Everlasting memories of our stay in Prague

 Our Erasmus+ LTTA in Prague from 27th November to 2nd December will be impossible to forget! Although the activities started on Monday 28th, we had the chance to arrive a day before to walk around Prague’s historic centre.

On Monday, Luka and Gabi greeted us in a conference room of a beautiful hotel placed in the outskirts of the city, where we would be working during the following days. It all started with an ice breaking activity so that the participants could get to know each other. In this game, everybody had to write their name in the centre of a sheet of paper and four pieces of information in each corner: favourite colour, food, film and hobbie. However, only the name had to be true, we could invent the rest of the information. Thus, the rest of the participants were given a sort of flag in which “ANO” (yes) and “NE” (no) were written (one word on each side) in order to express whether the participant was telling the truth or lying.

And that’s how the second activity started! Czech isn’t an easy language for Romance language speakers, and we were really grateful for being able to learn basic words to get along during our stay.

Tuesday 29th was devoted to working on emotional intelligences. Our hosts presented their work to the participants. It consisted of working with students with disabilities or in risk of exclusion focusing on the use of emotions and social competence at school environment.

After this interesting presentation, we were asked to form 4 groups in order to work together and analyse the four main emotions that humans have: joy, fear, anger and sadness. We had to describe the symptoms, how to deal with each of them and how to self regulate. On a big sheet of paper, we could use photos from old magazines, draw, paint, etc. We loved this activity because of the self awareness this activity brought and the trust we built with the rest of the participants.

We started our third day talking about how we were feeling. Have you ever played Dixit? We had to choose one of its lovely cards which represented our mood in that moment. We all felt moved when some participants got emotional expressing the joy they felt for having the chance to live this experience!

Next, Gabi gave us a talk about how to use human books for building critical thinking and breaking prejudices. Thus, people with physical disabilities or in risk of exclusion shared their story, explaining the difficulties they had to face in their life. It was a pity that we couldn’t witness one since the girl who was going to come was hospitalised.

Alternatively, we were shown a human book which had been previously recorded: A story of  the linguist Daniel Everett, an American missionary who travelled to the Amazon with his familiy to christianise the tribe of the Piraha. After some time, he found himself giving up on his aim so as to live like one of them, getting to know the local language and culture.

To finish the day, it was Rea’s birthday (UK), so we were invited to a glass of Prosecco to celebrate it!

Thursday was our last day at the Aquapalace hotel and we were delighted by a great conference related to digital competences in 3rd age and fake news on the Internet. It’s always useful to remember that elderly people require a different methodology when teaching them any subject but specially IT as it’s a field that didn’t exist when they were young.

After the presentation, partners had to design a lesson on how to teach IT to a group of elder students. Our favourite one was a lesson on how to organise a trip from scratch. Students had to book the flights and the accomodation online, look for information about the currency of the country, documents and visas needed, etc.

It was Friday and our last activity of the Erasmus + in Prague took place in the city centre and was by far the most enriching and thought-provoking experience of them all. We went to live the “Invisible Exhibition”. Yes, I said live. The only thing we knew in advance was that we would spend one hour in complete darkness. Once there, we were headed to the space, which was separated in different rooms which represented parts of the house, the street, the forest, a museum and a bar. Camila was our guide; she was blind and helped us to move around the place.

This activity made us aware of how difficult it is to live without such an important sense like sight and how hostile the world may be for them. I wish everybody could have the opportunity to come to this exhibition.

We’d like to thank Luca and Gabi for these wonderful days and their hospitality. It’s been such an unforgettable experience. Can’t wait to see you all in Navalcarnero!