The TTT project commences its first study camp.Tricontinental Teacher Training: Exchange students from Ghana and United States in Hamburg

18 May 2022, by Newsroom editorial office

Photo: UHH/Scholz

Students from three countries attend the opening event

At Universität Hamburg, getting international experience with other languages, cultures, and educational systems is a permanent part of teacher training. The Tricontinental Teacher Training program places a particular focus on cultural exchange. Currently, students from Ghana and the USA are visiting Hamburg.

The four week stay in Hamburg is the first study camp in the Tricontinental Teacher Training (TTT) program. The opening event yesterday welcomed a total of 13 students from the University of North Carolina and 16 from the University of Education Winneba. In February, teacher training students from Hamburg traveled as guests to both Ghana and the United States, and Hamburg now has the opportunity to welcome teacher training students from both countries here. They were greeted by the deans of the three faculties involved, as well as the US Consul General in Hamburg.

These guests, and their German fellow-students, will attend seminars at the University and visit and teach in German schools. They are staying with host families to help promote cultural exchange. They also take part in discussion with teachers and mentors at the schools they are visiting about the future of the profession and the role of teachers in the community. The topic of the study camp is the “culture of memory.” As part of this, the group will go to the Neuengamme Gedenkstätte, a holocaust memorial, and will examine the colonial past of Universität Hamburg and the city of Hamburg itself.

First in-person attendance in Hamburg

The TTT project, begun in 2020 and funded by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) provides students from all three countries to gather teaching experience in intercultural and transcultural contexts, and to prepare themselves for working in heterogeneous classrooms. Close supervision throughout the exchange, combined with numerous opportunities to reflect, discuss, and learn together are central to the project. After two years of the pandemic, and the visit of students from Hamburg abroad in February, this is the first time participants in the program have been able to meet in-person.