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• TO-GATHER FESTIVAL ON APRIL 8 IN TORHOUT, BELGIUM A GREAT SUCCESS

  19.04.2011 11:43

  The FestivaL in Torhout was a great success and a good part of the chain of the To-Gatherfestivals since November 2009. It was a good work as a presentation of the products from practice, a gathering of the To-Gatherpeople and a source of inspiration for the implementation in the future.

  I would like to thank Hugo Verkest for the great organisation, the students for their partiocipation and the To-Gatherpeople for their inspiration. Especially I would like to thank the mayor to invite us to the Townhall. And finally the sun for shining all day.

  An overview by Jan van Gemert, a teacher from Koning Willem I College in Den Bosch:

  The atmosphere was good. Especially because of the variety in workshops based around the theme Remembrance. The students said to me that they liked the combination of doing en thinking as base for this theme. There was a flow. There was a programme with clear overview. A good structured program and an introduction with information about the project To-Gather.

  A recommendation by Erich Mestriner from Audiofeel:

  Ask the students to think about vizualise the festival and / or let them vizualise it ( decorations / posters / paintings etc.. etc... Let the student make a small documentairy about it, what can be shown on the opening of Festival , to show the visitors what they did to make their festival a succes.) Later these movies could become a nice collection of youtube movies, and a nice archive to present to other countries, for anticipating the To-Gather festival .

  An impression of the To-Gather Festival in Torhout by Katarina Cuba (former student of the minor 'Create your future')

  It was Thursday morning and we were on our way to Torhout in Belgium. I was very excited and nervous at the same time because I didn't know what to expect. It was my first time being part of the festival. However, when I met other members of to-Gather-Family my fears were gone. It was a group of people of different ages and cultural backgrounds, language. But we still had something in common. We came together to Torhout to make this festival the best in every possible way. The whole event was well organised which contributed to good spirit. Theme of the festival was Remembering for the future and there were 17 different workshops, some in Dutch and some in English. I was taking part in Marijke van de Hel's workshop: Een nieuwe plek onder de zon (a new place under the sun). It was interesting workshop about reasons why people move and how some of them move voluntarily and some are forced by something/others. I am an exchange student in Groningen, I followed the minor 'Create your future' and I live here for the last 8 months. In this workshop I was able to share my experiences with students about moving to another country. After the workshops and »serious« work we finished the festival with the concert of Audiofeel and art performances by the dancer Margarita Kamjaka and the poppin-dancer Jeffrey Hoofs. It was a very nice festival and I was happy I could be part of it. Until next time »We love you« and see you in Presov.

  Evaluation of the To-Gather Festival/VOET-dag ' Remembrance for the future'

  8 April 2011, Torhout, Belgium

  By Alistair Ross of the Advisory Board

  This evaluation has been prepared as part of the overall evaluation of the To-Gather programme of European festivals, 2009-2011. It is based on observations and informal interviews. A separate analysis of formal evaluation sheets completed by participants on the day is being prepared by the Torhout organising team..

  The festival was primarily conducted over one day, with preliminary welcoming events the previous day, and a management/evaluation meeting the following day. The event was hosted at the KATHO Teacher Training Campus at Torhout, and was designed to combine the Belgian expression of the To-Gather Festival programme with part of the Flanders teacher training programme in cross-curricular studies (VOET). VOET is a combination of health education, environmental education, citizenship education and social remembrance, taught in primary and secondary schools in the province. This particular day was called Herinneren voor de toekost (Remembering for the future), and was an optional activity for the 900 student teachers at the Torhout campus. These students were from all three years of the course, aged mostly between 18 and 22, and were training for primary, secondary and special education. About 250 students opted for the Festival/day: the other 650 elected for alternative programmes on the day. Unlike other To-Gather festivals, school students were not involved, partly because the fact that this day was the final day of the schools' spring trimester, making it logistically difficult to organise. The advantage of focussing the day exclusively on student teachers allowed workshops to concentrate of a particular age range and a particular vocational training element. The disadvantage was that the students adopted a rather instrumental approach to the day, perceiving it as part of the teacher training curriculum that they needed to experience, and some of them looking very much for practical help with their teaching practice.

  The participants were thus (approximately)

  • 250 teacher training students at Torhout

  • 10 Erasmus students at the college (TR, LT, SK, BG, ES)

  • 20 workshop presenters (80% from NL and BE, also from SK, UK and LV)

  • staff from Torhout

  • To-Gather organisers and leaders, performers and press.

  The programme consisted of a short introduction to the aims of the Festival and the day, followed by workshops. There were 16 different activities, organised into nine pathways, each of three 90 minute workshops. Students chose which pathway to follow, with about 25-30 students in each pathway: information on the pathways had been made available to them on an interactive site two months earlier, and choices logged electronically. After the workshops there was a performance event, lasting about 75 minutes.

  The evaluation is based on informal interviews with some of the workshop presenters, some students, and the organisers of the day, plus observations made at the time, and the observations of some of the organisers/presenters at a meeting on the day following the Festival.

  The day as a whole was efficiently organised. The timetable was clear, and timekeeping good. The rooms were all well organised, clearly signed, and were fully equipped and suitable for the activities. Organisers and participants were fully informed. The event was organised at relatively short notice (it was first suggested in September 2010, and planned in its entirety in the following six months: this was clearly not a problem).

  The content of the day was an amalgam of local needs and the significant elements of the To-Gather programme. The fact that it specifically addressed the needs to the VOET programme was a motivating factor for students. Of the 16 activities in the workshops, about 40% related directly to To-Gather, and 40% to the ‘remembrance' theme (specifically to the world wars). The remaining 20% either related to both, or were not categorised. The programme was carefully constructed, to ensure that both of these elements were present in each of the various possible pathways. The structure could thus be seen to be highly effective in terms of the To-Gather objectives, but only partially so in terms of the VOET curriculum. About half the presenters had been involved in earlier Festivals. Presentations were largely in Dutch, though six were wholly or partly in English.

  The following analysis is centred on the processes attempted, not the individual products that were presented. It was understood that the event was essentially a participatory activity, designed to affect individual perceptions of identities and communities through participation in activities, not as a series of performances to be sat through. The activities and stimuli (‘sense-openers;, in the To-Gather language) were thus intended to stimulate, provoke and initiate, not to be simply consumed. Not all those presenting necessarily seemed aware of this.

  Introduction

  This started slightly late, but finished on time. Programmes were distributed. Students were initially reminded of the VOET focus of the day, and then introduced to the To-Gather theme with the ‘sense-opener' film of ‘Europe' and a short talk. The session was abbreviated in order to keep to the timetable, and this meant that some useful information (about the expectations of the day, etc.) was curtailed.

  Workshops

  Four workshops were observed, fully or in part. The workshops were all very well prepared and organised. Students appeared fully engaged at all times. Some workshop organisers reported that students distanced themselves; more felt that they participated well. There was a tension between the instrumental needs of the students (many of whom were focussed on their forthcoming teaching practice in schools) and the desire of the organisers/presenters to fuse theory and practice in a more general educational experience. It would have helped in the presenters of the three workshops in each pathway had met briefly previously, so that the three experiences could be (very loosely) linked together, and explained to the students. As it was, there was a risk that some students may have seen their experiences as disjointed.

  During the day, a film was recorded of the various activities. It seems that this was not explained to the participants, and their consent to be filmed was not obtained. I would recommend that explicit permission to film be obtained in future, and the intended availability of the images be defined to the participants.

  A workshop on remembering individuals in WW1 focused on a family history. A wide range of teaching styles were employed - photographs, documents, poetry, a children's book etc. - presented through a powerpoint display. There were a number of interactive sessions with the students (an extended one early in the session), but this was not sustained at this intensity, through there was a sustained approach to secure students responses. However, the session was largely didactic in nature. Nevertheless, students were engaged and responsive throughout, asking appropriate questions, etc. They said that they enjoyed the session and found it informative and very relevant to their VOET theme.

  A drama workshop ambitiously brought together conceptual models of teaching with experiential learning in a wholly interactive and participatory session. Students were invited to recreate a set of relationships between individuals in the past, based on a collection of related artefacts. The presenter skilfully reacted to the suggestions of the student group, manipulating her activities and materials to accommodate their suggestions, but maintaining her overall learning objectives. In the process, she also demonstrated a number of practical teaching techniques. The presentation was highly professional, and students were very engaged and participated effectively. There was little time to explain the underlying theory (explained in a handout). Students said that they enjoyed the activity, and gained a great deal from this, particularly in terms of ideas for their own teaching. However, it was not clear how much this related to the (very effective) practical approaches and the content of the workshop, and how much of the underlying theory of the relationship between conceptual learning and experiential learning had been taken on board.

  The dance workshop that was observed was well-planned and very professionally executed. However, the relationship between this and the To-Gather/Remembrance themes was not explained (nor was it very obvious to me - though others involved could make connections). (There was a reference to ‘muscle memory' in the learning process; if this was intended to link to the remembrance theme, it seemed a little forced.) It appeared to be extraneous to the main programme, which was a pity. It would seem important that each activity or workshop should be given a rationale that demonstrates its relevance to the day. Nevertheless, the students clearly enjoyed the activity, worked hard, and said that they had a sense of achievement from participating. But they could not suggest links between this and the rest of the day. It should be noted that the same criticism should not be made of other dance and music sessions, where links with the themes were made explicit.

  A history workshop focussed on getting groups of students to reflect on phases of European history and on attitudes and beliefs. Groups created mini-dramas in which they responded to the character of Europe. The learning objectives were very clear, with useful materials drawn from the To Gather repertoire in support. There was a good mix of didactic and participatory activities. The student response was focussed and appropriate: they worked hard, interacted intelligently and thoughtfully with the activity, and clearly learned a lot.

  Although these four workshops have been analysed independently, the earlier point about the totality of the student experience should be re-emphasised. The quality of the day must be assessed in terms of the experiential effect of the totality of the workshops, not in respect of the individual components, or of the components as products to be consumed. The overall quality was thus rated very highly, in terms of its potential to make students reflect and evaluate their own identities and characteristics in the context of interactions with others, and the development of conceptions of communities.

  The final performance

  This started slightly late, and then over-ran. Unfortunately this meant that the audience began to thin after the announced end time, as some students had to leave to catch trains, buses, etc. But the engagement with the performances was consistently high. If the participants had all been present, this would also have been an appropriate and useful time to encourage shared reflections, and emotional and intellectual responses on the experiences of day, but there was not time - nor was it planned for.

  The programme of activities was a well-planned mix of ‘local' and To Gather acts - all performed to a high standard, and all relating the themes of the day.