Workshop Activity in Poland
Between 25th and 26th August 2021, Pracownia Kształcenia Zawodowego „Voca Train” has implemented methodological workshops within the main themes of the 2020-1-DE02-KA202-007408 Project called „GET INVOLVED – Supporting Democracy and Citizenship in VET” for 13 persons (11 teachers from 3 secondary vocational schools and 2 PKZ „Voca Train” workers).
The aim of the workshop was to familiarize participants with the subject of our project, the issues connected to supporting democracy and civic education in the vocational education and training sector, and preventing discrimination in the work and school environment. Trainings conducted by 2 trainers from the Anti-Discrimination Education Society in Warsaw (TEA) were designed to prepare teachers to work with groups of students in 3 vocational schools in the field of recognizing and preventing discrimination in the school and professional environment as well as developing and supporting civic education.
The active participation of participants and training experiences in the field of conducting training and motivating participants allowed the participants to:
– build a team interested in strengthening their training workshop,
– get to know examples of good practices in supporting democracy and civic education in vocational education and training,
– learn about the types and methods of preventing discrimination at school and outside.
Diversified workshop methods gave the participants the opportunity to „find themselves on the other side“ as a discriminated person and understand the background / current situation of such a person. In the evaluation of the training, the participants emphasized their satisfaction with the acquisition of new knowledge and skills, especially in the field of methodology of work with students. All participants declared that they would take up the subject of democracy and civic education as well as prevent and combat discrimination in vocational education in their schools starting from the current school year. Most of the participants signed up for the „mailing“ list kept by trainers from TEA, where trainings / meetings are conducted on current events related to civic education. For example: workshop participants took part in the online workshop on 2nd September2021 on the topic „How to talk to students about what is happening on the Polish-Belarusian border“
Currently, all schools involved in the implementation of the project: Zespół Szkół Technicznych w Szczecinku, Zespół Szkół Morskich w Darłowie and Zespół Szkół w Nowem are working on creating the thematic classes for students and are gathering ideas for events within the scope of the GetInvolved project that could be implemented both at school as in the local community. The results of these works will be known soon.