The joy of exploring

This is a student’s view on the quality of education. Just a kind of feedback, a very positive one.

I spent the whole weekend at SAMK in Kankaanpää studying calligraphy. I tried and wrote, sometimes succeeding, sometimes not exactly - but enjoyed anyway. And I wasn't the only one.

We were guided through the ancient history of writing by Ewan Clayton, a British calligrapher and professor at the University of Sunderland.

- It’s fun, said Ewan. Repeatedly. And yes, it was.

It's not an exaggeration to say that we loved the enthusiasm of our teacher, and his very relaxed high level expertise. He was still interested in the subjects he was teaching to us - and interested in learning more about them, him too.

We listened, we looked, we wrote. We traced, we made slight modifications, tried different viewpoints. Our teacher repeated core things, explained his choices, told stories which made history living and things connected to each other, tried to make sure that we had understood the main points, encouraged us, sliced the teaching with breaks and light exercise... All these are quite nice pedagogical points.

"Next time we'll do much more scripts - and faster! (Laugh.) We have to through 1000 years." In this case I consider that a promise. We'll going to have fun! And that's a good thing for learning.

Anne

PS. Good classes are a joy! Of course there are many kinds of tales and stories about teaching, studying and learning at SAMK. Part of the roses and thorns we hear as feedback given in the classes and as a course feedback. Also the report on the Big Student Survey of SAMK will soon be ready.