A conference organized by the Faculty of Humanities and Education Sciences analyzed the keys to building educational communities

A conference organized by the Faculty of Humanities and Education Sciences analyzed the keys to building educational communities

At the conference, which was held on the Eskoriatza campus, the main keys to building educational communities were presented and participants learned about experiences to date and worked on steps to be taken for the future.

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The conference opened with a talk by the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Education Sciences of Mondragon University, Nagore Ipiña, who stressed the importance of “reflecting on local educational communities” because “cooperation has a multiplying potential.” Subsequently, Faculty professor and researcher Olaia Jiménez Arrieta gave a lecture entitled ‘Keys to building educational communities,’ in which she cited the main ideas in the book of the same name. She highlighted the importance of inclusion in educational communities through local educational networks, for which she listed and explained 7 main keys, which are community commitment, community trust, social trust, cooperation, transformative leadership, community participation and the interdependence of objectives. She also pointed out that the possibility exists of creating an egalitarian collaborative culture.

Next, in the round table entitled ‘Strategies and processes in building educational communities: experiences and learning,’ four speakers who work to accommodate local educational communities in their daily activity shared their experiences: Josu Curiel, director of the Bizarain BHI center in Errenteria; Jasone Giraldo, city councilwoman on the City Council of Arrasate; Eneko Lasa, member of the Urdanetarrak Guraso Association; and Maite Azpiazu, member of Oinherri and facilitator of processes of educative cities.

The participants in the round table reflected on what the main educational challenges are in cities, among other things. Urdanetarrak Guraso Association member Eneko Lasa said that the challenges that concern education reflect a reality beyond the field of education: “They are challenges for the whole community, not just educational challenges. In Ordizia there are great imbalances in several areas: in the Basque language, in the socio-economic situation... In Ordizia, and in many other municipalities in the Basque Country, the main challenge for the community is school segregation, which means that it is not a local challenge, but a national one, since it affects coexistence, social equality and the processes of euskaldunization.” In relation to this issue, Arrasate City Council councilwoman Jasone Giraldo explained that educational challenges must be faced from the frame of reference of the municipality and collectively: “In Arrasate, we started with concern about the transmission of the Basque language, and with the diagnosis we made about that, we came to identify challenges such as coexistence and cohesion. But the most important thing was that a forum was created with all the agents that make up the local education system, because that mutual knowledge is essential to reverse the inertia of each agent. That’s how we came to the conclusion that we had the same challenges and the same concerns. The turning point, in Arrasate, was the joint action organized by all the schools on Shrove Tuesday: that simple moment was key in the process.” OinHerri member Maite Azpiazu mentioned that “the process of creating educational communities is usually an exercise in generosity. The process requires leaving aside some things that are very specific to each of us.” She added that there are four main necessities in the processes of creating educational communities: “It is necessary to create shared forums, to devote time to these forums, to believe in the processes, and above all, to provide resources for the processes (above all, you have to have the support of municipal educational technicians, but in the Basque Autonomous Community there are few technicians in this area). The reality is that the survival of these processes often comes down to the will of the city councils.” For his part, the director of the Bizarain BHI center in Errenteria, Josu Curiel, stressed that the process of establishing the educational community in Errenteria was what led the members of that community to get to know each other, and that consequently, he was able to get to know the town itself better: “Wanting to face this challenge, creating the network, meant thinking from a more general and collective prism, from the perspective of the town.”

Finally, the conference attendees carried out a group exercise in which they were able to reflect and share experiences in small working groups.