Hello everyone,

On sunday evening we left for Ypres. We had to take the train from Kortrijk to Ypres and we had bad luck because we had a delay of 30 min. When we eventually arrived in Ypres we had to hurry to the Menin Gate to see the Last Post. The Last Post is a ceremony that remembers the victims of World War I. As always I find that ceremony rather overwhelming.

On Monday morning we went with a coach to visit sites where war is remembered, also by school groups. We went to Vladslo, which is a graveyard for German soldiers, then we went to the IJzer Tower, where the Flemish Movement has its memorial ground.
After the lunch we went to Tyne Cot cemetery, which can be found in Passendaele, which is a commonwealth, almost triumphant graveyard. After Tyne Cot we went to Poperinge to visit the Talbot House. This was a house were the soldiers could rest. Everybody was welcome there, common soldiers as well officers, generals,... They could sing, dance, pray, talk together. Our guide was a very good storyteller and it was very interesting. If I could sum it up, it’s more an anti-war museum. In the evening back at our place where we stayed there was a performance about World War I. It was very good.

Hello everyone,

Today we went to Leuven to visit the Mobile School Headquarters. The Mobile School is a project to educate street children in Third World Countries. They do not try to teach the children like teachers do it in the class. The children simply won't sit down and listen to a teacher, let alone spent a whole day inside a building. Instead, the Mobile School people had the idea to teach in the streets, and to let children join them at any time and stay for as long as they want. Children only learn when they do so out of their free will.

The subjects they ‘sell’ with their mobile blackboards are mainly health, reading, writing, aids... A major goal, although not a teaching subject in itself, is the self esteem of the children. They now than can change things if they want.

Hello everyone,

We went to Bruges! We saw the new campus of the KHBO where we met two nice men who explained us everything about using board and card games into your classes. We spent the entire afternoon playing games. There were games that you can use in your mathematics classes, geography classes, history classes, kindergarden, primary or secondary school and so on. They have an archive of more than 10 000 games. So they have one of the largest collections in Europe, but it is the only collection that is opened to the public. People can come and borrow the games to use them in their classroom.

Hello everyone,

Today we went to Brussels. We visited the editorial board of the magazine Klasse. This is a magazine from the Flemish ministry of Education and it is distributed in different form to teachers, parents and pupils. Not one other magazine has so many copies spread over Flanders – and it’s about education!

In the afternoon we had some classes. In these classes we explain to each other the different education systems in the different countries and then we had a little comparative discussion about it. Today it was the presentation about the educational system in Greece, the Czech Republic and Portugal. After the classes I took some people for a little tour through Brussels. We visited the Grand Square, Manneke Pis (the pipi-statue!), the Cathedral and the Royal Palace.

Hello everyone,

One of our assignments was to make an presentation about a youth subculture. We had to present them for the rest of the group. We saw the following subcultures: Punk, Skaters, Gothic, Rastafari, Hippie and Hiphop,... It was fun to do, fun to watch and interesting to understand.

 

Hello everyone,

After a short week of holiday, we’re back. Today we went to Ghent, where we did a city quest. At noon, we ate our sandwishes at the Friday Market, in the warm spring sun. We saw cathedrals, medieval schools, visited the city hall, but best of all was the Count’s Castel in the center of the city. They gave us a really detailed tour of all the torture instruments. Very lively, indeed.