Inspiring and Preparing a Comprehensive View of the Role of Educator: a Simulated Traineeship Experience

The simulated traineeship experience that inspires this text has involved second and third year-students of the Sciences of Education Course in the field of the nursery and childcare services during the first COVID-19 lockdown. It has followed a ‘Simulated Educational Enterprise’ model that has been successful in high schools in the first years of 2000. In this case, a training space has been set up, that was preparatory to the opening of the service (legislation, regulations, planning); as well as a dialogue with pedagogically trained educational professionals, that are already engaged in early childhood education, concerning activities in which University trainees are involved. A theoretical/practical education has been developed concerning aspects that the trainee, in reality, seldom or only on an executive level confronts, since he/she more often uses, in real traineeships, theoretical and physical materials that are already fitted by structured educators. Therefore, the simulated traineeship experience has been shaped as a sort of incubator for developing a solid connection between science, practice and legislation. In this paper the strong and the weak points of the simulated traineeship are discussed, as well as further opportunities of development, in order to save some positive aspects and include them in the future pre-service training for educators.