“Strengthening Democratic Culture in Basic Education”
Training the Trainers in a March Workshop in Zurich
Education in contemporary democratic societies aims to prepare young people for the labour market and enhance their personal development, but it also prepares them for life as active citizens in democratic societies. The culture of democracy and the matching competences are the long missing link between knowledge about democracy and the skills to implement it in daily life.
The curriculum of the Ministry of National Education of Turkey is taking this into account with its structure that allows teachers to use their creativity and different educational methods to meet the needs of education in the 21st century.
A 5-day Training the Trainers workshop took place between 6-13 March at the Zurich University of Teacher Education. The programme included school visits to observe the whole school approach to democracy development, classroom observation to see examples of culture of democracy in practice, and lesson analyses to develop the competence to better understand implementation options of CDC through various teaching and learning approaches.
The aforementioned activities allowed a better understanding of basic approaches to training-competencies and adult education in the 21st century. The intensive training week enabled participants to reflect upon their trainers’ roles (as lecturer, as trainer and as facilitator), as well as hands-on further development of training plans for teachers and an application of task-based learning. The training also dealt with differences between teaching and learning and the consequences for the training approaches, using the RFCDC as preparation and reflection tool,- and discussing chances and difficulties of a cascade training system.
In their different roles, 15 teacher trainers, five representatives of the Ministry of Education in Ankara, two translators, and one coordinator took part in the training week. The programme was fully packed with interactive exercises and practical examples of teaching about democracy, teaching for democracy and teaching trough democracy. Presentations, groupworks, and discussions were complemented with model classes for observation and feedback-training. The training was vivid and intense, and participants were highly motivated to learn, share, and pass on the gained insights in their different regions and schools in Turkey.
