From the Editor

Dear E-mentor readers,

We continue to publish the international version of E-mentor journal entirely in English. The newest one is a special edition aimed at presenting various initiatives reflecting the non-standard approach to teaching and learning of children and youth. It includes the articles collected during the pilot study carried out by the Center for Open Education at SGH Warsaw School of Economics. The pilot is part of a project which aims at investigating how contemporary education of young generation is changing in response to the growing needs of knowledge-based societies.

The study started with focusing on children universities - what are their profiles, the most popular models of organization, and whether or not they succeed in their efforts. Several papers referring to the general concepts underlying the work of children's universities constitute the first part of the journal. In the second part, we present chosen examples of good practices. The intent is to show possibly a broad spectrum of 'specializations' of such universities with a particular emphasis on those less commonly met such as economic, health and medical science or history education, multilingual university classes or the initiative teaching with art.

During the first stage of the research, we also managed to identify some other examples of extra-curricular ways of teaching children and youth. One of them is makers movement - in the current issue, we included a brief report from the European project MakeAppClub only as an example. The topic is to be studied more closely at the later stage of the project. The other approach worth to mention (and to research further) is the 'education in nature' movement - we refer to a few such initiatives from Poland and the US as well.

Some papers originate from the presentations delivered during the 5^th Congress of Children's Universities, held in Warsaw in May 2018. The authors of some others were invited to share their experience gained either throughout the projects they realized or the initiatives of a local community. I particularly appreciate the paper written by colleagues from Canada - a team of prof. Sandeep Raha, who willingly responded to my invitation. The McMaster Children and Youth University (MCYU) is an excellent example of successful collaboration not only with families of young students but also with local schools and community-based organizations.

We do hope that the attempts to broaden access to the valuable content of our journal will correspond with the expectations of our readers and the potential contributors as well. In 2019 we plan to continue issuing e-mentor journal in English as well. Researchers and teachers from HE institutions interested in publishing with E-mentor may refer to the brief guide for authors published on the last but one page of the journal. More detailed instructions and the submission form can be found online at: http://www.e-mentor.edu.pl/eng/page/8/Info_for_Authors.

Maria Zając
Editor

"Zwiększenie liczby artykułów w języku angielskim publikowanych w czasopiśmie E-mentor"- zadanie finansowane w ramach umowy nr 748/P-DUN/2017 ze środków Ministra Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego przeznaczonych na działalność upowszechniającą naukę.

"Increasing the number of articles published in English in the E-mentor journal" - a task financed under the agreement No. 748/P-DUN/2017 from the funds of the Minister of Science and Higher Education in Poland designated for the dissemination of research and science achievements.