educational tours

I was not really excited to go to Timisoara at this time of the year because of the cold weather, but the perspective meeting good old colleague-friends kept me warm.
We came together for a doing2learn project meeting, sharing our work we have done, difficulties we had and still have and discussed how to proceed.

I have been doing these European projects since seven years now and it is very often quite disenchanting and frustrating. There are many players in the ring with different motives which are not always conform with the meaning of the project or the European framework. Mostly, those people who created the project and carried out the work are enthusiastic at the beginning, trying to bring fresh ideas into their organisations and trying to motivate people to broaden their horizon by learning something.

2010 is the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion in adult education. To start his year, the European Commission organised a conference in Brussels, Management Centre of Europe, over three days (26-28 January 2010).
It was the first time I attended a conference like this, and I wanted to take the opportunity to not only meet people and new potential partners, but also to promote eduate.eu. I was the first one to arrive at the Centre and, hence could see who was coming in, and who'd be my first target. :-)
Over the three days, I learned a lot about what those people would like to have and what they need. I questioned and listened to them in the plenary, in workshops and, of course, one on one.
I noticed what people want is a tool to disseminate their projects and outcomes, a tool to network and to see what others are up to, a tool that is simple and easy to use.

This was my third trip to Poland. The first one I made in the early 90s, private, searching traces of someone's family. I have uncomfortable memories from that trip, not only because we visited the Auschwitz concentration camp, the whole environment was a bit strange. The second time I travelled to Poland, at the end of the 90s, I stayed in Krakow and I was surprised how vital the city was, even though the whole centre was a big re-construction site.

Now also my third trip, the time couldn't be worse. It was very cold, wet and dark and I haven't seen any blue sky for 4 days.
A French teacher picked us up at Krakow airport to ease the conversation during the two hours drive to Cieszyn (usually, French people do not speak English, might be a prejudice, but it is often true).
On the way to Cieszyn, we passed Oswiecim, saw the museum of the concentration camp and I still got the creeps. I can't imagine how to live in such a place with the visibility of the horrifying past.

Last weekend I travelled to Machynlleth, the old capital of the former Kingdom Wales, until the English conquered Wales. The Welsh's were very visionary at that time (1404!), they already had a parliament, a constitution and equal rights for men and women. Very rare at that time!

It is easier to get to New York then to Machynlleth in Wales, which takes a whole day, even though its just 1,700 km away from Fitou.
I stayed in a beautiful middle of nowhere, it rained nearly all time and was very cold, but also very romantic. That part of Wales seems to be one of the last natural paradise.
Those Brits, which could afford it, bought old farm houses to live far away from civilization, enjoying a natural life (one of them is the boss of Tesco). Hence, the prices for land and houses increases dramatically which makes it nearly impossible for young locals to buy a property.

I was on travel again, in Tolmezzo, in Friul, Italy. I was here, in that wonderful mountain region, every year since 2004, and always for project reasons. I like that region, the food and of course, I know some very friendly people there. It is always nice to come back to that place.
We started a European educational project last year and now we had our second project meeting. As so often, the project started with lot's of promises and expectations. Every partner seems to be very ambitious and motivated. In our case, we worked together before, we had a wonderful little learning partnership and as a result of that project, we created the idea for the current one. The application has got very high evaluation points, which made me proud, because I was working hard on that.
We changed the coordination for that big project to meet the reliability conditions of the European commission. That is sometimes something very formal and do not always met the capability of the choosen partner to lead the project. Anyway, they prefer big organisations and do not really trust small private enterprises having the management capabilities.
That impaires very often the quality of the project management and results.
Big organisations, with there big administration and huge hierarchies tend to ignore those kind of projects. At least, they would like to have the money, give no extra time to fulfill project activities to the involved staff and do not really support them. Sounds drastic, but it is like this. The promoters of those kind of European projects are usually (not all of them) very engaged, open minded people which want to change the world, at least Europa or the the way of cooperation between educational institutions. They are often thwarted by their own organisations.
Another important player in such projects are the learners. Ok,we are all learners at any time, but when we work in projects, we have a target group for whom we create such stuff. They are not always enthusiastic to be a part in such a project. Because, being involved means, they have to do something and be monitored- who wants to have that? Who wants to learn?
Sounds a bit frustrated?
Sometimes it is like this. But there are also gorgeous moments which pays off for everything. I had a lot in last years, thats why I am doing that.
What about our doing2learn project? I arrived very frustrated, disappointed and sad. Nothing really happened after our start, me and another partner were working on the tasks but ot no feedback from the others and we nearrly gave it up.

I was a long time thinking about of what I can do to change the situation. And made this presentation. With that we started our meeting, discussed in detail and very open the situation and decided not to give up the idea and turn our cooperation into a successful way. That is a promise, but every promise needs some control mechanism and consequencies. We defined all that!
We had a very good, inspiring working meeting from that time on.
Additional to that, we decided to add something what we did not promised in our project application and what is additonal work for all of us. That is really remarkable and certainly not usual in such projects: we start twittering- follow us at doing2learn- and develop our courses also for mobile phones.
Let's see how it will be on next meeting in September.

On the way back, I had half a day in Venice and I visited again the Guggenheim Museum. Few months ago I read the Peggy Guggenheim Biography and I was curious how I woudl see the collection after that. The museum was overcrowded, because it rained and all the tourists went into that museum.
However, I still have the same favourite pictures, the two Picasso's (here is the other)in the entrance hall and the a Victor Brauner in the next room. And I really like the Giacometti Sculpture in the garden as well as the bird from Brancusi. I added a new favourite, the silver bed head from Calder, made for Peggy Guggenheim. The museums seems to be smaller to me than before, like a small world. At Guggenheim's time it was probably one of the most exiting places in Italy or Europe. Now, we are use to have such places nearly everywhere.

But is beautiful and still inspiring there!