my watch... Unfortunately, the moment I got so excited, we had to end the second class. I truly wish we had double or triple as that to deal with both subjects more! On the other hand, maybe it’s not about quantity, it’s about quality…

                There aren’t more things for me to say… I really enjoyed everything we did and I am looking forward for tomorrow’s visits.

                Closing the day, I am thinking that if someone would tell me in the morning that I could possibly do something like that, I would NEVER believe it… Now, it was confirmed that with a good teacher and strong will, lot of things are possible!!! Today, I learned much more things than juggling or singing foreign songs…

tOuR cOpEnHaGeN

    When I recall that day, I get a smile shaped in my mouth! The day was perfect, we said so many things, we visited so many places, we walked so much and we ended up at school! I remember the feelings I had… I was so excited seeing Copenhagen and so many buildings and learning about them but I also thought I would never get to know all these places I could see from Rundetaarn’s rooftop.

  When our tour ended, we went back to school to spend some time at “Det Gule Hus”. Watching a bar next to school that opens every Friday ready to welcome tired (from five days of hard work) students, was my second cultural shock of the day! (The first one was to see Rika’s convenience to walk bare foot on the streets!!!) The Yellow House was so full that we all had to sit down in rounds. Being more relaxed (maybe because it was our second day at school or maybe because we were drinking beers from bucket-glasses) we were speaking at ease about everything! I can remember how excited I was to speak with Alvaro and Bente about bullfights in Spain, Gaelle and Line about our hometowns, a Danish student (the name was too hard for me to remember) that was about to participate in the International course but finally did not  and many many other classmates!

   I couldn't get enough of what I was having! I wish that day had more hours so I could keep speaking. I was so interested and happy having conversations with people with that different backgrounds. My thirst for intercultural communication grew up and I was thinking that I will have 4 months to satisfy it… Late in the afternoon we went to some other places and after being awake from 07:00 to 23:00 and doing so many things, I went home reflecting that this was one of the best days in my life!!!

         

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end”

The end of my third year at university was marked by beautiful and interesting things that I will remember for a long time! While having a sweet taste from them, I was waiting, with great anxiety, my new oncoming “Danish experience”… All my friends and family called me Dane!!! The people I spoke with about Erasmus program were describing it with the best words!!!

My first day at school had mixed feelings…I was extremely hyper tensed, stressed and excited when I entered the room but after speaking to some students I relaxed thinking that this was also new for almost everyone in the class as well. After a tasteful breakfast (first time eating spandauer!!!!!!), the teachers welcomed us very warmly!

After that we got split in three groups and I was alone, without other Greeks in my team. That stressed me a lot because Danes and Spanish had other people as “support” and I felt all alone. We got a tour around the building watching great and cozy facilities (couches all over!!!??? and elevator). I also liked the library which looks so… small but full!

We had a short break that we used so we could get to know each other a little bit better. After discussing some general things about our studies, we returned to our class and had a very prototypal and smart “activity” (if I can call it that way) with our tutor Karen so we could speak about ourselves shortly. We had a great variety of post cards and we had to pick one we liked and speak about that (why we chose it, what’s the meaning for us etc) and say some general things. I thought it was very clever because holding a card I liked, gave me a step to find something to say.

My new experience has started!!!

“An eye for an eye” only leads to more blindness...

          The ability of blind people to replace one of their senses and do things just by finding another way has always fascinating me. I have been wondering how they can cook, walk around the city, buy something from a store and even read and write…

          Many years ago I heard that they are able to discriminate some colors at the magazine images just by touching the paper. I also saw on TV a boy cycling normally and detecting obstacles from the return of the sound that a clicking tool was making (ultrasound hear like bats). These examples of their sharpened senses are admirable and confirm that they can find different ways to do regular things.

          For the reasons mentioned above and for many more, I chose this topic for my project.

          Working with my group gave me great pleasure because our cooperation was really affective. I don’t regret for not taking notice of the “Contract” we had. I really learned many things and ended up being more open-minded!

          My main difficulty was to find material relative to the project. The information about that group is very limited and I had to search hard to find what I needed. Though, processing the material was very interesting because I had to be on alert picking over the useful parts and leaving outside the inrelevant ones. Analyzing information through discussions was the best part! In the end of the day, I was impressed to recall all the topics that popped out during our conversation.

          Another difficulty I had was the “space restriction”. In the beginning I was very optimist that we could easily fill the pages… Too good to be true!!! The object of our research was not just to find ten pages of material relevant to blind people…  What was asked from us was to come up with ten pages, dense in meaning, sum up the most important things (differences and similarities) and arrive at a conclusion with our thoughts, dilemmas and questioning. So finally, the greatest challenge was to fit in those pages. We had to discuss things again and again to find the essence and the rewrite over and over.

          Afterwards, I mention some links for videos that I think could make us learn more about blind people more.

• The first one is about inclusion of visually impaired and deaf students: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZ4OeOJ10W4&feature=related
• The second one summarizes in four minutes the extravagation of human capabilities speaking about Helen Keller: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdTUSignq7Y&feature=channel
• The third and the fourth show how important is for the governments to invest money on research the moment we know that Science makes great “jumps” in discoveries and advance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKd56D2mvN0 & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8la4-gcfrAc&feature=related

 

Kids may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel...

               Last year, in my practical placement in Greece, I had to visit the kindergarten 8 times during the whole year. My subject, I had to teach children, was “Emotions”. Till the end of my visits, the children should:

·         learn the 6 basic emotions they deal with every day (fear, joy, sadness, anger, shyness and surprisal)

·         be able to recognize and discriminate them

·         learn to respect others’ feelings

·         and the most hard, how to express them for themselves…

                My class was consisted of many different types of children but the biggest minority, was a group of 4 kids from Albania. Two of them, couldn’t speak Greek at all and the other two could speak only a little. I knew that the subject we were tasked, was a very difficult one because even the adults are not always able to discriminate and express our feelings…

                During  my teach, I could experience that when I was reading a story in Greek, those 4 children were indifferent about that and they didn’t pay attention. Hopefully, I had predicted about that and I had designed a few activities that could involve them betting on their ability to understand me through images and express themselves through the body language. I made 6 cards, 2 two big dices (with 6 feelings and 6 verbs to match), a playing wheel and two papier colle (we had to create all together) that should imprint the extreme expressions of joy and sadness made by happy and sad images.

                When we deal with these activities, accompanied by music, I noticed that every kid (including these 4) could understand me without giving so many explanations. They only had to see me pointing some things, announcing some rules and then… daraaa!!! I could see my “wronged” quadruplet participating equally and having the exact fun with the rest kids. I realized deep to the bone that even though sometimes it’s hard for people to communicate, with a good effort we can find a way to achieve it. I knew that these children, had their own feeling as well and the fact that they don’t speak the vulgar tongue, doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t spend time trying to understand their mental world. In the end of my practical placement I summarized some things:

·         It’s a given that we all have hundreds of feelings possessing us all the time even though it may not be always visible

·         Children have more feelings and less ways to express them than us

·         When someone is sad, angry, stubborn or introvert, this may be because he hasn’t found the right ways to express his feelings and not because he is spoiled or acrid

·     “Touching” a kid’s soul by letting you see a part of it, is the noblest things I can have experience in my profession!!!

…but satisfaction brought it back!!!

          I think that the reason human beings developed so much (and so differently from other animals) through the passing time, is their special feature of being so curious about everything. “Is there a better place for me to live apart from the caves”? “Is there another way for me to cook meat”? (Yeah, the frikadellian one!!!) “Where do I come from”? “How can I fly like birds”? “Why do I feel my heart beatings speeding up and my stomach getting a tight naught when this person is smiling at me”? … … …

          About 8.000.000 years later, since our ancestors begun to think, a cold and rainy night of February (okay, maybe it wasn’t that cold but it sounds more poetic that way), I wondered how it would seem to me leaving my home, my friends, my habits, my speaking language and the rest of “my’s” and go to another country in order to live there and study for 5 months.

          From that instant moment, until I got here, not a day passed without thinking how it would be for me to speak English with everyone and study in English as well, to meet other people and to live in a foreign country. I kept thinking how weird it will be for me to speak loudly Greek in the bus on my way to school without someone understanding me (except from Alexandra and some tourists we meet occasionally).

          I made some plans, I imagined some things and I hope for some other as well. Some of them came true and some didn’t but I don’t feel disappointed cause I know that it is too soon and I still have enough time to fill up (and hopefully to overflow) my memory box with experiences, feelings, images, tastes, sounds and colours!

What I am thinking right now ? Let the party begin!!!!!