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Authors: Lulia, Lina, Tamami, Saad, Prabathi, Nitesh, Mariya, Martha, Asha, Jayanandi, Vy

Following the panellist presentations, an open forum was facilitated in which many of the participants for the workshop actively engaged in the discussion, sharing ideas and posing questions to three panellists. At the same time, as part of the two-day seminar on SDG 4 and 20 years of development studies at the University of Jyväskylä, I had the honour of moderating a transformative workshop led by Dr Elizabeth O. Crawford. Centred on empowering educators for holistic growth, the session brought together diverse participants to explore strategies for nurturing teachers’ well-being. Dr. Crawford emphasized the crucial link between educators’ holistic development and quality education. Key themes included fostering resilience through mindfulness, peer support, time management, and promoting mental well-being by creating inclusive, safe spaces and providing mental health resources. Participants shared experiences and collaboratively envisioned solutions to systemic barriers, addressing cultural and socio-economic inequities. The workshop’s interactive approach energized discussions, highlighting that supporting educators elevates learning environments. Reflecting on the session, it’s clear that empowering teachers is a powerful step toward achieving SDG 4 and building a sustainable educational future. 

The last workshop showed the importance of the love and affection of family members in pursuing a quality degree. We suffer from lots of problems and stress during our educational journey. Despite these challenges, we need to move forward and achieve success. Life is a combination of both happy and sorrowful events. The main point of this workshop was to make us remember our parents' contribution to making our lives happy. This workshop was a very emotional task. Researchers involved in this workshop make us think briefly about how your parents came from your childhood to make you graduate. Suddenly, I remember my mother's contribution to making me a better and more educated son. After my graduation, I lost her. This incident makes me sad. It took me years to move on for me. Everything is dark without her. So, I remember my mother badly because her contribution made me what I am today. Love and affection motivate us to achieve success in our lives. 

Authors: Tharanga Pingamage Dona, Upeksha Rathnasena, Lin Zheng, Kaan Var, Pablo Sardi, Victor Oni

For this year's SDG4 seminar, students and education professionals on a mission to see how the Sustainable Development Goals are put into practice with respect to context came together. For students at the University of Jyväskylä, we had the privilege to step into the role of seminar assistants for this event. Most of the volunteers comprised EDUMA students and a couple of students from the DEICO program. In this blog, we compile the learnings we acquired from our experiences both as seminar assistants and as participants.

Workshop: Crafting Your Ideal Educator: Drawing Insight from Inspiring Educators from Our Past and Present (Stockholm University Comparative and International Educations Students)

I chose to assist in this workshop as I was quite intrigued by the crafting aspect. It was a well-planned workshop with a team of seven from Stockholm University who facilitated all the hands-on activities. The workshop provided the participants with the space to reflect on the traits of the teachers who had a lasting impact on their learning and life. The participants were highly engaged and exchanged their experiences from different parts of the world with different educational backgrounds, and had such lively, insightful discussions. The workshop was built around communication styles and demonstrated both positive and negative communication styles and several mini-activities provided the participants with the opportunities to identify both styles and to connect them and craft the traits of ideal educators. The final activity got participant groups to design a model that represents the essential qualities of inspiring educators. Materials needed for the models were provided by the facilitators and the groups had an enjoyable time creating their models. They came up with unique models that symbolized several traits of ideal educators. Representatives from each group explained the rationale behind their model at the end and the participants shared that this was a refreshing learning experience for them that prompted reflection.

Workshop: Student Thesis Presentations

I attended the student thesis presentations during the SDG seminar, and as a first-year master’s student, I can say that it gave me a firsthand understanding of the thesis writing process. Each presenter talked about why they worked on their topic and how they conducted their research. Observing the different research topics and designs gave me concrete ideas on how I can approach my thesis.  Also hearing the discussions between the presenters and Barthelemy Bizimana was very interesting as it also made me think about my thesis topic idea and potential questions it can raise. Thanks to this experience and the practical insight I got from the presentations, I feel more confident with my upcoming thesis writing process. I hope I can present my thesis in the same workshop next year.

To sum up the event, the participants and assistants all came together to answer the most intriguing questions that stemmed from the seminars they participated in or the SDG goals themselves. Not only did we gain insights from the speakers and facilitators, but also from the thoughtful questions and comments of the participants involved. This year's SDG4 seminar is truly one for the books.  

I participated in the SDG 4 Thesis seminar on day 1 and it was an insightful experience. I got to listen to and ask questions about the different theses presented by current and past students. The topics were very interesting as I got to understand the several gaps still waiting to be filled in educational practices around the world, especially in Finland. On day 2, I participated in the review of the answers to the various questions asked along with 3 other seminar assistants. The audience gave diverse answers, opening another discussion on people’s educational experiences in various contexts. It, therefore, altered my understanding of education because the emotions that went into some of the answers gave a clue to a solution to educational practices around the world as a not a one-size-fits-all, but individual and collective efforts can bring education closer to what we envisage it to be.

The webinars of the “Education for Emergencies” project played a meaningful role in co-creating my thesis. When I attended them, my thesis idea was still nebulous, and not a single, viable research question had materialized in my mind. I felt that sort of ‘cosmic’ indeterminacy that most master’s students experience for a while, I guess. I recall sitting in front of my laptop, hoping for inspiration and insights. Thankfully, the panelists did respond to my hope, with their whole being. 

During my studies, I often wished to have more opportunities to hear from practitioners. We dig deeper and deeper into theory, but the insights that flash up in texts then call for a reality check. For instance, how do teachers experience the moment of responding to an emergency, or caring for their pupils? The panelists invited to this project shared such responses. I felt a kind of embodied, heartfelt, and mindful sensitivity in what they were expressing. Their lectures sparked insightful connections and even made me find a contact for my research.  

Eventually, my thesis was about processes of pedagogical co-creation (you can find it here). Through my encounters with educational theory and six co-inquiring teachers, I explored what can be felt as being co-created in school environments. I pursued a holistic understanding that embraced the co-creation of learning as well as spaces, relationships, care, and world-forming processes.

I realized that a master’s thesis is itself a process of pedagogical co-creation. And so are this website, the E4E research project, and the EdDisCo educational discussions I joined in 2022. Indeed, I recall joining the webinars not only for my learning purposes but to also participate in the student-led partnership projects that a group of students and teachers from the University of Jyväskylä had organized. As a master’s student at the University of Oulu, I felt, and still feel, a sense of relationality and friendship toward them and their initiatives. I deeply appreciate the significance of co-creating learning, togetherness, and relational networks among different universities. These processes are vital to building a conducive spirit of cooperation in responding to emergencies.

Towards the end of my research trip to India, I visited a tribal school situated in the Nilgiris mountains of southern India - Vidyodaya. I spent over 3 days in the school interacting with different teachers and children.

Vidyodaya is run by an organization that works for the welfare of tribal communities. It is a community-driven organization that works with five indigenous communities (Paniya, Kurumba, Kattunaicker, Bettakurumba, and Irular tribes) of the area on matters related to their education. The vision of  Vidyodaya is to establish culturally appropriate and relevant learning systems for the tribal children with the active participation of the community.

One such initiative that I learned about and understood in detail is the concept of recapturing space for tribal education and designing it according to their needs. The community they work with is extremely low in literacy with even lower enrollment rates. One of the first steps, when they want to collaborate with the community is to understand the nature of problems faced by the community and its dynamicity. A major issue faced by many Indigenous countries in India is public schools neither empathize nor respond to the cultural needs of the community. The root cause for this attitude among educators is the perception that education is not the same for the communities in these areas. Due to these system hurdles many of these children are pushed out of school into the informal labor market. This cause and effect deepens the social emergency of inequity and injustice faced by them. 

The organization's intervention was 

1. to create a safe learning space for the children using activities like arts, crafts, games, and cultural forms to re-create the joy in learning

2. using people from the community to be tutors. Training them not only to teach but also as leaders who can help to build social capital that will be replicated in later years.

3. giving the onus to the community to decide what kind of education and therefore what kind of society is needed in the future.  

In my time spent at the school, these values can be observed in day-to-day activities at the school, the teaching practices followed at the school, and in terms of the proportion of community teachers versus outsiders who are working at the school. 

One of the older students at the school expressed how the challenges these communities faces are often neglected by educators while attempting to educate them. In public schools, 

• a common issue is children do not know the local language fluently and teachers do not know the tribal languages;

• teachers discriminate against the children for the clothes they wore, their names which were different from Hindu names, and so on; 

• teachers use corporal punishment;

• children who were experiencing a different sense of space in the forest were now confined to four walls the whole day; and,

• finally, the community could not understand why their knowledge and culture found no place at all in the school system. 

 The different conversations with individuals opened many questions and made me wonder 

1. If education (what we, educators define) brings equality?

2. What is inclusive education?

3. What can we as outsiders do for the community?

4. What is the community's meaning of empowerment, what are they seeking to become, their aspirations?

5. How and what education can provide for these children to become confident of their identity while trying to create a newness in them to feel the same as others in society?

This visit is just the beginning, more visits and engagement are needed to find answers to these questions and to know the impact of the school on communities. 

Below are some photos of Vidyodaya school. Photo credit to Abitha Chakrapani.

Authors: Elmedina Brkic, Hülya Akkaş Arslan, Mélina Nantel, Miracle Akangbe, Radhika Singaraju, Vereniki Nanou, Wencheng Shi