What does Dropping the baggage mean?
Dropping the baggage, means looking in the future without baggages, without reservations and without fear. It means looking to the future with optimism, creativity and courage. But it does not always happen! There are many students who avoid looking direct in their future, students who avoid making decisions that will, long-term, strengthen their personality and students who certainly think now and any difficulties of it. So we have numerous cases where students leave their studies because of a problem. Their trainers play (or should play) a very important role in their final decision, but with what skills will they be able to stand by them, inspire them and be able to advise them appropriately? “Dropping the Baggage – Investing in the future ” aims exactly right there!
At the end of last month, the project partners, of “Dropping the Baggage – Investing in the future”, held an online two-day event with four (4) workshops. The online workshops were carried out following the primary survey conducted on students and trainers of vocational education and training (VET) in each partner country in previous period.
The project, Dropping the Baggage – Investing in the future, aims to:
- Develop tools to help teachers encourage students to leave behind what keeps them away from education.
- Change the approach of learning to a more holistic approach and
- change the existing mentalities, methodologies of education and teaching.
Having as basic principles the above goals, the partners proceeded and conduct the four (4) online workshops during 20 and 21 January.
Workshops
Groups of partners met online and after raising some issues and the agenda of the workshops, they were divided into three (3) groups of five-six (5-6) people (each from England, Finland, The Netherlands, Spain, Greece and Portugal), in order to discuss the various views and what prevails in each one’s country.
Workshops on 20/01/2021
On 20/01/2022, were held the first and second workshop. The subject of the first on-line workshop was about changing existing exclusive attitudes for inclusive education and student empowerment. That workshop focused on how the hidden agenda prevent students from dropping their baggage in education and how VET teachers can draw up action plans focusing on inclusive education.
The second on-line workshop was about Teambuilding – There is no “I” in “we” approach. The second workshop focused on how VET teachers will let go of personal preferences and on Teamlearning VS Co-learning (teambuilding) After the workshops, the three (3) groups of partners, met together and presented common and different views on the above issues.
Workshops on 21/01/2021
On 21/01/2022, the third and fourth on-line workshop were held. The third workshop focused on empowering students through coaching and mentoring and focused on “failure.” “Failing is an opportunity to grow! Helping students learn from failure” and How to help students take ownership of their failure and use it for improved skills development and empowerment
The fourth workshop was about the thematic deliverable of the project under the name S.C.R.E.A.M! (Strength, Collaboration, Respect, (self)Evaluate, Achieve,Motivate), where teams focused on new leadership roles in VET, Do’s and Don’ts.
After the workshops, the three (3) groups of partners met together again. After presenting their common and different views on the above issues, they co-created the common basis on which the project will proceed.
It is noteworthy that during workshops all the different views were exchanged and analyzed, as result of the renewal of the workshops for further discussion and planning of the next steps for the project.
p-consulting.gr participates along with 7 other partners from Finland, Spain, Portugal, Netherlands and England in the KA2 Erasmus+ project, Dropping the Baggage – Investing in the future.
Stay tuned for more!
