Mentoring in springtime Budapest

Blog post by Katri Seppälä, study coordinator at Helsingin aikuisopiston peruskoulu

In March 2024, europass Teacher Academy organised a six-day course called Coaching and Mentoring to Support Teachers in Budapest, Hungary. Besides me, there were participants from Sweden, Norway, Latvia, Poland, Spain and Portugal. Most of them were teachers, but three of us worked in administration. The topic of the course was mentoring in education, and it was approached from different perspectives in an interactive way with lots of discussion. And we got to enjoy all this in spring-time Budapest, with flowers in bloom.

Mentoring skills

The course was based on discussion. Its aim was more to make participants think about and reflect on their own work and workplace than to give long lectures. We started with self-awareness and moved on through active listening skills to practising observation skills. One important reminder was the etiquette of observing teaching as part of mentoring. It is good to agree first on the purpose, goals and method of observing a lesson. It is also important to consider the whole mentoring process and to discuss the observations constructively together instead of leaving things unsaid. As none of the participants was very new to the field and everyone already had many years of experience in schools, the course focused on the mentor’s point of view. Being both a mentor and a mentee requires self-awareness and the ability to reflect, so that mentoring is useful for both sides. Even though many things were already familiar, the course gave them new perspectives. It was refreshing to look at familiar topics as part of a well-structured course.

Building connections

Besides the course topic, getting to know the other participants and their schools was an important part of the course and the Erasmus mobility. There was time in the programme for each participant to briefly present their school and home town. Of course, I also presented Helsingin aikuisopisto and basic education for adults. The topic led to lots of discussion and questions. All the other participants were teachers of children or young people, and adult education was quite unfamiliar to many of them. However, one participant summed it up well: ‘In the end, teaching is teaching’, as we found more in common than differences in each other’s experiences. Even though we also discussed differences between countries and schools, the most useful discussions were about the things we had in common. Of course, there were many different solutions to different challenges, and it was interesting to compare them too.

There were two guided trips as part of the course. The first was on the first day, right after the course started. We walked around the area of Buda Castle, almost eight kilometres in total. Walking together gave us time and a relaxed setting to chat and get to know each other. After this, it was easier to talk about our professional development and share our experiences on the following course days. The second trip was in the middle of the week to Szentendre, a village near Budapest that is on the UNESCO World Heritage list. It felt natural to continue the conversations from the course day on the train to Szentendre. Even though all the other participants were teachers of children or young people, it was in these informal conversations that we found out that some of their schools also had adult education. So in addition to Hungarian chocolate and marzipan, I brought home some possible new partners. The trips really deserved their place in the programme!

Inspired for the future

The course group brought together different parts of Europe, from the far south to the north. There were ten different first languages in the group, and even though the participants’ language skills varied a little, everyone was understood in the end. Encouraging each other and enthusiasm quickly spread through the whole group. The course reached its goal of making us think, because the encouraging atmosphere made it easy to talk, and the enthusiasm gave us new ideas for developing our own work. All in all, the course was a great example of European cooperation and mobility.

You can see the courses offered by the Teacher Academy here: Teacher Training Courses > europass Teacher Academy

More trips to different parts of Europe are planned for the mobility project of Helsingin aikuisopiston peruskoulu in spring and summer 2024. You can follow updates from the trips on the project’s Instagram account: Peruskoulu Eurooppaan! (@helaopeko) on Instagram