How did I become an Erasmus+ teacher?
My Erasmus+ adventure started in 2012, and from this moment, it seems already far back, but believe it or not, time has passed in the blink of an eye, like any reasonable period in our lives.
I call my Erasmus+ period good because it is.
I don’t know any Erasmus+ beneficiaries who say the opposite.
It was a two-year KA2 project, and several countries participated: Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Spain, Turkey, and the UK. Then, my first mobilities were in Bulgaria and Spain, and they were part of the Comenius program/project.
Like every beginning, those were some of my dearest activities and mobilities.
What I remember from that period, besides lovely memories, is that it was the actual start of my personal and professional development and growth.
Why is the Erasmus+ program important in an educator’s portfolio?
A considerable difference exists in the working bios of an Erasmus+ or a non-Erasmus+ teacher.
Again, I will speak from my point of view, remembering myself as a teacher before 2012, when my Erasmus+ story began, and after. What happened?
Well, there are some significant improvements that I need to emphasize.
Public speech
Since my school was a project coordinator, as an English teacher, and English language teachers are supposed to lead the initiatives and give language support to a school project team, I was the one who was active and appointed to help the school coordinator with the organization and performing the project activities.
I can vividly remember my first public and simultaneous interpretation of the mayor’s representative’s speech in front of colleagues I hadn’t met before, from six different countries, at the first introductory project partners’ meeting in my school in Split.
It is a tremendous one that ignites my professional career upwards!
I survived it, 😌, but after that experience, my self-confidence, readiness to step up, professional responsibility, and professional attitude improved.
I learned how much I needed to expose myself to those challenging moments to improve my public performance. Inside myself, I almost graduated again, but this time, more maturely.
Formal representation
Erasmus+ project activities and numerous meetings with project partners require a more severe engagement in preparing yourself to be a school representative. It is not easy because it is a responsible role that leaves substantial impacts and impressions on the project’s partners.
By representing yourself and your school, you not only represent some common educational standards in your country or your professional bio but also those of higher educational levels, improvements, and extra efforts that are only sometimes recognizable or expected from fellow foreign educators.
Those moments make me most aware of collective achievements, from the school to the national educational level, and I am proud of them.
Back then, I learned that meetings with project partners needed to be neatly and thoroughly prepared to leave a professional impression and, therefore, a sense of trust. It is no less important to show respect to the partners and mutual project enterprise.
All phases, from the preparation to the action: leading meetings, giving speeches, translating, organizing teamwork, running workshops, field classes, and trips, doing job-shadowing activities, and so much more coming along the Erasmus+ projects path, lead us to an inevitable personal and professional development.
Collaboration
The first international project I took part in was a large one. Seven countries participated, so big partner teams included teachers and students.
We collaborated on a suitable working mechanism; all wheels, more minor and more significant, rotate in a coordinated manner to make a system work.
Expectedly, like in every more considerable apparatus, there were more minor and more significant issues, but they ended successfully.
To make Erasmus+ projects nicely done, collaborative work cannot be taken as an abstract noun. It must be tangible through mutual support, frequent and meaningful communication, and work results.
If collaboration works and it is visible, then partners are more effective, loyal, and dedicated to the outcomes.
Teamwork is a complex process that depends on respecting the joint project’s rules and schedule. It can always be expected to have delays, stumble while trying to overcome obstacles, step in more than planned, improvise, deal with some technical or organizational problems, and so much more.
The point is to maintain that collective spirit, the project fellowship during that period of smaller or more significant challenges.
I learned so much from one piece of collaborative work, this huge puzzle, the Erasmus+ project.
What I need to point out, as a crucial lesson, is that I needed to show the most and the best by my working attitude.
No matter if I am in charge of leading a team or I am not selected to have that responsibility and I am “just” a team member and activities doer, my own expectation of my working performance is justifiably high. Here, I learned the power of self-reflection, which has become my essential working ingredient over time.
The bottom line is that the Erasmus+ project and its results, outcomes, dissemination, impacts, and evaluation matter. Collaboration makes them all happen!
Long-term partnerships and contacts
As an extension to the previous, Erasmus+ projects result in valuable work establishments, which are usually a good foundation for future projects.
Naturally, after some period of intensive collaboration, teachers have a closer relationship, which in a great deal turns into a kind, reliable, and firm Erasmus+ fellowship that lives through future collaboration. Mutual trust and serious responsibility are precious Erasmus+ values that each project agreement is based on. They cannot be built at once.
It is a gradual process, where involved sides learn together how to carry out the project with minimum troubles.
During that process, Erasmus+ project teachers grow in their professional responsibility, and their development enormously impacts their workplaces.
Personally, I can prove that my dear Erasmus+ colleagues from all over Europe, who have collaborated with me, are professional, solid contacts that I can rely on.
I confirm the same in their favor, as well.
Cultural Enrichment
Erasmus+ programs bring a multicultural dimension to every project, regardless of KA1 or KA2 range.
Here, speaking from the Lina Edu Erasmus+ Courses provider’s point of view and mine, as a Lina Edu lead educator and its courses designer and a long-term Erasmus+ experienced teacher, cultural heritage should be the basis for all Erasmus+ teachers’ training.
Lina Edu’s courses fully reflect the values the Erasmus+ programs support, following European policies. So, in each Lina Edu teacher training course, whichever topic deals with cultural heritage is like an artist’s canvas on which the course content lives.
By learning what European historical, cultural, and civilization values are, educated teachers broaden their perspectives of the great value European heritage has. They eagerly disseminate European values and policies by transferring their knowledge and experience to their colleagues who are about to join the Erasmus+ community.
As an additional plus, they educate their students and enable them to experience the importance of respecting and taking care of the European heritage.
An inevitable educational result is internalization of schools which set their curricula and development plans on respecting different nations, traditions, habits, languages, and all civilized social elements that our students need to cherish.
Higher-quality teaching methodology
What I’ve noticed during all my Erasmus+ years is that by participating in various Erasmus+ activities, I have been changing my teaching perspectives, and I still do, to best fit in the Erasmus+ program values standard.
To give the best I can do as a teacher in creating and performing Erasmus+ activities, I need to adopt and implement new teaching trends in my classes.
I can recall my teaching methods before I started with Erasmus+ projects. They were professionally done by the book, but they lacked a touch of creativity, gamification, and boldness to create my own teaching material.
To show best practice on a European level, you need to prepare yourself, upgrade your teacher self, and share your knowledge in order to make an educational difference, leave an Erasmus+ impact, and, therefore, be a better teacher.
The best “motivator” to turn your teacher-self upside down is to engage yourself in Erasmus+ projects.
Teaching motivation
Everything mentioned in this review leads to this point, which we can quickly call a conclusion because, without motivation, teachers lose their inner teaching delight.
Loss of motivation is an issue that teachers normally deal with on an everyday basis for many reasons. What can be worse is that flat feeling, that feeling that turns a teacher into a person without any teaching spark. That affects everyone and everything since the teaching process connects and involves other participants.
Erasmus+ activity can only be done with motivated teachers. It is a reciprocal process. To play the Erasmus+ game, you need to show your excitement; otherwise, it can finish badly and be pointless because it requires total commitment and a will to make something good. On the other hand, when you step into the Erasmus+ adventure, many advantages await you, and lifelong learning lessons can start!
Erasmus+ in working bio
After these lines, we can conclude that Erasmus+ has become a teaching training standard that is not exotic and unreachable.
You meet new fellow teachers who participate in creating something new on an international level that brings so many benefits to you, your students, and your school. Your working bio contains various experiences, including enriched cultural education, language improvement, and teamwork skills. Most of all, you’re more open to new, exciting Erasmus+ stories that can only lead you to the world of the best!