Forging a community of Erasmus+ teachers worldwide, even in Coronavirus times.

Hazardous.
(El crucigrama está al final del texto, suerte)

When I started to prepare these notes for this blog, back at the end of February, the infamous, marauding Coronavirus Covid-19 had already been deploying -inadvertedly though- its lethal venom all over our bogusly happy, deceitfully secure countries, as if it were a chapter in a novel of Scott Fitzgerald in the happy 20's, patiently lingering, apparently loitering in the parks, streets and homes whilst in fact, The Bug had creepingly been perveading our lives till, unfortunately and in the true meaning of the term, the very end.

Still not wholly recovered from the effects of the pandemic, with a hefty price in lives, we have started to come out of our homes, not fully aware of the horrendous consequences this epidemic has had among us.

Erasmus+ projects, needless to say, have also been largely affected, both in terms of teachers that have been infected, lots and lots of mobilities that have been cancelled or postponed and projects that may have lost its purpose by now. Obviously, these effects are not relevant when compared with the lives that, disgracefully, have been lost, and all the painful suffering it involves.

Hardened.

However, we must regain our spirit and strength and start putting in motion next year's mobilities and projects being perfectly conscious that The Bug might or will strike again. What the outcomes will be, nobody knows, not even if we will have a second chance at all. 

Foto de @mmolpor

But let's talk shop. After nearly 160 contributions to this humble blog, written by families, students, teachers from 6 different countries, with more than 62.000 visits from more than 90 countries all over the world, the latest one from Bangladesh, most of the teachers operating behind this blog consider that it is high time we stockpiled as much feedback from our followers and friends all over the world as possible. Luckily, this blog has grown into something else than just a mere collection of articles about Erasmus+ mobilities and an array of analysis and considerations about teaching and learning techniques, plus other turbulent Willy Fog-like adventures over a period of 5 years. 

Year after year, we have realized that many of our young students are astounded, even astonished to see how many readers, followers from so many different countries in all the continents we have, they simply can't believe it, nor can we, honestly. It is the perfect definition of flabbergasted I would say. 

Haploidic

Little by little, a sense of community started to flourish and bloom, the fruits of which we are enjoying now. Like a forlon handloom in a quiet, gloomy room, steadily and rhythmically weaving its colorful cloths, this blog has woven a different kind of fabric, a puzzle of yearning dreams, this time the fibres being the energy, time and illusions of dozens of educators from many contrasting places, yet dim like the forgotten loom, yet shining like a sunny day after a rainy night in Bangladesh.

This humble blog, borne out of the requirement to convey the impact of our activities within this universal Erasmus+ world and the need to disseminate what we do in our school community, has fortunately turned out to be a helpful, effective and stimulating tool for hundreds of students who, believe it or not, would rather read their teachers' and other fellow students' exploits than the more often than not useless, ineffectual and tedious to death stuff in their subject books. 

Viajeros de una semana cualquiera en el blog. @mmolpor

Harmonic

Thus, what seemed to be just a traditional logbook with no other purpose, seems to be now a powerful, vivid teaching resource, specially for the youngest students. As a matter of fact, whenever  we address them to know why they enjoy reading about their teachers' trips abroad, the most recurrent reply is that they are not used to seeing their teachers traveling abroad to study, to learn, to take notes, to 'make exams', to make oral presentations in other languages, in short, to behave like real students. 

Sometimes, some of them have boldly dared ask if we have misbehaved or if we have yawned or even if we have been fiddling around with our mobile phones while the teacher was explaining this or that brainy state of the art teaching technique. Food for though, isn't it?

Feedback from teachers from other countries is paramount for us to carry out an effective analysis of the impact of our work of dissemination, if at all, and because of that, we invite you all to send us your opinions, to share with us why you spend some of your precious time reading our blog, particularly those of your from other continents, what you find useful and interesting. By doing so, we can continue hammering and welding this community of teachers that will surely contribute to benefit from each other's experiences.

Foto de @mmolpor

As I have described above in the title of this entry, our work here seems to have helped forge a community of wrought iron Erasmus+ teachers worldwide. What else could we aim for? 

Halcyon

Y termino con una frases en cristiano, que ya estoy muy cansado, dedicadas a mis alumnos, en especial a Adil y Mario, quienes un día de estos de clases virtuales dijeron que ellos eran los 'Erasmus+ workers' porque sin ellos, no habría viajes ni proyectos. Más claro, imposible.

Y ahora, para mis queridos 'bugsillos' de 1º y 2º de ESO, un reto, como siempre hacemos: Hoy os dejos este crucigrama con palabras extraídas del texto. Los 10 primeros, ya sabéis:

(Ya me he comido la mitad de las patillas, je je je)

https://puzzel.org/es/crossword/play?p=-M9wwilGzTtRIEqzOabU

Manuel Molina Porlán.
Coordinador de Proyectos Erasmus+ IE Sierra Mágina de Mancha Real, Jaén.