Week 37. 13th to 17th of September

On Monday we had the study day so I didn’t went to Frøbel. On Tuesday we had the student forum to comment the texts: Social Work and Europe: Educating for Change and The influence on National Cultural Traditions on Pedagogy. On Thursday we had the student forum too to comment the texts: Anti-discriminatory practice and Comparing Social Work from a European perspective.

We worked in groups and we could talk about the texts and later we can comment our work in the student forum. For me some of the texts were so difficult, but the student forum helps me to understand more. While we were talking in small groups we could see differences about, for example, the educational systems and ways to work between the different countries.

We talked about discrimination too. When we will work as a social educators, pedagogs or teachers I think that we need to look carefully at the use of power in society and its effects on disadvantaged or minority groups, like the text says (Anti-discriminatory practice); we have to promote anti-discriminatory practices.

I was working in a school the year before with children from 8 to 12 years old. They were from different cultures and backgrounds. During the playground time, two days per week we were working different things in the class like works and homework. One day, a boy from Morroco, said to another girl that it would be better if she was in her country, India. I was really surprised because they were in the "same" situation ( I'm refering that they were in a new country). Obviously, I talked with them to make a reflexion: why did you say this? How would you feel if someone say this to you? What do you thing now? It’s a good thing to say this to another person?...etc. I think that we have to put emphasise on this things, work in this and do not let it pass, working in a intercultural way by values like respect. I think that it would be nice if in the schools could be a subject to work in values because I think that it's very important for the life and convivence in the society.

On Friday we had a class with a guest teacher, Anne Mette, with the issue "A right based approach". We talked about the Rights of Child. She gave us the Convention on the Rights of the Child and we compare some articles of it and give a puntuation of our country in little groups; we worked in Mauritius and Spain. It was interesting to see the strenghts and weaknesses in relation to the Rights of the Children in our countries because sometimes the words are very beautiful but not in the practice.