Teaching: Future E-Teachers on Top

An earlier blog entry described my visit to Lenke's class, a group of soon to be teachers. With the end of the school year even closer, these students will have an opportunity to influence Hungarian education in a very important way in their new roles.

A few weeks ago, they invited me to join them for a field trip to the tower of the Liceum (our building) where there is an observatory, the 'magic room', and the astronomical museum. The camera obscura is housed in a small dark room at the very top of the tower (see picture of the Liceum tower at right taken from Eger Castle).

It is an interesting optical device (mirrors, glass rods, and lenses) from the 1700s that projects images of the cityscape outside the building onto a flat table top within the tower. This is 360 degrees of reality, not virtual reality, and it is amazing to see cars move, people walk, pigeons fly, and clouds drift across the table as the operator moves the glass rods.



Liceum TV planned to interview the students, Lenke, and me while we were on our field trip. It was surprising that many of the students, although they had been at Eszterházy Károly for some years, had not seen the wonders at the top of the tower. We went to the astronomical museum, had a brief lecture and saw the meridian line on the floor and astronomical instruments from many places and times. We then went to the camera obscura, and watched as the blank table came alive with the images of the Eger Vár, Basilica, Minorite Templom, and Dobo Tér. Even Building B looked interesting through the camera obscura! I had seen the device three other times, and I was still very interested.

We waited on the Terrace for the television camera crew to be ready for us. It took quite awhile, and students took some photos, both straightforward and silly. The weather was beautiful, and the clear view of the city made the wait seem not so long. Finally, the interviewer was ready, asked how visual images might be used in our teaching.

I spoke of the blog, of course, and now here's the resulting post. I didn't ever see the program on Liceum TV--I'll have to ask Lenke and the students when I see them for the final time in class tomorrow. I'm going to show them this blog, and ask them to add to it with some comments in Hungarian.