The Beginning of the End

In Persian mythology, there is a legend called “simurg”. In this legend, there are birds searching for their “lord”, known as “Phoenix” in Western Cultures. This “lord” is omniscient and lives on the tree of wisdom. Moreover, it has curative tears. That means if it dies by getting burnt, it can revive from its ash. 

Then the birds set out for the place where it lives. During their trip, they have to endure many hardships, some of them unfortunately cannot overcome them and die, some other ones think that it is too difficult to achieve and stop to go back. When they reach the final destination, only thirty birds stay alive. Then they see that actually there is no lord. 

In fact, the miracle is that the “lord” that they are searching for is themselves. In Persian language, “si” means thirty and “murg” means bird; thus, “simurg” means “thirty birds”. In this IP, we have studied a lot and had the chance to look at leadership which plays an important role on the road to more democratic schools in Europe from different perspectives. Furthermore, this helped us expand our horizon. Now, here is where we are. All in all, we, as prospective social leaders, hope to educate future democratic citizens of Europe to a greater extent.

Change We Need!

In today’s modern world, “change” is much faster than it was in the past. When we look at this increasingly continuing change, we come up with the secret key players in the society, teachers. Moreover, teachers are considered the people who devote themselves for sake of their society and humanity in a general sense; for this reason, throughout the history they are the most admirable people not only in one society but also in almost all of them. More importantly, a good teacher changes the society implicitly and if we look from a wider perspective, they change the world.

Education is a life-long-process. Through this process, teachers are considered as the drivers of innovation and progress and engines of growth in the society. In this sense, the main problem for a society can be seen “illiteracy” to get more and more developed. They are the ones that will get over this problem. Once they see that the society improves steadily, the mission will be completed. Thus, there is no other job except for being teacher that gives the person sense of fulfillment. 

The Characteristics and Roles of Democratic Tecaher

Teachers are not only a role model for their students but also the distinguished people in their communities. The reason why teachers are more respected than the other ones is their unique characteristics. Let us have a closer look at the details of their characteristics.

• It is an undeniable fact that we have not learnt completely what democracy means and what it means to be democratic. Yet, for sure it is the very way to develop as an individual. As a class is considered as a sample of the society, a democratic teacher should establish the conditions for democracy to become present which is also a highly-accepted idea by a famous American Educator, John Dewey.

• Teachers are passionate pioneers who have the potential to change and improve something in their society. The source of their power is the society where they come from. As a result, they are aware of the fact that it is only possible to achieve it by being engaged in their community.

• As their behaviors present examples for the other people in the society, they must be good citizens for obeying rules of the social life and being respectful to human rights.

• As education is a long-term process, they must be ready to learn and discover anything in any time. In addition, they will have the chance to “up-to-date” themselves in this way against the changing world in an incredible way.

As everything is in a great change in modern world, the roles of teachers are also changing incredibly. Everyday new dimensions are added through different persepectives. As a result, they have more responsibilities and more impact on the society. Let us think closely over the roles of good teachers.

• A teacher is more than a lecturer who is aware of his meta-cognitive teaching skills and social responsibilities.

• If you would like to see the future of a nation, you should look to its teachers, architects of their coming generation.

• A good teacher is someone that is dedicated to his society. By socializing, he changes the visage of his society.

• They should be a good visionary, but at the same time realist to materialize their dreams. Thus, the society can achieve their ideas.

The word “teacher” comes from the verb “to teach”, but when we look at his duty, it is more than teaching something. Moreover, teaching/learning is such a process that it takes a lifetime and this life-long-learning process is called as “education”. All in all, teachers are the core of this process and play a very important role. 

Key Concepts for Democray and Participation in Communities

This program can be seen as “crossroad of cultures” to some extent; in other words, meeting point of many cultures and as a result meeting point of many differences. In addition, the people attending this program are aware of the fact that there are other people who may think in a different way. Yet, we here come up with the magical word “respect” which is the key for solutions of global problems, global misunderstandings and global prejudices. As everyone is fallible, our duty is to overlook so-called mistakes and help to find solutions for more important ones together. Thus, we can determine a global peace for every human being.

“Empathy” is another key element which means trying to put oneself into the place of another person. It is completely natural that there will be some differences even between the people living in the same society. Actually, these differences are not the barriers separating people; quite the reverse, the ones that should make us enrich personally and culturally. In a wider perspective, cultural differences make the cultural treasure of humankind richer all around the world. Therefore, why are we struggling instead of enjoying this cultural variety?

Personally saying, I am a prospective English teacher and in language teaching, the first rule is that teaching a language is teaching another culture. Likewise, it is exchanging one’s life with the other culture. Yet this does not mean that this person should sacrifice something from his own culture; on the contrary, he has a wider perspective of cultural thinking. This program has been a good chance for me to get the gist of European Culture and European ID.


*Please see the attached video from Group No. 2. 

Erasmus IP 2011 - Universidad de Murcia - Group 2

Diversity vs. Similarity

Diversity in a society in terms of culture, language, beliefs and so on is one of the most important concepts that we should bear in mind while talking about democratic citizenship. As a teacher I see the issue in the way that there are some people in the society who are natural leaders. We mean they do not need any power or any charisma to affect other people. The people we are talking about are teachers. They are the source of their culture and flag men of civilization in a universally thinking way.

They plant the seeds of new generations and cultivate it. Then, next years other teachers will have more harvests or it will get less and less year by year and one day they will have nothing. Here, the most important thing is how beneficial their doing their job. This can be considered in a metaphorical way and the outcome can be either a modern and developed society or the bitter end of it that has been eradicated by its teachers.

Teachers are leaders that gather people together under common denominators regardless of their ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds. Actually, these differences show the wealth of this society. All in all, teacher is the chef of the society to cook very delicious meals with many ingredients in a great harmony.    

Constructing European ID

Today we mainly focused on the relevance of democratic citizenship to the construction of European identity. In this respect, it was good to start with the definitions of democracy, Europeanization and EU identity. Prof. Dr. Çalış gave us the basics of those terms. He was followed by Antonio who focused on democratic citizenship. This presentation gave us the possibility to have a look at the issue of democratic citizenship. After the coffee break, we had an interactive activity in which we had the chance to observe democracy, citizenship, group identity and communication within the groups.

In the afternoon, we had the workshop related to leadership and some types of leadership paradigms. We focused on different types such as classical, transactional, organic and  visionary. We had a fruitful discussion to get to know more about these types. To me, it seems that there is no best way of leading people. That is to say it is possible to benefit from each of them to some extent. All in all, in my opinion where one leads the people is more important than how one leads them. 

Let's get started!

The program started with a brief presentation about the city of Murcia  and University of Murcia. I must say that it was really interesting to know more. Robin together with Antonio tell us more about the program and how it will flow and what the objectives and aims are. It was very clear from the very beginning that the program will focus on three main concepts; leadership, democracy and citizenship. Later, other professors from other participating country introduced themselves. Then we formed the "core groups" that means there is at least one participant from each country represented so that throughout two weeks we will get together with this group and do some activities and discussions. As the first task, we were given three questions about expectations, concerns and facilitating the learning to discuss together with the other group members. It was very nice and we had really good ideas.

After the lunch break, we got together, but this time we would have an activity related to the photos that we have all brought. How great it was that people from different social backgrounds got together come together to work for one single idea which is "Leadership for democratic citizenship". To sum up, all these were nice activities to make us get to know more about other group members and I hope to have some fruitful discussions with our gorup members.

Arrival at Spain & The First Day

It took very long for us to get to do Murcia. Firstly, we had a flight from Konya, where next year's Erasmus IP will take place, to Istanbul at 9.40am. Yet, we had to wait around 7 hours in Istanbul Atatürk Airport for flight to Madrid Barajas. The flight was ok and Iberia Cabin Crew were very hospitable. Next, we had to take a bus from the airport to Murcia. Finally, we arrived very early in the morning at "Apartementos Campus, Campus de Espinardo".

After having a good rest in our nice rooms, we met up Antonio who helped us greatly before coming to Spain. he gave us welcome packs. Then we head to the heart of city. As it was Sunday, most of the shops were closed and there were only a few more tourists on the streets except for us. We walked around the center and got to know more about it. All in all, in the end we were ready for the leadership program which would start the other day.