Exchanging experiences about Global Citizenship Education and getting inspired by the ideas of their colleagues: teachers from different countries travel across Europe and give their contribution to the project.
At the beginning of November a group of 10 primary-school teachers from the Czech Republic visited Vienna. Divided into two groups they got the chance to participate in school lessons of their Austrian colleagues. In the primary school „Hardegasse“, located in the 22nd district of Vienna, the visitors had the chance to participate in a pre-school class, who was working on the topic of „forests“.
At the primary-school „Marktgasse“ in the 9th district of Vienna, the exchange-teachers had the possibility to take part in an English lesson by native speakers, organized within a team-teaching model. In several conversations during their stay the visitors from Czech Republic exchanged experiences with Austrian teachers: How do teachers in Austria and Czech Republic deal with the challenges of globalization? How can lessons for heterogeneous and multilingual groups be designed? Without any doubt, there were a lot of topics to talk about. At the final visit of the primary school „Stubenbastei“ in the first Viennese district, additional native-language lessons for Czech pupils is offered.
Besides encounters with teachers and pupils, the Czech visitors visited different organizations and institutions that promote Global Citizenship Education in Austria: first the partner Südwind was visited. Another stop was the library BAOBAB . With more than 6.000 items (books, didactic material, DVDs, games…) BAOBAB is the biggest library on Global Citizenship Education in Austria. There the participants got a guided insight in selected materials and had time to test some of them.
Finally, the visit of Romy Höltzer from the European Office of the Educational Authority of the City of Vienna closed the programme. Romy Höltzer introduced the group to the Global Education Primary Schools in Vienna (GEPS) and gave useful insights into the Austrian schooling-system.
All in all, the teachers-exchange was a big success, which should be continued soon. The exchange visit of the Austrian primary-school-teachers travelling to the Czech Republic is already planned for spring 2017!