Job Shadowing Mobility, Republic Gymnázium Jana Blahoslava Ivančice, Brno – Czech
January 27 – January 30, 2025
Written by: Harout Parseghian
My experience during this mobility felt kind of a special one since this specific school I visited during my job shadowing was one which I had established a contact with during my previous Erasmus + course mobility in Spain. This made it possible to taste one of Erasmus + mobilities’ pillars and aims which is internalization. I experienced first hand with amazement how a few steps taken during any mobility can open the way to a wide range of opportunities.
Before the mobility, communication was constant with the school’s principal, Ivana Cermaková, and their Erasmus coordinator, Zdeněk Horák to establish a fruitful collaboration between our two schools. Of course, they shared with us every information needed about my mobility including my daily timetable and how to reach the best way to their school. Besides, they also took care of my accommodation booking prior to my departure. As always, I made sure that I purchase health insurance which is one of the obligatory safety precautions during those mobilities.
Upon arrival at the school on day 1, Zdeněk Horák met me in front of the school to escort me to the headmistresse’s office, Ivana, who was warmly welcoming with offering a little sandwich and a cup of coffee. We already discussed our joint student group mobilities that we will have in the next academic year and after that they explained the different programs they had in their school where an 8-year program is followed normally from ages of 12-19 years old. In parallel to that, they have a 4 year and a 3 year high school program which coincides with each other in many of the classes. Immediately after this, I joined the Biology lesson which was in the laboratory since it was a lab session about insects.
The teacher was amazingly welcoming since she had already prepared her slides and the printouts in English mostly for my presence. The lab was very nicely equipped with all sorts of tools and equipment. They observed different parts of several kinds of insects under the stereomicroscope which made the students participate actively. I was a bit surprised to see that they use their own namings for classification. Lesson 2 was modified to be a tour of their school by 3 best performing students who did their best to show me all their facilities which left me on owe. I found out that almost every room was newly renovated because of the great efforts of their principal, Ivana. The school shares their canteen for lunch with a primary school just next to them and due to that they have many time frames for lunch. In the afternoon, I shadowed a great chemistry lab session with Petra who was amazing with students in the lab guiding them to do titration using acetic acid and phenolphthalein.
During the following days, I met with the two students, Monika and John who will have long-term mobility at our school already this year and also a physics teacher, Jirka, who will join us for a job shadowing mobility for a week with the students. During the natural science lesson, I very much appreciated students standing up for the teacher which I found out later that it was a common occurrence. The lesson was about extracting caffeine from coffee and tea which was followed by a lab session to execute this through sublimation. Later, students experimented on a spirometer, sphygmomanometer, stethoscope and EKG which all incited my appetite to do the same at my school. In many of the classrooms, doors could be opened only from inside which in my opinion gives more autonomy to the teacher and reduces distraction. They also had a lesson called English conversation where the teacher encourages the students to practice speaking skills. One highlight was a 3-D printer which the school had won because of students’ project of a model that shows the planets in a very small scale. In other chemistry lab sessions, students were given the chance to make their own soap from fat.
On the last day, Jirka, the physics teacher showed me all different sorts of equipment that they use in their lab session and this time he had his lab session on forces and inertia. He had hands-on experiments in which students tested them in groups by rotation so they all get the chance to work on each one. On this day, I had the privilege to teach two biology lessons which students followed in a close way, however I noticed for some the English language was a bit of an obstacle although for many it did not pose any problem. I really liked the use of the smart board where you can draw easily on the board and make it easier for students to have an interactive lesson. The only odd thing which stood out for me was the phones with the students which were not allowed to be used by the rules, however in many instances I noticed students candidly using their phones.
In conclusion, all teachers showed their preparedness to my job shadowing mobility to a certain degree from helping me find the needed classroom to going out of their comfort zone and preparing printouts in English for me and the students along with having their lesson in English during some parts of their lesson. I studied many things during my mobility, especially in the areas of school facilities, collaboration between schools, and different teaching methodologies which included lab sessions almost every day.
Written by: Harout Parseghian
Avicenna International College, Budapest
01. Feb. 2025