Seminars for middle-grade teachers
As of autumn 2014, the KIKPE Foundation, in collaboration with the Future Library non-governmental organisation, the Public and Municipal Libraries of Greece and the regional Educational Counsellors, undertook the initiative to organise model teachings, intended for middle-grade teachers. The programme’s title reads “From Research to Teaching” and focuses on four courses of the middle-grade curriculum: Ancient Greek, Modern Greek, History and Principles of Economics. The model teachings will take place at the reading rooms of the libraries and will be provided by experts working at Greek universities and research institutes.
The program entitled “From Research to Teaching” is inspired by the evergreen educational ideal of W. von Humboldt (1767-1835), who believed that university researchers must teach the subject they work on and are, therefore, very well aware of. The problem of training middle-grade teachers is especially crucial today, since it has been intensified after the Regional Training Centres (PEK) were essentially abolished.
Moreover, the KIKPE foundation, in collaboration with the Contemporary Social History Archives (ASKI), organises 12 seminars per year on subjects concerning the participation of Greece in the Second World War, the Occupation and the Civil War. These seminars will be gradually extended to various periods of the country’s post-war history. The teachings are conducted in the lounge of the Society for the Study of Modern Hellenism (Mnimon).
The cycles of the seminars are designed to broaden the horizons of teachers so that they may be able to respond to modern methods of teaching and alternative transmission of knowledge. An additional aim of the cooperating institutions is to enable the wider community of teachers to attend the Seminars through the online learning platform edu.futurelibrary.gr (in collaboration with the FL) and the website www.blod.gr (in collaboration with ASKI).
The years 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17: twelve Public and Municipal Libraries hosted on their premises the three cycles of Seminars