Visiting schools in Turkey

2 weeks ago, it was that we went to Italy to visit the school in Rimini, now it was the time for Turkey. 3h30min on a plain… that took of very hard… we arrived in the dark Turkey together with the Italian and Romanian friends. So it would be a surprise the day after to see how the surrounding looked by daylight.

Comenius, it is the second time that I am in a Comenius project... and this trip is the one that made the biggest impression on me.
Before going to Turkey, I had no idea about how the education system in Turkey was structured.

We went to Turkey together with the other partner schools in our project. We have schools from 5 different countries in our project. Ireland, Romania, Italy, Turkey and we.

We had a trip full of new cultural experiences. Starting with the breakfast... warm tomatoes, olives... being in a country were you don’t understand the people, the search for normal toilets, … all male teacher in suites. It had something :-)

The first day we went to the school that is our partner in the project. The bus was the transport that we had that week. We went to Koprubasi. We took a little bus, and went in to the mountains... we saw the real Turkey and not the touristic Turkey... When we arrived in the school, the children were so happy to see us. They took their phones and started taking pictures of us... you can probably find them somewhere on facebook by now :-)
We went on a tour in the school and we saw the classes. We were so surprised that they had smart boards in all the classrooms. In this school, there was one special needs class. There were 9 students in the class.

We also visited a special needs school. The students welcomed us, with a traditional dance with the traditional clothing. It was amassed. They were so proud and they enjoyed dancing for us. In that school they also had the vocational training, like we are having in our school. Here they make shoe covers in plastic. They had a classroom that was an apartment. There was everything in that room so that the children can learn to be independent.
In the afternoon, we went to a rehabilitation center. In this building the students can come after school time to have some more therapy. In Turkey, children with an handicap, don’t have to go to school. When they don’t go to school, they can come to the rehabilitation center to have some therapy. After some cookies and thee we went back to the hotel, were we had a meeting. In a congress room that was much too big for the few people we were J

The first 2 days were amazing, interesting and tiring... We saw so many wonderful things, I was impressed about what I saw. So in the evening of the second day we took some time to relax and have a swim in the thermal bath and to have a massage.

The last day, we went to Manisa. A village, 2 hours driving from the hotel. So we took our little bus and we drove up to Manisa. In Manisa we visited the autism center ‘OCEM’. It was a school for students with autism for all ages. The students can start at the age of 3 in the kindergarten. The first kindergarten for children with autism in Turkey. From 3 years till 7 years old, the children are in kindergarten. Afterwards they are in classes till 15 and then they can stay to work in different workshops. There was a wood workshop, an iron workshop and a ceramic workshop. There was also job training for the oldest.

This school looked as a village. There was a swimming pool, there were horses for therapy, greenhouse, football field, workplaces… and that all on a big green area, with a lot of olives trees. And those olives were used to make olive oil and to use it in the kitchen afterwards.

In the evening we ended our visit with a nice dinner in the hotel, together with some staff of the school and some people who used to work in the school and that we met in the previous meetings.

Again, it was an unforgettable experience. One that I will never forget. I feel good after being there. The only problem now, it is cold here in Belgium…

And when I got home, I made my report papers for my students, took a shower and went to school, were we had a party. It was a long day… but we made it till the end.