Some months ago, thanks to the information given to me by my colleague from the Faculty of Psychology and Education of the Univesity of Deusto, Cristina Pena, who knows my passion about entrepreneurial teaching and teacherpreneurs very well, I applied to participate at the 5th Pedagogical Expedition organized by the Princesa de Girona Foundation with the support of the Trilema Foundation. Would you like to know what happened?
Just before Christmas 2019, I got a message where I was told that I was selected to participate at the 5th Pedagogical Expedition. From the very first moment I thought about the gift this was, and since then until now, after having lived the week of the 10th to the 14th of February in Valencia, I don’t regret anything and I stand by what I said.
The thing is that we were more than 200 candidates from all over Spain and just 30 of 9 autonomous communities were selected.
The goal of these expeditions is to give visibility to the best educational transformation practices to inspire teachers and make them innovation leaders in classrooms.
During the week we visited some of the more innovative schools of the Valencian Community, among them: the IES Veles I Vents (Gandía), the Mas Camarena school (Paterna), the La comarcal school (Picassent), the Trilema Poble Llarga (Poble Llarga) center and the IES Jaume I (Burriana).
Working through the ABPr (projects based learning), the dialogic social gatherings, the learning communities, the exploration and inquiry units, the investigation, the APyS (solidary learning and service), the learning-by-doing and many other innovative, active and agile methodologies are something daily at these schools.
Besides, we had the great opportunity of:
- listening to and sharing ideas with Adela Cortina, Ethics and Political Philosophy Professor at the University of Valencia and Honorary Doctor by our university;
- knowing part of the educational program at The City of Arts and Sciences of Valencia;
- talking with the Valencian scientist Damià Tormo, awarded the FPdGI Empresa Award 2017 who decided to become an entrepreneur to try to avoid big discoveries not being a reality because there wasn’t enough investment. His CV, but specially his attitude, left us speechless.
If that wasn’t enough, the 30 teachers had the opportunity to attend the act of proclamation of the Princesa de Girona Foundation Award in the Scientific Research category and to participate (in my case as coach) in a creative challenge of 3 hours where the more than 300 young people participating applied the Lombard method, a methodology of success based on teamwork, communication and generation of ideas created by the entrepreneur Xavier Verdaguer.
I encourage you to apply for the 5th Pedagogical Expedition, but of course, only if you want to become transforming and innovative agents of society and schools.
Enjoy the last day of February and the beginning of March. Translated by María Ubierna Quintanilla and supervised by Arantza Arruti.