As the semester is drawing nearer to the end, I am going to talk about some things from my placement I have missed here. In November Culture Step went on a trip to the Leibur bread factory. Many people said that this was one of their favourite events of the programme and it is easy to see why. Leibur makes many types of bread that are popular in Estonia and Finland. Estonian rye bread (leib) is dark and a little sweet, and when it is made freshly, I think it's delicious! At the open air museum I tried it with home made butter, it was delightful! Leibur also makes white bread, and even products that are somewhere between the density of rye bread and white bread. Our guide says that a variety of bread is popular in Estonia. I have certainly found that open sandwiches are available everywhere, and often when eating lunch out, there will be unlimited bread provided with your meal. One reason this trip was particularly interesting because it shows a perspective of Estonia that we don't usually get to see. This is not your usual guided tour, and by learning about how the food that Estonians eat every day is made, we can gain insights about what we can buy in the supermarkets too. This is the kind of education that is often overlooked for integration, but it is very useful. We all have to eat, and it is a good way to form connections with the local culture, know what products are local and delicious and to save money on shopping. Bread is very important in Estonian daily life, so learning about bread makes sense in order to understand more about Estonian culture. We even saw rye bread that was extremely thin, and our guide explained that this is for people who only want a tiny bit of bread for their sandwich! So even if you are not a big bread fan, Estonia has a kind of bread for you! Another very informative trip was to the Estonian parliament. This was incredibly interesting for me as I find politics fascinating and this is the place where Estonian laws and policies are made. This is also one of the oldest parliament buildings in the world. The parliament is part of a medieval castle called Toompea Castle, and more modern additions have been built on to the old walls. We were very lucky, because on the usual tours, the public are not able to go up the old tower. But we were able to go up the old tower at sun set! This was one of the best views of Tallinn I have seen, and it made me imagine what the view would be like hundreds of years ago. We then took a tour inside of the building, which was much warmer! It was interesting to see that the interior of one of the buildings is apparently built in the expressionist style of architecture. This means that it has many unusual features, most notably zig zags and diagonal lines used a lot. Annleena, who showed us around told us that these angles are meant to represent the many angles that the politicians should consider when considering issues in parliament. That's something that we need to keep in mind as adult educators too! Local politics is another important area that really helps to learn about a particular place you have moved to. This can often be a means for exclusion for newcomers, because they might not know about the different parties or issues in that country. It definitely helps to have a little understanding of this area. Actually, education in politics and citizenship education is often neglected in all levels of education in the UK. This means that British citizens are often lacking in knowledge about politics and so would find it difficult to explain to friends who are from outside of the UK. I think more awareness of how political systems work is crucial to living in a country. For us, this is not just an area that needs expanding in adult education for integration, but also in schools and community education. Finally, we had a culture step party to celebrate the first round of graduates from the programme, and I was one of the graduates! The party had some traditional Estonian folk music and we did some dances to this. It was a really fun way to finish the programme and it made me consider the links between Estonian culture and my own. The dances are similar to some folk dances that happen in Britain too! It was great to see all the people that did the culture step programme graduating, and it was like we built a family over the course of all that we learned together. This was a fitting way to finish the programme, and the community will still remain on social media, with possible meetings of alumni in the future.
(9 hours)
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LaurenI am an IMAESC student, English teacher and adult education researcher from the UK. Categories
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