News

17 to 21 August 2023

APCEIU held a “Korea-Japan Teacher’s Network on GCED 2023” workshop with 33 Korean and Japanese teachers from 17 to 21 August 2023. Launched in 2021, the Network activities have been conducted online for the past two years and it was the first workshop held in the form of a ‘face-to-face workshop’. During the 5-day workshop, participating teachers shared their activities on student/teacher exchange and joint classes, learned from one another through good case sharing, and planned for future actions together. 

The workshop started with the sessions at APCEIU in Seoul, followed by four days of field training at the DMZ Peace-Life Valley in Inje, Gangwon Province.

The first day of the workshop included poster presentation sessions to understand the participants’ practices and educational activities. The sessions provided an opportunity to exchange information about various activities done in schools and communities in Japan and Korea, fostering future student/teacher interaction and collaborative activities.

On the second day, the participants moved to Inje, Gangwon, and visited a Korean school (Inje High School) to have a better understanding of the educational environment and system of Korea and interact with the Korean students.

Subsequently, various sessions with the theme of peace and life were provided at the DMZ Peace-Life Valley. Starting with the opening lecture by Mr. JUNG Sung-Heon, director of the DMZ Peace Life Valley, workshops and activities such as sharing of GCED practices, educational activities of Korea and Japan by grade level·subject·theme, Education of Sustainable Development (ESD), Peace/GCED, watching documentary film and discussing with the film director, and interacting with the village residents and educators, were followed. 

During the educational seminars, Korean and Japanese teachers participated as speakers and facilitators to present GCED practices in both countries. Not only they compare the educational approaches by grade levels (elementary and secondary) and subject (English, social studies, etc.), but also discussed practices and cases on the topics of ESD, critical media literacy, international exchange practices, and peace-oriented classrooms.

Additionally, the participants engaged in activities on the themes of sustainable energy and climate crisis, field studies and organic farming, focusing on learning about the values of peace and life through the place of DMZ (demilitarized zone). The participants also visited Netgang Village in Inje to interact with community educators from the local area, learning about the implementation of GCED and ESD within the region. Moreover, the teachers had a chance to share and learn about each other's culture through Japanese and Korean cuisine preparation, rice cake pounding, and cultural performances.

The last day of the workshop consisted of the session sharing ideas for future activities including student/teacher interaction, collaborative research, and lesson planning. In the post-workshop survey questionnaire, participants reflected that this workshop allowed them to deeply understand and share educational activities from teachers’ perspectives of both countries. Also, they have realized that GCED should be extended beyond theory into practical application. Furthermore, they highlighted the meaningful experience of becoming friends with teachers from the two countries, through which they could learn about their roles as global citizens from various viewpoints. The teachers expressed their commitment to continue fostering deeper and more intimate interaction with teachers from both countries, with the hope of contributing to the establishment of peaceful relationships among students, schools, and local communities.

APCEIU will continue to provide diverse follow-up activities for the teachers to further expand meaningful cooperation through the Korean-Japanese Teacher’s Network on GCED.

https://www.unescoapceiu.org/post/4881