eTwinning Conference "Leading 21st century education" - conclusion

It's kind of funny when you think how many ideas, projects, doubts and (especially) questions can come out of a single event. The eTwinning Conference held in Genova was a gold mine for my personal reflections, not only dealing with the future of eTwinning, but with the future of the EU and the future of European education.

Which means, a huge part of my own future (and yours, if you're a teacher). Something we cannot fully decide for ourselves: and it's quite scary when you feel someone else is deciding for you.

 So, while in Genova, I just sat there all the time, staring at the policy makers, burning with questions, and hoping for some answers. Unfortunately, there actually was very little time for questions. And I must admit what was said was not exactly answering my doubts.

If you want the official covering of the event, you can have a look at the article on the eTwinning portal When eTwinning meets policy makers! You can find videos there , documents and much of what was said and done.

And if you want my very personal, very unofficial and very uncensored opinion as well, just go on reading!

I was convinced by:

- Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou's speech. True, eTwinning is an EU success story, and Heaven knows if Europe needs success stories these times. And true, as a success story it deserves more attention and recognition by the political world. Now, the question could be: is the political world interested in common EU success stories? or individual (national) selfishness is bound to prevail?

- The four workshops. Of course I loved mine (Pedagogical Practices), I found I had so much in common with the experts in my panel, even if we came from very different experiences (with me being the only simple teacher...). But I liked all of the workshops I could attend, and it was pleasant to see there were teachers in all of the panels: after all, there was someone who knew what we were talking about in practice, not just delivering a lecture. What's more, the workshops were the ideal size in terms of participants, so we could exchange ideas and try to find common solutions for our (common) issues. There was a debate, not just a speech from a stage. And here, there are two questions as well: 1) did the policy makers understand the real value of this cooperation between teachers all over Europe? or 2) did they look at it as a non-expensive toy to keep their teachers entertained and professionally growing (without them having to do anything)?

- Anne Gilleran's sentence: eTwinning is a place where you're allowed to fail. Great! Even if as teachers we're usually obsessed with being perfect, in fact we can't be. And it's a relief to feel free to make mistakes once in a while - and learn from them. That's what LifeLongLearning is supposed to mean. Now, to the question: will policy makers understand this? will we still be free to fail in an "institutionalized" eTwinning?

I was NOT convinced by:

- the projection of a bright technological future for the European schools, where teachers and students communicate via twitter, regularly meet on social networks and happily exploit ICT as creative educational tools. I've visited schools in Tuscany (and we're supposed to be one of the rich parts of Italy) where the ICT equipment is zero. A high percentage of teachers can't even hold a mouse. Lots of pupils think exploiting ICT means playing Wii or Play Station games. And there are even more serious issues: more and more families, in this time of crisis, can't afford buying a pc or paying for the internet access. Lots of Municipalities have less and less money to provide their schools with ICT equipment. Not to mention the crisis of European Education we've been discussing in another post (how can we forget all of those un-met benchmarks?). My feeling was that the impact of the present crisis was underestimated. It's my personal opinion, but the efficient and creative hypertechnological school of the future is Utopia school... or (worse) it is going to be an elite school for those who can afford it.

- the policy-makers speeches: sorry, apart from very few happy situations, the distance between the politicians and the EU-minded experts (Eugenio Riviere, Santi Scimeca, Anne Gilleran, Donatella Nucci etc) was patent. The politicians just kept seeing their small slice of the educational world, while the others talked in a wider perspective. And sadly, I'm not sure they had the same goals in mind. My question: did they understand each other?

...

Ok, that's all for my experiences and thoughts about Genova. I know maybe I've been boring with all of these posts, but we are living such a difficult period for the EU and the debate in Genova got for me a wider meaning, going beyond eTwinning.

After all, in my opinion the question is not if eTwinning will or won't be recognized by the institutions of the different countries. The question is: will the different countries recognize the existence - and value - of the European dimension in education?