Democratic Citizenship -the clip that reflects the Anatolian People the best-

In my opinion the best clip which describes my countries all cultural aspect is a song that is prepared by a political part in Turkey. Actually I don't like to speak about politics. Because everybody may have a different political view. And because of that we should not break our hearts. We should be respectful to each others views and ideas. But this song attract my attention, because it shows people from very different cultural backgrounds in Turkey.

Shortly, even if it is a song belongs to a political party, I decided to choose it. For those who dislike that part I can only say that don't think about the part, but think about what the song says. I will also translate it into English below the clip.

and its translation into English:

We  walked through the same way,

We drank from the same water,

Our summer is one, winter is one,

We are the same wind of the same hill.

Our songs one, and ballads are one,

We altogether sing the same one,

Our halays and horons, all folk dances are one,

We are the same chord of the same instrument.

The hearts are one, and prays are one         

We are the same servant of the same God.

Our real garden is our home town,

We are the same rose of the same branch,

Come on one more time, one more time, one more time,

We sing this song all together.

Play the drum, one more time, one more time.

Both we enjoy and sing the same one.

Democratic Citizenship -our intercultural research assignment-

Our instructer Thomas gave us a task about an intercultural research. He said us to work with our school experience team. We were to analyse how young people with different ethnic backgrounds understand themselves in terms of culture and identity and how they describe it.

As Thomas gave us an option to use a camera and make a video. We decided to hold this reaserch making an interview with our school experience guide techer Linda. Linda is a professional class teacher working at the Isling school. She with us teach the 4th grade students. On many tuesdays and fridays we were with her. But, it was a luck for us that there were last two more lessons with her. So, we could make an interview with her. Why we chosed her to speak is because the students in her class can not speak English. That is why we spoke to her about our research.

We prepared some questions related diversity in her classroom such as:

1. Do you have students who belong to different ethnic backgrounds?
2. How those students who are
   • with different ethnic backgrounds understand themselves in terms of culture and identity and how they describe it?
3. Do you see if there is some differences about those students when they act in a Danish way?
4. Do you teach the students about different selebrations related to different cultures?
5. Do you feel about racisim in your class between the students?
6. Do you sing your national anthem in your school together with other students who are with different cultural background?
7. Do you have religion lesseon? If yes, what do you teach in this lesson? Do you only teach Christianity?  We tried to get answers to those question from Linda. She kindly helped us about this and sincerly answered to our questions. Here is our interview wit her.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Briefly to mention about our research result is that there is no so much cultural conflict among the students with different cultural backgrounds in Denmark. They live and study quite in a positive and compatible way. Sometimes some difficulties may happen, but this is sorted out easily said our guide teacher Linda. The thing that impressed me so much was that when I asked her if you sing a national anthem here. She said deffinately no. She said that we don't disturb the others singing something which belongs only our nation and culture. Even if the majority of the school is Danish, we do not apply such a thing she said.

From the respect the other receive from Danish make the others to be in good relationships with Danish. Maybe the most signicifent point lies in that respect.

Democratic Citizenship

Well, as like the other lessons, with the lesson Democratic Citizenship first we focused on culture. We tried to define it. Then, we dealt with identity. We discussed it in the class. According to me, the culture of societies is very important. Every one should learn his/her own culture and try to apply it to his/her life in accordance with the situation of the time. That is to say every one should be acquinted with what he belongs and should act accordingly in a way that is suitable to the needs of time and people. 

Then we discussed about identity. We discussed if identity of a person change or not. In my opinion, the identity of a person may change. However there might be some cores or principles that don't change. Other featurs of a man which can be described as his identity may change on the basis of those cores or principles. 

As for the term Citizenship, it is about our rights, duties, responsibilities and rules that we have to obey. Both we have some responsibilities to our countries as a citizen and our countries have some duties to do for us. 

Both culture, identity and citizenship define who is a man, what he belongs and what is his charecteristics. Gives information about him. They are like a mirror. If you reflect a mirror to something, you can see them in the mirror. Just as the same way, the culture, identity and citizenship of a man reflect his personality. They are all link to each other. In fact, we can't seperate them. 

Then we discussed about DIVERSİTY IN OUR OWN COUNTRIES.

Here is some information that we agreed on our diversity in Turkey:

Diversity in Turkey

In Turkey there is no cultural clash concerning immigrants. Because immigrants moved Turkey many years ago and they are a part of Turkish culture now. Therefore they don’t feel like immigrants any more.

We have a central education system in which everybody gets the same education and the instruction language is Turkish.
-Kurdish people want to get education in their mother tongue, but the government regards this as a problem for social cohesion.

-Religion lessons includes only one sect. However; the followers of other sects do not want to learn the religion in detail because they consider that these lessons teach their children different things than they believe and they want their children to be taught cultural aspects of religion in this lessons.

-Although the education system is central, there are also some private minority schools from primary to high school. For example: Robert College, Kabataş High School (France), American college, Private Pangaltı Armenian High School, etc.These schools give the education in the language that is mother tongue for that minority. The students graduating from these schools can easily attend every Universities in Turkey. Besides, the Turkish students also can have education at these schools.

To the end of the lesson we discussed about a text by Kevin Robins. It was about "Interrrupting identities". So, we have been diveded into two groups as Turkey and Europe. Actually it was a harsh discussion. Because in my group we could not agree on ıf Mustafa Kemal interrupted the culture of Turkey or not. According to the realities, he tried to kill the culture of both Turks and Kurts. But, some in my group did not accept this. I respect to their thoughts but, we should not ignore those what happened. We have to be honest about it.

The Framework in the Facilitator Approach (Educational Studies I)

Me, Elena, Katherina and Elisa tried to make a framework on the Facilitator Approach. But we made this framework on the basis of MAKER (Methods, Awerness, Knowledge, Ends, Relationships). We used powerpoint and finaly we achieved a good work I think.

Here is our MAKER Framework on Facilitator Aproach. 

My Teaching Experience Observation Framework

We have completed our Teaching Experience in Isling School. In our group was me, Kristina and Anthony. I can say that during our experience we both enjoyed and learned lots of things. Especially our guide teacher Linda was a perfect teacher. Her way of teaching impressed me so much. I have learned lots of things from her.

First of all I want to begin from the design of the school. It was very suitable for learning. Lovely place for education. The classroom environment was fantastic. The pupils were sitting in a cirle position in the beginning. In the class was many materials related to the subjects. I could see smart boards in every classrooms. To sum up, it was vert nice place for holding an education facility there. 

Our guide teacher Linda, set the students free during the class. However, she didn't let the students abuse this. She at the same time could used her authority. 

Students were very comfort at the class. They were allowed to do whatever they want during the class as long as they didn't interrup the others. I think in this way they could think and learn better.

Here is my teaching experience observation framework: 

Classroom observation Teaching Experience weeks 38-39 & 44-46
What is the classroom atmosphere/environment/organisation like?	It was designated for 4th grade class students. There was a colorful and fantastic atmosphere for learning and a comfortable environment for acting relax during the lesson times. The organization is only based on student and the best way they learn.
How many students do they have in class? What kind of body language does she use while explaining something? Is there cooperation in class between students? Are all the students integrate in class?	26 students were there in the class. She could use her gesture and mimics perfectly, in a way that compatible to what she was saying. Yes there was an excellent cooperation within the students.  They were sitting in groups and working together during an activity.
According to their school grade what level of English do they have?	They could not understand and speak English. Just a few words and sentences they could generate. The teacher was a translator for students.
What is the relationship between the students and the teacher? Are they active or passive students? What is the role of the teacher? Is he/she a guide or does she/he impose her authority?	The relationship was perfectly good. They were active students and the teacher was as well as being like a guide, she let students use their ideas during the learning facilities.
What kind of activities do they do?	When I was in the class, the lesson was the Art. So, they were given a picture of an elephant, and they were painting it with some pictures drawing within the body of the elephant, which aimed to show how the elephant felt. For example, in one student's elephant, there was a red heart which was showing that the elephant was in love with something. Another one's picture was a flag pointing that the elephant was nationalist, etc…
How does she make her students realize about their mistakes? How does she value her students efforts?	She was correcting their mistakes immediately, but in a very polite way. She said well done to those who were good at the activity.
What is the attitude of the students when learning? Are they curious or reluctant to learn? Does she integrate the special needs students in the ordinary class? Or on the contrary, are they in a special class? How does she control the class? What does she do to obtain her students attention? Do they talk Danish or English each other? Have the students any methods to study?	They were very curios for learning the things that teacher and we presented for them. There was a student who was disable to hear and said to be that was a student who was sometimes abnormal but he was absent during my first observation. The first one had a receiver around his ears and a stick which the teacher was keeping on herself. With that stick teacher could make her sound to be received by that student. Also, with that boy, there was an assistant teacher who was to help to those disabled student during the learning task. That is to say, special needy students could integrate with other students in the class I observed. As the students were so mobile and active, they were generally speaking cheerfully and sometimes walking around. So, teacher sometimes raised her voice but in a very gentle and way within a friendly atmosphere. They were talking in Danish. After having some activities, teacher said them to read some books for ten minutes. She said, meanwhile, they could relax little bit.

Here is my intercultural experience in Denmark :)

                                              MY INTERCULTURAL EXPERIENCE IN DENMARK


Feelings

Well, actually it is something difficult for me to express all of my feelings, but I can say that now I think that it is good for me to be here. In Turkey also we have people from different cultural backgrounds, but here is completely different. Because, I am in an international class and we are from 7 diffrent nations. And we are in a university institution in Vordingborg. It really sounds good and especially to see different cultural backgrounds is very beneficial to have an idea about different people. 

So, my feeling is are developing in a good way now after having some difficulties in getting our visas. Ones I changed my mind to come here, but now I say that it is a good luck to be here.

Knowledge
As I have been here for nearly a month, my knowledge is not so much. However, from the way I see the Danish people here and from the school experiense I do at Isling School, I have some ideas about it. I see that Dans are very respectful to each other. They greet each other perfectly. Even though they don't know me, they still say hi to me. So it is something good. But sometimes I witness with cold blood people, too. For instance, it is very difficult to make a conversation with them. They try to be avoided from foreigners. So, it is something strange to me. Because in Turkey we love to speak and meet with foreigners. 
Another point is about education system. I see that children are very comfort and relax during educational facilities. And teachers are not very strict. It is something very good for attracting and encouraging the child to learning effectively. 

Actions

Riding bike is very common in Denmark. Whereever I look I see many people riding bikes which is not really common in my home country. It is very interesting that there are special ways, traffic lights and signs. Furthermore I learnt that goverment encourages every one to use bike. So, this being the case, it is something natural to see such an atmosphere.

The Facilitator Approach, Katharina, Elisa, Elena, İsa

                                           The Facilitator Approach, Katharina, Elisa, Elena, İsa