Teachers’ seminars
”Being open and honest is difficult for grown-ups too. It is useful to think about things in groups sometimes – I got some good, enlightening ideas that I can use in my work.”
The teachers’ seminars offer teachers a place to develop the skills needed when encountering cultural and ethnic diversity. One of the main goals of these trainings is to bring the minds and way of thinking of students and teachers closer to each other. Through developing the teachers’ competence, the seminars also have a broader role in preventing discrimination and marginalisation of youth, empowering youth by giving them a chance to have equal conversations with adults, and recognising students that are in need of various kinds of support.
As societies are becoming more diverse, so are the schools. This means that the demands for teachers are getting more extensive: teachers are expected to be able to recognise and understand their environment and different situations better than before.
Recognising and understanding situations related to diversity require pausing and possibly new ways of thinking and accepting different viewpoints. Through dialogue, safe curiosity, and the sharing of experiences, it is possible to start noticing these situations better and to promote healthy interaction and activity between teachers and students.
The participants in the teachers’ seminars will discuss topics such as prejudice, discrimination, and racism, and examine their own identity with respect to cultural diversity. The themes will be discussed from many different perspectives.
The training utilises long-term observations from the school world, research findings, teaching material, and the trainers’ personal experiences around the topics.
Duration: 4 hours. Group size: max. 40 participants.