Jan Amos Komensky (John Amos Comenius)

Once upon a time, long ago, in the seventeenth century, an inspired teacher and education reformer from Czech Republic, Jan Amos Komensky, known as John Amos Comenius, dreamed of Global Education. Comenius was born in fifteen ninety-two in Moravia and in his early years became a bishop of the Moravian church. Nominated teacher of nations, Comenius is considered the father of modern education. He lived and worked in many different countries in Europe, including Sweden, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Transylvania, the Holy Roman Empire, England, the Netherlands and Royal Hungary. He believed in the holistic concept of education that is, learning, spiritual and emotional growths are all woven together. His educational reform is based on the idea of education according to nature and learning foreign languages through the vernacular using teaching techniques that make the acquisition of knowledge a pleasure rather than a task. He was the first to use pictures in textbooks. He taught that education began in the earliest years of childhood and continued throughout life. He published 154 books, most of them about educational philosophy and religion. He died in Amsterdam in 1670.

La Diada de Sant Jordi

We received beautiful rose from Paquita to remind us about Saint George`s Day!

La Diada de Sant Jordi  - Saint George's Day is a Catalan holiday held on 23 April. The main event is the exchange of gifts between sweethearts, loved ones and colleagues. Historically, men gave women roses, and women gave men a book to celebrate the occasion—"a rose for love and a book forever." In modern times, the mutual exchange of books is also customary. Roses have been associated with this day since medieval times, but the giving of books is a more recent tradition originating in 1923, when a bookseller started to promote the holiday as a way to commemorate the nearly simultaneous deaths of Miguel Cervantes and William Shakespeare on 23 April 1616.Barcelona is the publishing capital of both Catalan and Spanish languages and the combination of love and literacy was quickly adopted.Catalonia exported its tradition of the book and the rose to the rest of the world. In 1995, the UNESCO adopted 23 April as World Book and Copyright Day.

source:wikipedia

Easter in Catalonia.

HAPPY EASTER!

We start celebration with Palm Sunday. We go to church with handmade colour palms ( made of flowers, paper, grass and branches) to bless them.

Palms

It`s Easter today. Yesterday we blessed in the church basket full of food. Traditionaly we fill the basket with eggs ( pisanki - painted ones) , sausage, bread, salt, horse- radish and add Paschal lamb (Christ is seen as the "Lamb of God.") and decorate it with white lace napkin and branches of boxwood. We went to special very early morning mass called Ressurection Mass. Then we had breakfast with all the family and we started with pieces of blessed Easter eggs and exchanged best wishes. Tomorrow Easter Monday -the most important tradition of this day is Smingus - Dyngus - boys try to drench girls with buckets of water. Nowdays rather a little bit of splash not the whole bucket :-)

Paschal Lamb on the grass 

Easter basket

Easter market at school