INTERNATIONAL NETWORK OF PRODUCTIVE SCHOOLS

This congress took place in Krakow, the beautiful polish cityon the banks of the Vistula river, from April 30th to May 6th1998. The topic of the congress was "Productive Learning:From Alternative To Mainstream Education.

The participants (91) came from the following countries: CzechRepublic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece,Hungary, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain Catalunia, Swedenand the USA.

The following seminars and workshops were offered in this congress:

Seminars

Workshops

• 01: "Ego-Bag" / Method for self-evaluation
• 02: Contract - Commitment of members of a group - Communicative games
• 03: Cultural differencies in a class setting
• 04: Development of a concept for a Productive Learning Project
• 05: Development of individual curricula
• 06: Youth meeting / Youth Congress
• 07: How to spread Productive Learning nationally and internationally
• 08: "Sales trays of knowledge" - a modified form of the "Tree of knowledge"
• 09: How to use a Learnshop
• 10: New pedagogical ethics
• 11: The use of Gardner's multiple intelligences as an assessment tool
• 12: Schoolfirms
• 13: Youth project "Take your coffee/build your future"
• 14: Knowledge Trees (Arbres de Connaissance)
• 15: Local Cross-Service Networking
• 16: Are we able to share our feelings?

The results of seminars and workshops

Seminar 1: After a short introduction of the participantsthe seminar was started with creating a list of diverse termswhich characterize the different aspects which are important fora philosophical discussion about Productive Learning. Differentsocieties are characterized by different hierarchies of values,and these values also influence the ways in which Productive Learningis defined and realized. On the second day Jens gave a short descriptionof the basic characteristics of Productive Learning. The participantsbegan with the elaboration of the definition of Productive Learning.Basic elements which have to be considered are:

• experience
• responsibility
• communication
• change
• techniques/methods of reorganising reality
• discovery of individual values by material and intellectual products
• the relation towards educational organisations and systems

Mark Bashmakov suggested some ideas of how the definition couldbe elaborated, with regard to

• process or system
• aiming or leading
• modules or activities
• product-orientated or result-orientated etc.

About these aspects the participants discussed on the lastday of the seminar.

Seminar 2: The seminar started with showing exampleshow to teach and to educate children which have difficulties inadapting to our society. Afterwards they discussed about the qualitiesof teachers in their projects and what requirements teachers inProductive Learning must meet. Participants chose this seminar,because they are interested in exchanging experiences and learningabout special principles and qualities of other european projects.In order to fullfil the topic of the congress the seminar triedto develop a teacher training which is able to qualify for teachingin sense of Productive Learning.

Seminar 4: The participants discussed about differentmethods how students reflect their educational development. Forexample the using of portfolios and knowledge trees was introducedto the participants. In opposite to mainstream education thesemethods have the aim to teach how to learn and to learn in groups,what is necessary for living, working and surviving in our society.The participants chose this seminar because they wanted to learnnew methods, how to evaluate the achievements of their studentsand to continue the work they have done in the International Seminarin Paris (February 1998).

The 16 Workshops which took place in three days offered theparticipants a variety of topics of Productive Learning. Accordingto their interests the participants could bring in own ideas,learn something new and discuss it. The variety of different culturaland pedagogical backgrounds stimulated the practical work on aspectsof Productive Learning. This form of working method was appreciatedvery much by the participants, because it is useful for theirown projects.

Workshop 1: In this workshop the method of the ego bagwas introduced to and realized by the participants. The aim ofthe ego bag is to stimulate students to think about themselvesand to present oneself to the others in order to gain identity.In this way the students try to find their personal characteristicsseen by others and by themselves. These characters - symbolizedby pictures from newspapers, symbols, words, colours and titels- were fixed on the bag or put into the bag - characters seenby others outside, characters seen by oneself inside the bag.Afterwards the students discuss about the characters, in orderto learn to speak about themselves, to hold their opinion andto strengthen their self-confidence.

Workshop 5 : The results of this workshop are: the dutyto fulfill curricula, no matter how individual they are, restrictsthe possibilities of Productive Learning. The discussion betweenrepresentations of Productive Learning at Berlin Schools and ProductiveLearning institutions in other parts of Europe shows that thecounselling of young people in an atmosphere of harmony and mutualtrust can help to overcome most of the difficulties which arisefrom these restrictions.