VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY FOR ESTONIA'S GLOBAL CITIZENS

Guest blog written by:
Marit Oimet & Florika Kolbakova at Põlva Gümnaasium, Estonia

Erasmus+ project "In Others’ Shoes" has given us a good chance to meet our fellow colleagues from the UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, Slovenia and Turkey, share our thoughts and visions, best practices and cultural differences, learn from each other. Within the project time frame we have grown as human beings and educators. But most importantly, built friendships that cross borders, widen the horizon and make the world just a little bit more connected and smaller once again. In the end - isn’t that what global learning is all about?!                

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As an outcome of In Others’ Shoes Project we (Florika and Marit) started building an elective course "Global Citizenship" that we planned, prepared and tested on students during the first half of the project. It was, on the one hand, in search of the activities to present as intellectual output. On the other hand, it was in hopes to pass on some of our knowledge we had gained when travelling and having international friends all over the world.  As we both believe in peace education and in need to have global education as part of our educational system, this was the perfect opportunity to go with.

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Global Citizenship as a course focuses on global education topics like diversity, stereotypes, conflicts and resolution, as well as critical thinking and self-awareness. We had a trial run of the course last spring and a plan to develop it further in order to have it as part of the curriculum at our school. We have been cooperating with like-minded organizations during the process: international youth organization CISV had an integral part when we were developing and testing the conflict and resolution part of the course; both CISV and NGO Mondo have been inspiration when opening stereotypes and diversity to students. We think there is no need to invent the wheel if it already exists. Be open to others, make a good use of their knowledge and experience, as well as practice what you preach.

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Global education in general, as a way of learning by doing, is part of our educational beliefs. You can try to talk the science and facts into the heads of students. On the other hand, you can take them on their own discovery. We both prefer the latter, so we have been organizing cultural and language trips abroad for students. Part of the study trip is homestay, which is a perfect way of stepping into someone else’s shoes to explore the culture close up. We intend to continue with these study trips also after the project has finished.
 
This whole project has been one amazing ride with really awesome people on board. Global learning in today’s world should be an essential part of education and school life, not some semi-hidden gem one stumbles upon if lucky enough! Thank you Global Education Derby and Erasmus+ for bringing this group together and see you around for other projects.

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