III ÉPOCA. ERASMUS+ IPEP de JAÉN. The Great Escape.

 The Great Escape: Erasmus+ at IPEP Jaén

For those not very versed in classic cinema, the title of this article is not going to suppose more remembrance than a vacuous and vulgar Netflix film or similar, in case.


👉 List of associates in the project, from 11 countries.

👉 The importance of education in prisons.

Nevertheless, for those who have been in teaching more than 30 years, “The great escape” continues bringing  to mind one of the greatest epic stories of World War II, with the unfortunately missing Steve McQueen in one of the most famous roles in his whole filmography. What’s about enjoying the unforgettable soundtrack while you read the text?

Click below for it. 

 


 

It may be daring, without a doubt disrespectful and, perhaps, shameless to compare this human tragedy with all the study trips that have been launched at IPEP Jaén with its Erasmus+ Project, because we are not fleeing from nazis nor are we going to be shot cowardly in the forest, but so many teachers evading from the daily routine in their way to other countries in search of adventures, that is quite similar. And if not, you will allow me the license.

IPEP Jaén counts with a team of 40 workers, including teaching and non-teaching staff. We are embarking on a Erasmus+ KA122 adult education project that hopes to involve 22 of them in the trips as well as 4 or 5 ESPA students. In the same way, this company contemplates the visit of 8 teachers from 8 different countries between October and November 2023. Could we say then that the “teacher's escape” is considerable?

In relation with the term evasion, this is not as physical as “mental”, ideally, for all the great challenges, risky, almost unattainable and certainly complicated, which we have set out to do: to improve different aspects of our arch-changing (non) educational system, due to its being so fickle; to design a study program for a subject about how to work in prisons. At our age? Why and for what?  

 

Rethinking educational practices for adults, prison students and young offenders    

                                   

And I ask myself, what has a teacher to evade today? Just as Steve McQueen, riding his fast Triumph 650cc TR6R motorcycle, tried in vain to jump the metal fences that separated Germany from Switzerland, the barbarism of freedom, teachers uselessly try to jump the bureaucratic, legislative and, sometimes, pedagogical fences, which are gripping us more and more with their prickly sharp spikes. Another barbarism and another freedom?

 

https://www.gettyimages.es/fotos/la-gran-evasión-pel%C3%ADcula 

Sometimes, we could have the feeling that we are surrounded by a quasi Stalag Luft III, in the form of all types of normatives which suffocate us, prevent us from advancing, overwhelmed us. A normative which forgets that it boasts so much about: the students.

This Erasmus+ is an unique opportunity offered to the whole educational community for being able to obtain a tool which, like  McQueen’s fast and aged motorbike, will allow us to jump those invisible fences -or not- that prevent many of those implicated in the beautiful teaching task to advance, progress, be truly free, demonstrate their genius, their love for a work well done, expand their minds and do their work without being subjected to constant legislative, didactical, pedagogical  and normative changes, which in the end, end up limiting their yearning to fly.

Like the tenacious escapees of that unforgettable film of 1963, who by thinking, planifying and persevering, achieved victory and tragedy, many teachers at this center have already been engaged in a similar process of reflexion, “escape” and, on return, the launch of these changes that we are able to perform from our humble abode. But we only want to achieve victory, not tragedy. 

This is, in short, our Erasmus+ Project, a “great escape”.

Said by the unforgettable Charles Jonhson, in the tough role of Danny, the King of the tunnel, excavator-tunneler, who was already in his “Tom, Dick and Harry” nº 17.

 

I am starting my Erasmus+ nº10, will I miscalculate like Danny’s tunnel or will we reach the forest and could evade ourselves?

P.S: Danny, who was claustrophobic, even though it seems an oxymoron, achieved freedom and escaped from the national German socialism.

Regards.

Soraya Fernández Pegalajar.

Manuel Molina.

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