MY VALUES, YOUR VALUES, OUR VALUESFacing dramatic socio-political and socio-economic changes in Europe and being confronted with a public debate about values, which directly affects pupils, teachers and parents, all schools involved in this project have decided to deal with the topic of values in a general and specific sense. The partner schools, which are in Germany, Portugal and Great Britain, want their students to work with the term "European values" and understand its theoretical and pragmatic dimensions.The pupils of all schools notice the consequences of these changes at their schools: in Germany > refugees who are at school; Portugal> economically deprived students who cannot take part in projects offered by the school due to the economic crisis; Great Britain > socially deprived students who have to learn at the school`s own "educational farm" what it means to accept rules, show respect, and attend lessons regularly. Against the background of these problems, which all students are aware of , the schools and the students will be encouraged to stand up for rights which are fundamental of a democratic society.The target group are students of about 15 years and teachers who represent social sciences, geography, history and foreign languages.The methodological approach is based on the questions all schools share: "What are our values? What are our common values? How can we learn and teach values? How do we show our values? How can we improve? Why are common European (universal) values so important for a peaceful life in Europe?" In order to discuss these theoretical questions and to learn about and experience solutions in real life, the innovative teaching/learning approach of "International Service Learning" was chosen to combine lessons and service learning in an international environment. All three schools will bring in their own point of view (refugees, economic crisis, inclusion) and will conduct their own project in a constant exchange with the partner schools. Essential parts of this approach are project learning and team work on an international level where the students will learn what it means to plan a project together, to take responsibility for each other and to achieve results which have a positive impact on society. The students will also come into contact with different types of organizations in their own country and abroad. During the meetings, they will not just visit them but also work with representatives, members, do interviews with them, etc. and hereby experience how theoretical contants, which they learned at school, are put into practice.Apart from that the "tandem-method" and methods of linguistic and cultural mediation will be used to prepare the students for theirmeetings abroad.The main product will be a film which shows the history of the European Union as a union of common values, the different projects connected with the organizations trying to give an answer to the question "How do we show our values?". This film will be presented in public and can be used in the local community and at school.At the end of the project, which will last two years, there will be a final conference in the UN style.All schools involved will collide all results and summarize them in a best-practice guideline which will be used a a common ground to develop a concept to integrate refugees and help economically and socially deprived students. This guideline will be implemeted in the schools` curricula.
The project "My values, your values, our values" was planned and realised against the background of a discussion on values which took place in all three partner schools in England, Germany and Portugal. Part of this discussion was the topic to what extent the values of the European Union are known to the students and how values can be taught. In order to reach this rather abstract goal this basic question was split up into the following topics: What are our values? What are common values? How do we show the values? Which global importance do values have? Each school had a different focus, i.e. the German school concentrated on the refugees, the English school on inclusive education and the Portuguese school on economically deprived students. These topics were arranged and planned in modules which the students worked on during two years project. At the beginning of the project the students did a survey at their schools to find out which values the students regard as important. During the first meeting the students compared the results and discussed what their common values are. Respect was considered the most important one. The basic method, which was introduced in this week and which can be regarded as the basis of all the projects, is ISL (International Service Learning), which is an innovative method to teach students to take responsibility by being committed to a social project in an international learning setting. A further important method the students learned was project management and linguistic and cultural mediation. During the first meeting the students then practised these methods by interviewing representatives of institutions which stand for certain values, e.g. a judge, a doctor, a priest and a representative of a home for elderly people. The second meeting, which took also place in Germany, was dedicated to the question how values are shown. In order to discuss this question the students visited the following organisations and had interviews with the respective representatives: Misereor in Aachen, Europe Direct in Cologne, the Archbishopric in Cologne. The results were discussed, visualized and the school communities were informed. During the third meeting in Portugal the students focused on the question what they can do to show values. They prepared their visit to and their work for different charity organisations, e.g. Refood. The ISL method was quite relevant in this context because the students learned in an international setting what it means to help other people. The different jobs they had to do were well prepared and evaluated afterwards. In order to prepare for the last meeting in England the students discussed the question to what extent values are also important on a global scale. They prepared a final conference which took place in the House of Commons in London and also discussed with members of the conservative party. This final conference can be regarded as the climax of the whole project since the students could show what they had learned about the topic, linguistically and methodologically in the last two years. The Erasmus+ project has had a deep and positive impact on all schools and it will be continued.