Teaching Practice

Now that 21st Century Skills and Democratic Citizenship Education course has ended up and winter vacation is over, we have started something new: teaching practice in Danish schools. With three of my friends,as a group, we have started to observe Danish schools and lessons. We will be doing our teaching practice for a week. Since, I have already been to different Danish schools in Copenhagen and Nykobing- and also a boarding school in Næstved- I am familiar with how Danish schools look like and how Danish education system works. However, I can still find something new while I am doing my teaching practice during this period. Also, the aim of this teaching practice arrangement is that we go to Danish schools and try to figure out    How are Danish schools dealing with issues related to bringing democratic, culture and citizenship theory into practice? And even though I have also been teaching in two classes in Denmark - First Teaching Practice with Danish Students -  it is still something quite new for me.

In our teaching practice, while trying to find the answers for this question we are supposed to produce a movie of our observations, interviews etc.- which is probably going to be the most enjoyable part of this project. We have started to the practice period yesterday. However, we could not start making a movie as we haven't had the permission from the parents to film in the classroom and at school. This seemed us a handicap at first but after thinking about it, this is in fact  a very good starting point for the movie we are supposed to produce because it is a clear indication of what Peter Lang calls "doing democracy". 

Thanks to this project, we will be able to form ideas of how we can bring democracy and citizenship theory into practice in our classrooms when we become teachers within the circumstances of our own education system. 

Furthermore, thanks to this observation of democracy and citizenship issues in Danish schools,  instead of talking a lot about democracy and doing nothing or "doing a lot of democracy" - so to speak- and knowing almost nothing about it, we may have a better view point of how to combine these two points  especially if we think about the disciplinary structure of Turkish schools and the  "teacher-centered lecturing" history of Turkish education system. To illustrate, as we know, Turkish education system has recently gone through a renovation period and the view of learning has totally changed to student (child) centered learning, it might be good for us as the teachers of next generations in Turkey to observe how Danish schools has achieved this and how we can break this traditional view of receptive role of students so that we could focus on the needs, interests and abilities of our students -which is obviously more democratic compared to teacher centered lecturing. 


Besides these democracy and citizenship issues, while observing,  we can learn a lot about  how to manage our teaching as a means of classroom management and how to deal with language teaching methodology. As I, personally, believe that teachers should always use a variety of methods while teaching, it seems beneficial to observe different teachers with different teaching styles. This teaching practice period is also a kind of starting point for my first teaching practice period in Turkey next year. When I start my teaching practce in Turkey next year, I can benefit from all of my experiences I have had in Danish schools this year. Now, I am looking  forward to having more and more experiences of Danish schools and lessons to gain the practical as well as theoretical knowledge and experience I need to become a teacher.