43rd WeeK

During this week I felt very nervous because of the oral presentation. For me it’s so difficult to speak in public, I really don’t know why but I’m always very nervous to do the oral explanation. Moreover it was in English so it’s still more difficult, but I’m so happy because the presentation was good, and I feel very good with myself.

I have to say that my group was really good and I’m too happy with them, and also I think we did a very good work. It’s always difficult to work in group and even more if we are from different countries, so we have different ways of working. But, as I said before I worked really good with my group mates: Mia, Alexia, Bente and Dani.

About the project…I didn’t know almost anything about the topic of teenage mothers before we made the project. I think it’s too interesting to research information about that issue, because there is not too much information about it in Internet, but everything we found was really important. In the beginning I thought it would be easy to find information but I was wrong…we had to visit the ministries web site to find something interesting.

For me the most interesting thing that we did was the comparison between the three countries: Denmark, France and Spain. I realised that there are many different ways to work with that kind of people and for me the most surprising were the differences of the benefits that received in Denmark than in Spain or in France. Also I didn’t know that there are not laws about that topic and there aren’t specific benefits to help them.

Also it was surprising for me to see that the tasks and roles of the professionals are so similar between the three countries although they have different names. The main difference is that in Spain social educators work a lot the relationship between the families and the girl and in Denmark it is not very usual. However the rest of the tasks are more or less the same.

About the institutions which work with that target group are also very similar in the three countries. I think that the welfare system is too important, because in the three countries are different, so the organization of each country is also different, the values are different, and the way of thinking is different…

We had some dilemmas during the process of the project. The principal one was the importance of the religion in each country, because of the abortion law, in Spain for example the church is still important, due to the strong economical structure and the support of the monarchy, and they have some important presence in the social work. In Denmark and in France the religion doesn’t have any importance in the social field.

We were talking also about the importance of the mass-media in this target group, because in Spain and Denmark exist a television program about teenage mothers where all the girls where a disaster, and they are in a bad way of life so it’s a wrong vision of them because not all the young mothers are like these; also I think that it’s a bad influence for the teenagers because they could think that is they have a child they could appear in the television program and get rich and famous, what is not true.

Any way, for me this project was so interesting because, as I said before, I didn’t know anything about that target group and I can work with them in my job when I finish my education.   

42nd WeeK

The autumn break!! I was expecting that week because of the vacations...as everybody I imagine.

Well I went to Poland for six days. I went there with Abi, Maria, Giovy, Regina and Arianna (fantastic company!!!).

During these days we were in three different cities: Warsaw, Wroclaw and finally Krakow. For me the best one and more beautiful was Krakow, it’s so nice. We went also to visit Auschwitz; it was really striking for me, and also made me thinking a lot about everything that happened there not many years ago…

In any case it was a fantastic week!!! 

41st WeeK

On Monday we were working with the group work and on Tuesday and Wednesday came Bill Cleary to talk about the religious values relevant for the education of social worker in the post modern society.

In these classes he tried to compare Denmark and Ireland, where he is come from. On of the questions was: in which way does religion influence our concept of “education”? Depending of the religion and the values it’ll influence the way of education of each country. For example in Denmark they are Protestants differently of France, so they’ve different values. Another question is: In which way does religion influence our concept of “social work”? I think we’ve an unconscious influence from the religion when we are talking in professional terms.

We were reflecting about the importance of the religion. A lot of educational terms are from a historical religion values like psychology, sociology…It’s important to know that the religious values are not the same than universal values because these last values have a religious influence. Also religion is a way to socialize.

One important part of the class for me was the comparison between social work and social education, because in my country I’m studying social education not social work, so I expected to know exactly the difference between these concepts. It’s necessary to know that our personal background always influence your didactic methods. A social worker and social educator is becoming to be the same differently of about twenty years ago. Nowadays the bases are almost the same. Any way, social work in Denmark means that it has to be an action and social education it’s give to a person the way of learn.

The end of the week we finished our project and we had to hand in to the teachers. 

40th WeeK

Tim Gully was the guest teacher. He is from England and he came with two English students. I have to say that this day was really stressful for me because I expected a lot about this class but the level of English language was really really high! I couldn’t understand everything and it was a little bit frustrating for me…in any case I liked a lot that class, it was so interesting and the teacher was very good! The topic was “Angels and demonds” and he was speaking about what is the way to work with the youth criminals. Which is the best age to punish the children? In every county is different.

Before the classes we had to read something about “James Bulger murder and his killers Thompson and Venables”, this text was really surprising for me because they only were ten years old, and I never heard anything about it, and it was not too many years ago.

This class made me reflects a lot about that issue. How we had to act against two murderers only ten years old? It’s the best way to put them in a centre until they come of age?  Exist any way that these children learn what is right and what is not…and the main question: WHY two ten years old children decided to kill a kid who only is two years old? Why in this way?

Well the rest of the week was dedicated to the group work. This week we started to write the project, the comparative study between the three countries: Denmark, France and Spain. 

39th WeEk

In this week we had classes only two days because of the group work. Marcus Breuer was the guest teacher who came on Monday and Tuesday. He was talking about Roma, a different culture and lifestyle. In the beginning I didn’t know the meaning of Roma, because I used to use another word to mention that kind of people, gypsies.

We were talking about the immigrant families in the schools in the different countries. The different measures enhancing between schools and immigrant families, in general education. It was surprising for me that Spain has the three measures as possible, because I don’t think that it is real, maybe exists the law but in the practice sometimes is not possible to apply it.

In these classes we also made a little project. We had to think and write some aims and activities about the Community Gardens and intercultural dialogue. With my group work we did a project, where the main aim was the cooperation between Roma children and “normal” children in the school trough take care for a garden. Our project was called “Multicolour garden”.

So as a conclusion I think that the inclusion of Roma children in the schools is something that all the countries have to improve a lot. That children need to feel that there are part of the school. In my point of view the most important thing to work is the relationship between the Roma families and the school, because I think that is too important that the parents understand the sense of going to school for their children.

About the rest of the week we were working in the project group. In my group we decided to spend these days to looking of information in our topic: teenage mothers.