Abstract:

What is Europe, what is a European teacher – what is education in, for and beyond European classrooms? A truly and humanly united Europe needs not only the mobility of goods and services, but also of dynamical minds and ideas; it needs physical as well as mental and emotional border-crossings, especially in and through the field of education. Our continent is not only rich in languages, cultures and cuisines, but also in pedagogical and educational approaches. Our school systems, the ways in which they are organized and lived, show a variety of differences, which (student) teachers could and should learn from – not only for their own teaching, but for their professional and personal growth in general. Through the contact with “different normalities”, they can engage in constant changes of perspectives, experience the relativity of any reality, and are thus encouraged to reflect upon the foreign as well as their own educational worlds.
United by this vision, people from various corners of our continent have recently launched initiatives to establish joint programmes in teacher education. They aim to make the omnipresent, yet often only vaguely defined concepts of “cultural sensitivity” and “intercultural education” something practicable, to turn them from theoretical constructs into real-life experiences and learning situations – of student teachers and, indirectly, also for the pupils those will educate. JoMiTE is one of these initiatives. Coordinated by the University of Groningen, nine European partner universities have engaged in an integrative and interdisciplinary approach to design a common teacher education program for secondary education (starting in 2010). All of them share the conviction that student teachers should do part of their university courses and of their school practice abroad, not only in order to widen their knowledge of different pedagogical and educational methods, but also to enrich their attitudes, skills and – professional as well as social – competences.
Stressing the interdependence of theory and practice for any learning experience, at home and abroad, “JoMiTE” can be seen as the uniting roof of two individual, yet linked, columns: the JoCiTE project (university curriculum development) on the one, the SPriTE project (school practice) on the other side. The objective of JoCiTE (Joint Curriculum in Teacher Education) is to develop a competence-oriented framework of a – not identical, but mutually compatible – teacher education program (60 ECTS). Not a list of random courses, but a holistic and practice-based approach asks first for the roles which young teachers should flexibly fulfil in the European classrooms of today (and tomorrow), then for the essential competences related to them, and, finally, for course structures, contents and methods to achieve them. SPriTE (Shared Practice in Teacher Education) emphasizes the importance of practical experiences. By observing and teaching in the classrooms of three different countries and their educational cultures, student teachers are to experience a rich and versatile learning environment, in which they cannot only deepen their methodological skills, but also learn to react flexibly to new circumstances, demands and challenges. Thus, JoMiTE stresses the acquisition of “sustainable skills” – which are not the final end of teacher education, but rather a starting point, for ongoing "border crossings" and life-long learning in and outside the classroom.

Keywords:

european projects, bologna in teacher education, study & teach-erasmus.