Köln 2025
Aku, Henrik and Johanna in Cologne
We participated in an Erasmus+ Job Shadowing trip to Cologne, Germany in March 2025. We got to know the activities of the local community college Volkshochschule Köln (VHS-Köln). It is a federal-level facility that is divided into local units. They have a lot of courses to offer and they are very diverse, but we naturally focused on language and integration training during our visit. We got to know numerous teachers, administrative staff, social workers and also students. We observed, among other things, teaching, level testing and the use of system tools. The school had several locations in Cologne and we visited three of them.
Due to the public transport strike, a couple of items that were part of the original plan were left out of the program. The program was still very compact and efficient in the German way. The reception was very warm, the atmosphere was relaxed, and the program also included a thorough introduction to local history, traditions, and restaurant and beer culture.
In addition to the school activities, we discussed with city officials, among other things, integration measures and challenges related to integration, and we visited the Sprachraum, an open space for low-threshold integrationists in the library, and the Ludwig art museum, where we learned about the progressive pedagogical cooperation between the school and the museum. The program began on Monday in Cologne's most notorious suburb and ended on Thursday afternoon in the city hall's meeting room.
During the Erasmus+ visit, two language teachers from Terrassa, near Barcelona, joined us to bring a different perspective. The European spirit flourished, it was fun and there was plenty to discuss.
