Summer Universities and safe-enviroment.

For the last days, we've been having some lessons with the co-teacher of our course, Ms. Aurela Zisi from Tirana University in Albania.

In a way, her lessons have made me reflect my role as a teacher and, even more important, to understand why I love so much spending my summer vacations attending Summer Universities around the world:

I've discovered that it is not really the content of the courses being taught during the summer universities what has been influential and important for me but the development itself of the gathering with people belonging to so many different cultures. An activity that has been repeated year after week during the different summer universities I've attended. Several summers holding dialogues with my classmates. Several years learning how to listen (and not only how to talk); creating a safe atmosphere in the classroom to hold discussions and to express ourselves.
---------(Kosova, Bosnia and Spain working together)---------

During summer universities we are taught how, through dialogue and negotiation, we could discover how many times we might be wrong; how to accept it and to understand that we could change our opinions without having to lose face or credibility for doing so.


My teachers during the different editions of Prishtina Summer University I attended in 2002, 2004 and 2010, managed to create a feeling in us, the students, of belonging and being part of a bigger group, the classroom, and to respect and support the other members of that group. And that feeling was gradually transferred from the weekly sessions to the rest of the activities (mensa, excursions, parties, Konvikti...)when that atmosphere of self-respect and open dialogue originated in the gatherings was permanently there.

Consequently I really believe that we, as teachers, we all have an important role in shaping and defining who our students are as people, and what they might become when they are adults.

Teachers can make a difference!
Let's go for it!

(^o^)