We have travelled some distance already in this first week.

Always starting from the point of view of the individual teacher working in a challenging situation, we then build on those experiences to explore ways in which teachers are dealing with some of the problems they face. Then we step back to look at the wider context in which teachers are working, and the effects that conflict and displacement can have on their schools, the children, and themselves.

We have drawn on experiences and perspectives from widely different cultures and locations in Thailand, Myanmar and Lebanon. At the heart of all these contexts we have seen the teachers themselves, working out what they can do, always concerned with getting the best for their students.

It makes sense to build our understanding of how to transform education by learning from the work of teachers the world over. Teachers know what it takes to teach, they share so many of the same problems, and they are building their own knowledge of how to help their students learn. Here we come together to share that knowledge. And to build the teaching community’s knowledge of what an education should be and how it should work.

By looking at educators imagining change and seeing what they do, we can exchange all these good ideas across the global audience for this course. And then we take another step back, to see what we are all trying to do in teaching and learning, and what we have in common. The Conversational Framework is a useful way to unite all teachers, across all sectors and subject areas, in thinking about this.

Through these conversations with teachers all over the world, we really can now be a global teaching community. So we can use these generalities about what it takes to teach, what it takes to learn, and how digital methods can help, and apply them to our own educational context, wherever in the world that is. We hope that the exercises this week have enabled you to do that.

Over to you

Please post any general questions you have for the educators in the forum, and ‘like’ any other posts that you would like to see answered. Then we can prioritise how we address them. What are your reflections on the learning you have been through on the course? Have you changed any of your ideas about teaching, or approaches to learning? Please post your thoughts, and also take the time to read through and react to what others have said. We listen to what you say in these conversations when we revise and develop the course for this and future runs!