Impressions of Barcelona . Visiting Escola Rel

(written from Sabrina and Hiltrud)

21st of may till 27th of may
 
What a nice beginning: Robert and Javi picked Hiltrud and me up from the airport.
Barcelona is hot. The view out of the car is very nice. We are looking
forward to our stay in
Barcelona. Both of us have never been to
Barcelona, not even in Spain. After our stay we learned, that itīs not spain, itīs Catalan, Castillan, Basks and so on.
On Thursday we could arrange a meeting with Mogens class. We decide to spend the day with the pupils and the teachers. 6 wheelchairs, 2 walkers and 7 "helpers". But we are not too many helpers. The city is so busy that we have to take good care, that we donīt miss each other. Everything seems to be crowded. An impression that I will take home:
Barcelona is always busy -
city never sleeping.
We enjoy the Picasso museum. The danish pupils are very well educated - we are impressed by their good behaviour. We spent a nice day together and have a lot to talk about. Meeting the danish pupils is much more interesting than talking about them in the chat, isnīt it?
In the evening we have a big dinner with 3 nations: Danish, Spanish,
German. We talk in french, english, german, danish. Very nice exchange of opinions, thoughts and small-talk. Our danish collegues leave the next day, so we retire early.
On friday morning we go by bus to REL. We enjoy the sight seeing of the town.
Barcelona is a very charming and very nice city. Itīs much bigger then I thought.
The houses make a mediterranean impression. There are very many
balconies, flowers, laundry drying. Everybody is busy, walking around and we wonder where are they all going. Later we found out, that there is only one big shopping area and everybody who likes to go schopping usually goes there.
When we stand in front of the school, we are not really sure if we are in the right place. It looks like a normal house. After ringing the bell, the door opens and we meet REL. It is a very nice small schoolbuilding - just like a family house. In the entrance is the secretary, the dining-room and the kitchen but also the class room for the smaller pupils. The classes are in small rooms and usually there are less than 10 pupils in each class.
Martha makes us welcome and we enjoy a spanish school day. What we enjoy most is sitting in the garden and eat together. This is surely something we should have, too. This way there is enough time for talking, planning, exchanging in a very nice atmosphere. We learn with the pupils to make papers. The pupils talk in spanish, but with showing itīs possible to understand.
After another break we are able to see a party. Itīs the celebration of the winners of a reading contest. The parents are proud, making pictures of their children and even two pupil of REL won a prize. Itīs a very nice party. The weather is lovely and we enjoy to sit outside. Afterwards there is even a buffet and we have a very good exchange in french and english.
On Saturday evening itīs possible to have a private sight seeing through
Barcelona with Marta, the school director. This way we here much about the city we wouldnīt know, because these information are not in our guide book.
We enjoy a very interesting discussion about differences and similars in our school politics and in the lessons we teach. We also discuss the problems of the Montessori education and we learn that itīs not very popular in
Barcelona while there are still some classes in Berlin.
On Monday we take the chance for another visit of the school. This day we are able to go into the lessons again. Itīs a very interesting day for visiting the school because the day before were the elections. This way we learn on the one hand something about the spanish politics in general and on the other hand we can listen to the opinions of the pupils. Two helpers, who are able to speak english translate the discussion for us and explain what the pupils mean. Itīs very interesting to see, that some pupils have a very
big interest in politics and have good arguments, others donīt care at all.
Just like everywhere...
The visit of
Barcelona is not only interesting because of the beautyful city, the very interesting cultural offer but also because of meeting persons youīve known only from e-mails and chatting. We learned a lot of Barcelona, school politics, education and the pupils of REL. We enjoyed it a lot.