Varied Mosaic of EDU Days 2019

Over two thousand participants were attracted by a miscellaneous programme of lectures, workshops, exhibitions, concerts, sporting events and other activities to the UHK Pedagogical Faculty. Within one week of March 25-30, 2019, departments of the Faculty of Education and other partners have prepared a unique show of their activities.

"Our EDU Days show a great branch scope of the largest faculty of the University of Hradec Králové", the Dean of the Faculty of Education, František Vaníček says and emphasizes that "this year is moreover ceremonial for the Faculty of Education, as we commemorate the 60^th anniversary of the university teacher training in East Bohemia."

A lecture by journalist and historian Stanislav Motl entitled Waiting for Death: Czechs before the Third Reich Courts opened the EDU Days. It also included the introduction of Motl's new documentary film about Czech resistance fighters, persons on the waiting list for the guillotine death, who were imprisoned and executed in German prisons during World War II. The audience heard an engaging narrative in the University assembly hall about the lives of those who had been sentenced to death for their heroic activity, and also about the lifestyle of their executioners. The speech was completed by JUDr. Miroslav Antl, Senator and Chairman of the Constitutional Legal Committee of the Senate of the Czech Republic, with a legal interpretation of the view at that time of the state of facts of the crimes and the punishments imposed.

The audience who has completely filled our assembly hall in the main lecture of the EDU Days of this year heard about the fact that some signs of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may have some selective advantage in gifted individuals and that references to the occurrence of ADHD have appeared already since 1775. Professor Cyril Höschl, a psychiatrist, presented the lecture under the name Is ADHD a historical novum? on Wednesday.

The Wednesday programme also included a gala evening of the Faculty of Education in the Hradec Králové Philharmonic Hall - a unique opportunity for a meeting of academics and students of the Faculty of Education with dear guests from the other faculties and universities, representatives of the public and cultural life of the Hradec Králové Region and the city of Hradec Králové and other precious guests. The programme included an award for outstanding personalities from the Faculty of Education.

Mgr. Jan Suk, Ph.D., who works at the Department of English Language and Literature was awarded by the Praemium Scientificum for contribution to science and research. The senior lecturer Vlastimil Vodák, an academic painter, from the Department of Art Culture and Textile Production was awarded by the Praemium Artificiosum for contribution in the field of art. Professor PhDr. Eva Jenčková, CSc., from the Department of Music was awarded by the Praemium Paedagogicum. PhDr. Jindřich Kesner, CSc., from the Department of Slavonic Studies was awarded by the Praemium Cooperationis Internationalis for contribution to internationalization. MgA. Jan Kyselák was awarded by the Medal for his long-term contribution to the development of the Faculty of Education.

This year's anniversary of the Faculty of Education also underlined the thanks to all the Deans of the Faculty of Education, who not only contributed to the flourishing of higher education for teachers in our region, but also contributed to the foundation of the whole University of Hradec Králové thanks to their forward-looking and accommodating attitude.

The second part of the gala evening was a magnificent concert of the Department of Music’s students, who performed with accompaniment of the Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra under the conductor Jan Zbavitel.

EDU Days offer a unique opportunity for sharing experiences and for meeting practical teachers with academics. A special place in the programme therefore pertains to a discussion block of faculty teachers and school headmasters School at School, which took place on Tuesday. It was followed by the performance of the faculty choirs and the opening of the exhibition Resume 6, which is a show of the work of students from the Department of Art, Visual Culture and Textile Studies.

The EDU Days also include professional conferences that have a tradition, and host researchers from abroad too. Let us name at least Hradec Králové Anglophone Conference 2019, International Conference on Literature for Youth 2019, Informatics Thinking in Kindergarten and Elementary School or On the Road to Education for Life Responsible to People and Nature.

The 27^th EDU Days had great international participation too. Lectures by international partners from the Erasmus+ Teacher Mobilities programme were also included. For example, the current political situation on the Korean peninsula was introduced by Professor Yi Ki Ho, head of the Centre for Peace and Public Integrity of the South Korean Hanshin University. Another interesting guest was docent Sergey Zasorin, Director of the Institute of Foreign Languages at the Moscow State University of Education, who, in cooperation with the Department of English Language and Literature and the Department of Slavonic Studies, presented interesting topics of Slavic Borrowings into English: Historical Contexts and Comparative Analyses and Историческая память современных россиян/Historical memory of contemporary Russians.

Friday early evening belonged to the closing ceremonial presentation of the Stories of our Neighbours project. Ten secondary school documentary teams have presented their work, recording the memories of ten witnesses and processing them into their own video reports. The secondary school students for their final presentation at the beginning of this year were also prepared by our students from the Department of Czech Language and Literature under Mgr. Michal Čuřín. They focused with them on the culture of speech and performance and practical training of the presentation of the final performance. The solemn presentation of the project was also accompanied by an outdoor freely accessible exhibition.

More than seventy events were held in different places of the Faculty of Education. The largest part of the programme took place in a new building in the university campus Na Soutoku. The genre and thematic diversity of events cannot be briefly summarized. Therefore, we recommend that you also take a look back at the detailed programme of the EDU Days 2019, which, among other things, brings annotations of individual events and it is free to download.

A photo gallery is also published at Facebook pages.