Our third meeting was held in the beautiful city of Izmir. We landed there on Saturday night and got ready for our first activity on Sunday morning.

Our welcome couldn't have been better. We joined all our partners, except for the Bulgarian team that arrived on Sunday night. We had a fabulous day visiting the ancient town of Aphrodisias and having the chance to meet new friends and get in touch again with the old ones. APhrodisias is a Unesco's world heritage site. We learned that it was famous in ancient times for its sanctuary of Aphrodite and its marble sculptors and made known to us thanks to the Turkish archaeologist Kenam Erim. We visited the museum and had a rainy walk through the site.

To bring the day to a perfect close, we all enjoyed a wonderful dinner with music at our host Sefa Akseki's place.

Monday, 6th May 2019

Our first day at school started with the Flag Ceremony; all teachers and students get together and the headmasters inform them about the main activities in the week. Then, they honour the Turkish flag. Erasmus + participants were welcomed to the school with a warm speech.

We did a school tour and appreciated how school facilities are planned to house the educational program: wonderful music classrooms, an amazing library, green spaces etc.

Members of the student's council executive board explained its organization; after that, we were informed about the extracurricular activities program which is carefully designed to help gifted students develop their personalities and skills. Although extracurricular by name, it's mandatory for students to participate at least in one, and attendance is a requirement. There are more than 100 clubs, including debate, film making, history, dance, sports, news, drama, languages, music etc just to name a few. We particularly liked the idea that apart from this, all students should be members of a social service club when they graduate; students become aware of social and environmental problems. Among other services, students do activities at a Children's hospital, help at an animal shelter, teach English at sister schools or spend some time with elderly people. It's a pledge to ACI's moto:

After lunch, we were explained how arts and music are key in students' development. Visual arts teacher spoke about the role of teacher both as a bridge to help students join their ideas with techniques, and as a coach to push them further. Creativeness and learning by doing were other concepts brought up in several occasions.

To end the session at school, we enjoyed an art workshop where we showed our creativity painting nice bags.

The day's program ended with the old town tour nicely guided by one of the school students, and dinner all together.

 Tuesday, 7th May 2019

Our morning started visiting SEV school. It's the primary school and it shares campus with the ACI but in different buildings. SEV also pays attention to service-learning, English lessons and extra-curricular activities. Facilities include an amazing library with areas for children to read and enjoy storytelling, sport areas and even an urban garden.

After a traditional dance performance by the children, we split into small groups to observe a few classes: English, Maths, Music, Technology and robotics... We were explained some techniques that teachers use in their classes; they try to encourage children to help each other and become autonomous. They always have extra activities for those who end their tasks early.

They have a really nice classroom atmosphere and children were always willing to talk to us and learn about our countries.

After lunch we met some gifted students and debated the concept of intelligence. ACI TV club members presented the topic as an interview and students shared their stories with us. We learned that usually those students excel in more than one area, for example one of them was in the national chess team, played piano and was also a volleyball player. These students always need to push their limits, but their stories were not only about success, but also about difficulties to fit, to find their way; they can even fail; for those reasons, they are very sensitive and face painful moments. Just because they are gifted it doesn't mean they don't need emotional and educational support.  

This part ended with a music performance by Senem Ersin Genç. The afternoon concluded with the evaluation meeting and the comments of all members.

Wednesday, 8th May 2019

Our morning was dedicated to a film session and further debate about it. To create some atmosphere, the school band played a few songs. It was an amazing performance. The film was "Whiplash" about a young drummer at a prestigious conservatory, his dream-obsession to be the best and the odd relation with his teacher and his peculiar methods.

We worked in teams to discuss the movie from different points of view and presented our arguments to the rest.

The afternoon started with an interesting presentation by Mr Erkan Erdik from BSAM, about the evolution and current situation of gifted education in Turkey. He described educational laws and policies, the criteria for selection, their procedures and program to attend the needs of gifted students. BSAM has a supporting education program where they place importance not only in contents but also in communication skills, research, working in groups etc. The program has several stages: first, mainly to orientate students; second, a supporting education program to gain some skills, and third, focussed on individual talent development. Along the session other topics dealt with were family support and teachers' guidance to the extent of their means.

Our evening continued with a tour of Alaçati, a charming small village with narrow streets and colourful houses. For many reasons we felt at home there...

Thursday, 9th May 2019

Thursday was a day full of surprises. We started visiting math village, a curious place created by Professor Ali Nesin where math lessons take place in a peaceful, natural environment; students can visit for a day or stay up to two weeks sharing not only math classes, but also helping in all the daily chores.

We continued to the village of Sirince, a mixture of Turk-Greek culture surrounded by mountains where we had lunch before visiting Ephesus, the jewel in the crown of Turkey's archaeological sites. The Ancient City of Ephesus is an outstanding example of a Roman port city and a UNESCO's world heritage site.

Friday, 10th May 2019

Our last day we attended a very interesting seminar about giftedness. The speakers were Dr Ahmet Bildiren from Adnan Menderes University and Dr Nagehan Demiral, from the department of children and adolescent's psychiatry.

Dr Bildiren started his speech talking about the meaning of giftedness, what is required to consider a child as gifted and the difficulties to diagnose giftedness. Not only IQ's are valid, there are other factors to be considered such as values, production and the need to show evidence. Giftedness is a multidimensional concept and therefore multiple diagnosis systems are required. In his speech he also talked about some negative characteristics of gifted children, such as inadaptability and problems to follow rules.

Dr Demiral remarked the importance of early diagnosis. The role of teachers is significant specially for children in lower class of society, because they may be the only reference for those children; so, she remarked that teachers should know how to handle giftedness. Dr. Demiral also analysed pros and cons of different tests and concluded that there is no perfect evaluation, but continuous check and support would help.

On the second part of the session, speakers dealt with other topics such as emotional development, social skills, the influence of social and economic level, learning disabilities, behavioural symptoms, motivation etc. There are lots to be done in respect to gifted students, but we all learned a bit more during this seminar.

After the lunch break, we continued planning the next meeting to be held in Tallin, Estonia next October.

The school week ended as it has started, with the Flag ceremony and after that we all received our certificates of assistance.

A fun dinner brought this perfect week to an end, and we will always be grateful to the Turkish team for their great work and warm hospitality. 

Teşekkür!!!!