Comenius 2.1 - a European Module

St Mary’s University College	Mr L D’Agostino and Mr P Finn
Noordelijke Hogeschool Leeuwarden	Mr Rien Van Nek and Remco Enkers
University of Sevilla	Mrs Marie Byrne
Marjampole College	Ms Vida Vilkienne
Hogeschool Van Arnhem en Nijnegen	Mr Jeroen Gronheid

The content of the course would reflect the many and varied connections and influences among the different European literatures and legends with which we concerned ourselves: Irish, Dutch, Spanish, Italian and Lithuanian. The more we read and the more we discussed, the more struck we became by the lines of inter-culturality and connection which we were able to track. In an important and not merely metaphoric way, our proceedings and procedures became a paradigm of the learning process which we wanted to encourage and foster in the teachers who would enroll in our course: reading, reflection, analysis and the sharing and communication of knowledge through conversation.

We soon became conscious that we were in effect enacting a learning process. In this sense, pedagogy was integral to the project, and we were equally conscious that we wanted our pedagogy to make a clear statement about what we felt to be the nature of education and learning. To a surprising and revealing degree of unanimity, we were all very aware of how a skills-based approach had become the dominant mode of learning among teachers in schools and in teacher education. ‘Skills’ and ‘skills-based’ are terms to which all educators can readily give their assent. The arguments have been at the points of definition because the terms are open to a variety of educational interpretations. All of us wanted to resist too narrow a mechanical interpretation, one which would exalt means above ends, or process above knowledge. We wanted instead to make a space through our course in which teachers would deepen their knowledge of European writing, reflect on the common heritage of Europe and integrate that knowledge and heritage into the very heart of their pedagogical discourse. We wanted, through our own example and the exemplary nature of the course, to present to teachers an image of what teachers once were and might again become: broadly educated, internationalist, interested in language and committed to enhancing the intellectual and moral lives of the children in their charge. In the 1993 Reith lectures, entitled Representations of the Intellectual, Edward Said described such a possibility eloquently:

… the desire to be moved not by profits or reward but by love for and unquenchable interest in the larger picture, in making connections across lines and barriers, in refusing to be tied down to a speciality, in caring for ideas and values despite the restrictions of a profession.

We came to believe that all teachers could benefit from our approach and as a result, we explicitly made the course available to teachers in both primary and post-primary schools. A certain flexibility would be our watchword. The core of the course would be the transmission of knowledge and the elaboration of the European cultural heritage. Their application was to be left open to the judgment and analysis of the teachers and to the requirements of their various national curricula. In this way, the professional and intellectual autonomy of the teachers would be respected, national schools’ curricula would be fully acknowledged and the course pedagogy would be founded in a genuine and informative dialogue between teachers and tutors.

The promotion of cross-currents in European writing was obviously central to the project. At the end of our deliberations, several issues became clear to us which had been less clear at the outset. The more we examined the writing of our own national literatures, the more we saw how, far from existing in a national vacuum, it was in fact, influenced crucially and conditioned by the traditions and cultures of other European nations. It was scarcely possible to fully understand one national literature without placing it in an international context. To put it another way, we all became convinced of the reality of the phrase “the mind of Europe.” We wanted therefore comparison to be the root of analysis which teachers would use in the classrooms. To sharpen awareness of European inter-culturality, however, we worked on focussing our discussions on a number of themes which we considered to be important in the Europe of today. These themes might underline not just a pleasing cultural unity but also a unity in adversity, a reminder that social crises in one part of Europe might be shared and learnt from in another part of the continent. Details of these themes are given in the relevant files. They touch on important aspects of the modern European experience, including history, conflict and immigration. We believe that it is the duty of educators at all levels to raise awareness of them in the schools throughout Europe. Not to do so on the grounds that such issues fall outside the strict professional duties of any teacher is to risk reducing teaching to the most sterile kind of ‘professionalism.’