Our meeting in Volos, Greece

Monday, February 11, 2019

The second set of meetings for our Erasmus+ project, "Dealing with Gifted Education", commenced in Volos, Greece on February 11th, 2019.

Volos is a picturesque port city on the eastern coast of Greece, and it lies in the north of Athens and the south of Thessaloniki.

On the first day of the meetings, we visited one of the project partners, 9th Primary School of Nea Ionia. The day opened with the welcoming speech of Georgios Valis, school principal, and continued with traditional dances performed by the students. At the end of the students' performance, all participating partners were invited to dance with the students 

The day proceeded with the first meeting held at the school where the project logos prepared by the partner schools were shared with all partners. The project coordinator introduced the webpage prepared for the project. This was followed by each partner country describing and sharing the existing procedures and applications in each country for recognizing and working with gifted students. It was realized that despite promising developments in each country in recent years, there were also similar challenges faced in all countries regarding educating gifted students. 

At the end of the meeting, Sefa Akseki shared the details of the draft schedule for the meeting to be held in May 2019 in İzmir, Turkey.

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Each country shared a presentation where five prominent scientists from the country were introduced to the others. This helped the participants in learning about and/or remembering important scientists who have contributed in various ways to humanity.

This was followed by a presentation titled "Gifted Students in Maths" by Stella A. Dimitrakopoulou, head of the Volos Branch of the Hellenic Mathematical Society. She shared with us information on the procedures followed in Volos in choosing gifted students in maths and the program followed by volunteer teachers in educating them further in mathematics. 

The day continued with an art workshop where each teacher was gifted a piece of slate and a printed photograph of the city of Volos. The teachers transferred the photos onto the slates and now have life-long memorabilia from Volos.

The day was concluded with a cultural trip to Portaria and Makrynitsa villages on Mount Pelion.

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

The third day started with choosing the logo for the project. The logos prepared by each country were presented, and the Bulgarian logo was selected to represent the project.

The group then watched the movie "Gifted" and discussed some questions evaluating the recognition of gifted students, the difficulties they face in life, and how to deal with these difficulties.

The last activity of the day was a visit to the University of Thessaly where we were given two presentations. The first presentation, by Theodoros Kokinos, was titled "Gifted students: Features and Teaching Support". Dr.Kokinos emphasized Renzulli's Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness and talked about differentiating the lessons. The second presentation, by ........, explained .........

Thursday, February 13, 2019

Thursday was dedicated to discovering the beauties around Volos. As different from other days, we had little guests with us that day. As a result, in addition to the beauties of Meteora, we also witnessed the positive behaviors, curiosity, and enthusiasm of our little guests. Seeing the gigantic rocks of Meteora and the monasteries over those rocks was a shocking surprise for our little guests. It was a pleasant experience for us to see the excitement of this first encounter in children.

Later, we had lunch in Trikala, the hometown of famous Greek musician Vasilis Tsitsanis. It would be unfair not to remember this talented musician in a project trip related to giftedness. When Vassilis Tsitsanis passed away on January 18, 1984, music historians and experts knew that there would never be another Tsitsanis . It was the worst of luck not being able to visit the museum house of this famous musician.

Friday, February 14, 2019

Friday was the last day of the project meeting. We started the day by visiting an archeological area called Dimini, which is a Neolithic settlement in central Greece, near the Mesolithic settlement of Sesclo. The excavations on the low hill revealed an extensive stone age settlement. The site was inhabited continuously from the late Neolithic period (4800-4500 BCE). The settlement provided us with important information about the people and their lifestyles at that time. Then we visited the archological museum and city museum Those gave us an overlook about life in Volos and its surrounding area throughout history. After that, the Estonian team presented the results of the previous meeting which had been held in Alcala, Spain. We were informed that everybody who had joined the meeting in Alcala was fully satisfied about the activities there. At the end of the day, we were very happy when we received our certificates from School Director Yorgo Valis.