Guest teachers and doing the project...

So, for the last month we have been writing on our group project while having guest teachers in between. In my group we were 2 Danish people, one Finish and one Spanish. We chose to deal with preventive work with young criminals so we gathered information in different ways, both reading articles, asking relevant questions to institutions in each country etc. We compared the differences and similarities and it was very interesting to see how in some ways we work so differently from each other and in some ways very similar.

Working across the countries has been both good and bad but I think at least, we have all learned something from the process.

My experience with this has been that it has required a lot of patience on my part and from time to time I have been very frustrated with it. I think we have all realized how different we actually work in our different countries - both as professionals but also as students writing a project. I think this was one of the challenges to accept that we all work differently when we do group work and to make room for our differences.

My impression is that in Spain and Finland, the students are mainly expected to find information on a topic and write that in the assignment as apposed to Denmark where we are used to a bit higher expectations from the teachers in terms of discussion, analysis and generally having an opinion about the topic. I think this is one reason why I have been very frustrated from time to time because I didn’t feel like the outcome of our project was good enough in Danish standards. Therefore I was very surprised when we got an A for the project and a B for the oral presentation. I have been very confused about this but I have come to the conclusion that the project must have been better than I thought and also the requirements and expectations from the teachers have been somewhat lower than they are when we write an assignment in Danish and they of course have to be because we are writing in our second language. Also I think that the focus has been more on the whole process of the group work and the comparative studies and not so much on the grammar etc.

The guest teachers

We have had quite a few different guest teachers in the last month or so. The guest teacher I have found most interesting was definitely Tim Gully from England who talked about “angels and demons” which was mainly about children doing crimes and a discussion about at what age these children can actually be punished. For me it was very interesting and it was also very relevant for our project. We talked a lot about whose responsibility these children are – is it the parents’ responsibility or the government or who is it? Tim Gully presented some specific cases, one where two young boys (10 years old) kidnapped, tortured and murdered a 2 year-old boy. There are a lot of opinions about what should have been done in this situation and whose “fault” it is that nothing was done to prevent this. In this case the social services had visited one of the boys’ family many times for other reasons but there had never been reason to believe that something like this would happen. In this case the public blamed the government and the social services for not seeing it coming.

He also presented another case where the social services had interfered with a family and removed the child of a soldier and in this case the public blamed the government and social services for actually interfering. We talked about the fact that it seems like they can never do anything right. I was very interested in this topic and I wish we had more classes with him. Also because he was very passionate about the matter so he was just interesting to listen to. That being said, I think he has been one of the only very interesting guest teachers. Some of the others have been okay but it is fun to see how much it depends on their own involvement in the topic and also their way of presenting it. But all in all, I think it is a very good idea to have guest teachers because we get to hear about so many different countries.

I have learned a lot during this process. I haven't necessarily learned what I expected but I have definitely learned more about working together and the meetings between cultures. Throughout our project writing I have been very focused on making it the best that it could possibly be and I think that is very natural. However it has been brought to my attention that the whole process is almost as important as the outcome, at least in the international course because there is a lot of focus on the teamwork and intercultural meetings.

I think it is very different what people find important in this kind of process and it is very interesting to see what roles people take when they are put in a group and are to work together towards a goal. I have been used to a certain way of working in my university but have learned that the people from the other countries have been used to something else. It is also interesting to think about learning processes and how some people can learn a lot from reading something and then just writing it again in the project whereas I personally learn better when I have to look at something critically and relate to it.

All this just indicates that we are all different and we all have our own ways of working but when we are put together across the countries, we have to be open and flexible and this, for me at least, is a big part of my learning process.

My reflections on professional work in an intercultural perspective..

As I work in a crisis center for women with violent backgrounds, I meet a lot of people from very different cultures and backgrounds than my own. I see women my own age or even younger who have already been through so much and it makes me think about how different we all are. In my life I have my friends from school and my hobbys etc and I never really have to face the fact that not all people my age are as lucky as me. I mean, while my worries can sometimes seem very important, there are women right here in my city, maybe even my neighbour who have much bigger issues to worry about. But doing this work that I do, has really opened my eyes and got me thinking about a lot of things and it has made me realize that even if I am very pvivileged to not have these worries I am lucky to be in a situation where I have the ressources nessesary to actually help these women and isn't that what our work is really about?

In my practical placement I worked in a very multicultural kindergarten where 90% of all the children were immigrants. This fact both made it a very hard place to work but also very very exciting. Almost every day was different from the other and I got the opportunity to learn so much about their different homecountries and cultures. Meeting the parents was also very exciting and the fact that some of them didn't even speak danish made it very challenging to communicate with them but we always made it work. The staff in the kindergarten, on a regular basis planned dinners and parties for the children and the parents and these events were always very multicultural with food from all the different countries, music from Albania and dance from Turkey etc. Before I started my placement there I, sadly, had a lot of prejudices about a lot of things regarding all the immigrants in Denmark. I have never been a racist but still, I had my preunderstandings. Working there, however totally changed my view on this matter and as I got to know a lot of these families I also realized that many of my preunderstandings were wrong.
Maybe I also even had some prejudices about women staying in violent relationships before I started working at the crisis center but only because I didn't understand.

Speaking of preunderstandings and prejudices, this is something we have worked a lot with on the international course. It is a very common and normal thing for people to have surtain preconceptions but the important thing is that we have an open mind and are willing to let people change our preunderstandings for the better. I think this is what our work with the intercultural meetings is all about. To set aside all of your prejudices and recognise that we are all people and our job as pedagogues, social workers ect is to meet people where they are and have an open mind and also realize that a lot of our prejudices toward other people often have to do with our lack of understanding.

The first couple of weeks

In the international course at Frøbel UCC we are almost 50 people from Spain, Italy, France, Mauritius, Finland, Holland, Greece, Turkey and Denmark. The first couple of weeks have been very exciting!
We have spend a lot of time talking and learning about our different countries and cultures and how pedagogues and socialworkers work very differently in the different countries.
We have talked a lot about prejudices and how people often have pre-understandings of people from other cultures and how to work with that. Also, we have talked a lot about intercultural  meetings and what defines culture such as traditions, economics, class, values, education etc. and not only between countries.
So far it has been really great to meet all these fantastic people and being introduced to the course and I'm very excited to be on this course for the next 5 months!