| The End of the Project – the Beginning of a Non-ending Task by Tiina Jääger, Estonian National Project leader In 1997–1998 and 1999–2000 two groups of teachers of adults studied at Viljandi Cultural College – a total of 37 people. The courses were organised by Viljandi Cultural College, Estonian Non-formal Education Association and Hola Folk High School (Sweden) as a co-project. Thus, the history of adult educators’ education reaches back to the year 1996, when the project mentioned above started. So the need for teacher education was there and the Nordic-Baltic Module-based teacher training project L4S was born in time for us. As the project was very important for us, the Estonian national project group (Reet Valgmaa, Tiina Rugo, Toomas Jüriado, Tiina Jääger) decided to recruit the project participants personally. The Estonian core group participants assembled in December 2000 for the very first time. The members of the group are: Merle Lõhmus, Ivo Eesmaa, Eha Korkus, Erle Nõmm, Maire Salundi, Jelena Rootamm-Valter, Piret Tamme and Ene Lukka – all of them educators with rich experience and a solid theoretical background. The First Meeting, 2000 The issues of the first meeting in Mahtra, 1–3 December, 2000 were the skills a teacher should have and what guarantees the operation of these skills (see Appendix 5). The results were compared with the minimum set of criteria compiled by the international criteria group . These results were analysed many times during the following two years and the skills the teacher should have were argued about several times during the project. Since the adult teacher’s education curriculum was to be ready by the end of the project, the working group decided that the principle issues should be discussed and agreed upon before that final date. This is because our project was not only about the compilation of the curriculum but also about learning. The first step for that was a seminar with professor Ülo Vooglaid, where the main subject was problem what is education? The purpose of that, as already mentioned, was to each an agreement on basic issues so that the subsequent work would be more effective. Curriculum Almost Ready and a New Start In spring 2001 it seemed to us that we had come to terms with what is education and what are the skills a good teacher should have, so that at our seminar in Haapsalu in 1–3 June, 2001 we thought that if only the subjects to be taught and the number of courses were added, the curriculum would be ready. But the summer of 2001 gave us a time for analysis and reconsidering the issues and the meeting in Ontika in 7–8 September, 2001 marked a crucial point along our way. We almost started from scratch. The first step was to record the aspects of adult education (see Appendix 6) , after which we found the models we needed. Supplementary advice was once more provided by professor Ülo Vooglaid during the seminar in Loone, 8–9 February, 2002. We also gained inspiration from Peter Jarvis about practitioner research. Thus, connecting the two different types of knowledge, we started compiling a model of a society and a person. Reconciling the two models (see Appendix 7), we obtained the knowledge that needed to be taught if people were to learn how to manage in society and to improve society and the local community they live in. But what should a teacher be like who was able to cope with all this? The next step was to work out the model of a trainer. So we wrote down the roles of a teacher as a bearer of culture, a public figure, an organiser, a researcher, a facilitator – and defined them. As we were ready with the model of a teacher by spring, by the autumn we were already able to compile the teacher’s field of competence in the form of a matrix (see Appendix 8) that was supplemented by the characteristics required for a teacher: accountability – willingness to take risks; This work was done mainly on the internet and during two seminars in Karula in 16–18 August, 2002 and Viljandi in 6–8 September, 2002. The next step was the compilation of the curriculum. Our last face-to-face seminar was in Käina in 25–27 October, 2002 where we made the last corrections to the curriculum. Now, trying to fit this two-year work onto a couple of pages makes it seem as if everything has been gone very smoothly. In actual fact, compiling the curriculum meant a lot of learning for us and lots of work for two years. All this time our background group, good colleagues and practitioners from different training centres and schools, cooperated a great deal with the core group. They worked together with us, gave advice and criticised when it was needed. Our Plan of Work In addition to the seminars connected with compiling the curriculum, the Estonian project group also arranged six seminars for the background group. Three national seminars were connected with curriculum philosophy; three international seminars dealt with the following topics:
Our educators also participated in seminars in Lithuania and studied in Rovaniemi and in Helsinki (see Appendix 10). The work has not yet been completed – in reality this project is only the beginning of a major assignment as the next step to be taken is the implementation of the curriculum.
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