The self-reflected democratic practitioner

A journey to democratic teacher ethos and a democratic culture in school


Welcome to the RFCDC Teacher Reflection Tool!

  • Do you experience challenges related to bullying, prejudice and discrimination in your school?
  • Would you like to see your students cooperating more and competing less?
  • Do you feel that you are not always reaching out to your students in classroom interaction?

If these questions sound familiar to you, this self-reflection tool might be the right companion for you.

Purpose of this tool

The purpose of this tool is to accompany teachers and multipliers in this process and in their work with the Council of Europe’s Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (RFCDC). It can be used as a starter to get acquainted with the RFCDC but can also be seen as a very general companion to self-reflection on teaching and democratic competences. This tool can guide you and structure your journey of exploring and developing your role and practice as a teacher, while allowing you to decide how much time and effort you wish to spend on it.

Structure of the tool

  • Discovering the model of competences for democratic culture
  • Warming up: familiarising yourself with observation, reflection and self-reflection on CDC
  • The modules: reflective modules following the focus themes of the Council of Europe’s project “Free to Speak, Safe to Learn – Democratic Schools for All”. The modules can be done in any order; each module is a separate, independent unit.

No matter whether you are already experienced or hear the first time about RFCDC – this tool can become a companion for your professional life.

You can use it
  • In order to get familiar with reflection
  • From time to time as a stimulus for reflection
  • In a structured way in your daily work
  • As a “course” in your teacher training
  • For team reflection

Some possible entry points and ways of using the TRT

You are certainly familiar with the RFCDC:
=> You can start with personal reflections in the Warming-up section or choose directly a thematic module that interests you.

You are somewhat familiar with the RFCDC but not sure about some aspects:
=> You can take the quiz. If you get a perfect score, you can do as indicated above. If not, you may want to read the RFCDC in Brief and then take the quiz again

You are now discovering the RFCDC:
=> depending on your preferred learning and working style you can choose one of the options described below (but you can also build a path through the tool in your own way)

If you prefer to have the concepts clear first, start with reading the RFCDC, then take the quiz and then move to the other sections
If you prefer to do something, explore something practical and get to conceptual clarifications only when and if needed, then select any thematic module and, when you identify the need, go to the RFCDC in brief and clarify the relevant concepts
If you prefer to reflect first on yourself and then think about concepts and/or practice, start with the Warming-up section.

ABOUT THE TOOL

You can download the three RFCDC volumes from the relevant website. For the purpose of the self-reflection tool, Volume 1 “Context, concepts and model”, and Volume 3 ”Guidance for implementation” (Curriculum, Pedagogy, Assessment, Teacher education, Whole-school approach, Building resilience to radicalisation leading to violent extremism and terrorism) are especially important.