The second round of job shadowings in Warsaw is close to its end. Pasticipants share their impressions and experiences of taking part in the project "Development of competences for Democratic citizenship through formal, non-formal and informal learning" within the Erasmus + Youth Program organised by the Center for Educational Initiatives (Lviv) and Civis Polonus Foundation.
Oksana Dyachok, shares her reflections:
"We study the experience of Fundacja Civis Polonus, which is actively engaged in the development of student self-governments, supporting youth councils and other initiatives aimed at youth involvement in the city's public life.
We visited School # 340 (Ursynów), where we saw an example of effective student self-governance that has a real impact on decision-making in the school. In the realities of the Polish system of education, one can really trace the R. Hart's ladder model that we learned during preparation for the job shadowing, when students' initiatives are supported and coordinated by adults. All student's self-governments in Poland have mentors here, in this case, Ms. Magdaleną Kalinowską.
We had a meeting with Dorotą Kapuścińska, member of the City Council, who is responcible for the projects aimed to establish communication between the authorities, NGOs and schools. The scale of such activities is striking, because they are well aware that the country's successful future lies in the hands of active youth.
We got to know the work of the Warsaw Center for Innovation and Training in Education (similar to our in-service teacher training institutes, but with a wider scope of competences). Ms. Izabelą Witczak spoke about the peculiarities of the functioning of educational institutions, the structure of teacher training, the types of work of the Center. In particular, they hold many events not only for educators, but also for students and parents, helping to unite all participants in the educational process.
Each district of Warsaw has one or even several so-called Miejsce Aktywności Lokalnej (local community centers) that involve residents in public life: there are projects for children, young people, the older generation. Olga Rusinek introduced us to one of these centers and suggested that we attend a conference scheduled for June 8 (like EdCamp) to show Polish teachers the specifics of the Ukrainian education system, as the number of Ukrainian students increases every year.
Every day of our job shadowing is meaningful and emotional. All our activities here, both training and leisure convince us: a human here is above all! The needs of different people are taken into concideration, everything thoroughly thought of and planned, this is amazing! We believe that Ukraine has prospects for European development, the only condition is everyone's responsibility to do their job properly!"
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The end of the school year in Poland has traditionally been associated with a number of fun educational activities. In the framework of the project “Increasing the competences of democratic citizenship through formal, non-formal and informal education” in collaboration with Fundacja Civis Polonus, Ukrainian teachers Oksana Dyachok, Svetlana Minchenko and Kateryna Pavlushenko participated in several events, in particular, on June 8 - at school # 9 June - at school # 354. Exciting workshops, fun animators, concerts of young talents, sports entertainment were the highlights of a family holiday that aims to unite all participants in the educational process. The event at school # 114 really impressed us with its scope and number of participants!
A real celebration of science has been an event at the National Stadium, which has been held in Warsaw for over 20 years and is Europe's largest open air event. It is attended by about 200 representatives of Polish and foreign scientific, research and cultural institutions, as well as tens of thousands of visitors, each of whom can participate in demonstrations and experiments. The organizers of the Science Picnic are Polish Radio and the Copernicus Science Center, which we have also recently visited and received many positive impressions".