What the Programme Doesn’t Tell You: A VET Teacher’s Erasmus+ Experience in Berlin

Three Key Lessons from This Mobility

The core insights from an experience that invites us to look beyond the official course programme.

1Greater depth, less dispersionShort training courses become more valuable when they pursue specific, realistic and genuinely distinctive objectives.

2Learning moves beyond the classroomLanguages, shared experiences and cultural exchange transform the destination itself into an authentic learning environment.

3People extend the life of Erasmus+The relationships forged may lead to further mobilities, partnerships and professional projects.

Taking part in an Erasmus+ training mobility in Berlin has been an experience which, beyond the specific learning outcomes acquired during the course, has prompted me to reflect on what experiences of this kind truly offer, as well as on their main strengths and their areas for improvement.

A Bittersweet Assessment of the Training

Key idea 1 · Greater depth, less dispersion

As far as the training itself is concerned, my assessment is, to some extent, bittersweet. The programme covered an extremely broad range of content which, given both its scope and diversity, was difficult to explore and assimilate in depth in just five days. At times, the breadth of the topics addressed created the impression that the course was attempting to cover too much ground within an excessively limited period. This inevitably restricted our ability to delve more deeply into the material, experiment with it and reflect upon it.

One issue has particularly caught my attention: the recurring presence of artificial intelligence as a tool within the educational sphere. Regardless of the title or the stated purpose of a particular course, many programmes appear to converge on learning how to use AI tools for pedagogical development. Without questioning either their present relevance or the possibilities they offer, I believe that their repeated inclusion may foster a certain sense of repetition and standardisation across courses that should, in principle, provide clearly differentiated approaches and objectives.

The most meaningful learning took place beyond the strictly academic programme.

However, reducing the experience to the course content would mean focusing on only a small part of what an Erasmus+ mobility truly entails. In my case, the most meaningful learning took place beyond the strictly academic programme.

A moment from Javier's Erasmus+ experience in Berlin — The Erasmus+ experience continues beyond the classroom: the destination, shared life and everyday conversations are also part of the learning process.

Languages Move Beyond the Classroom

Key idea 2 · The most decisive learning happens beyond the classroom

The mobility enabled me to put my language skills to the test and improve them in a real-life setting, while interacting with people from different countries and backgrounds. Using other languages on a daily basis—not simply as a learning tool, but as an essential means of communicating, sharing experiences and building relationships—provides a form of learning that is difficult to reproduce in the classroom.

Sharing the experience with a diverse and versatile group of people, each with a different professional, cultural and educational background, was particularly enriching. Every participant contributed distinctive knowledge, experience and perspectives on education, methodology and the nature of learning itself. This exchange reveals that there is no single way of doing things and that exposure to other approaches can help us question our own practices and incorporate new ideas.

A Network That Begins When the Course Ends

Key idea 3 · People extend the life of Erasmus+

There is also another aspect that I regard as fundamental: networking. The people we meet during a mobility can become far more than temporary course companions. Those encounters may mark the beginning of new personal and professional relationships, facilitate future exchanges of experience, and open the door to further mobilities, projects and potential cooperation agreements. In this respect, the mobility does not end when the course finishes or when we return home; in a sense, that is precisely when a new realm of possibilities begins.

Javier during his Erasmus+ training mobility in Berlin — A mobility opens up new personal and professional perspectives that may endure long after the journey home.

The Paradox of the Destination

From a more critical perspective, it is also worth reflecting on a certain contradiction inherent in this kind of mobility. At times, the desire to participate seems to be connected not only to the content or training on offer, but also—and perhaps to a considerable extent—to the destination itself. Berlin, Rome, Florence, Amsterdam or any other European city may become a powerful attraction when a mobility is being selected. Alongside the destination, however, there is another factor that is impossible to control: the people we will meet and with whom we will share the experience. We may choose the course and the location, but we cannot know in advance which colleagues we will encounter, which conversations will emerge or which relationships will ultimately prove meaningful.

Paradoxically, this may be where one of Erasmus+'s greatest strengths lies. The value of a mobility cannot always be measured by the amount of content learned in five days, the number of tools discovered or the activities completed. Sometimes, what truly matters is precisely what never appears in the programme: a conversation, a new friendship, a different perspective, a career opportunity, greater confidence when communicating in another language, or meeting someone who may one day become part of a new project.

A mobility does not end when the course finishes; in a sense, that is when a new realm of possibilities begins.

A Door Worth Walking Through

For all these reasons, although I believe that certain aspects of the training could have been designed in a more specific, realistic and in-depth manner, my overall assessment remains positive. This is due not so much to the particular content learned as to everything the mobility generated around it: personal learning, linguistic development, cultural exchange, new perspectives and, above all, new human and professional relationships.

That is precisely why I believe the experience is worth repeating. An Erasmus+ mobility should not be regarded merely as a course undertaken in another country, but as an opportunity to step outside our familiar environment, encounter other people and other realities, and allow the experience to broaden our understanding of the world and of our own profession.

Ultimately, Erasmus+ mobilities offer something that no training programme can guarantee on its own: the opportunity to learn from the places we visit, from the people we meet and, above all, from ourselves. That is why, whenever a door opens onto an experience of this kind, it is worth walking through it.

Javier
Vocational Education and Training teacher

CHANGING PERSPECTIVES ON EDUCATION THROUGH ERASMUS PLUS

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