“People focus on role models; it is more effective to find antimodels - people you don't want to resemble when you grow up.” - Nassim Nicholas TalebThis project is designed to assist pupils in their adolescence period, a timespan in which this target group is faced with various problems. They are confused about their identity and where they belong to. They can make sudden and wrong decisions and may be affected easily by media or people around them. Therefore, adolescence is a very crucial period of each human where a lasting guidance is much-needed to offer support. Role models are a kind of instrument in developing career aspirations, educational goals or comprehensive abilities to overcome obstacles and contribute one's personal efforts for a sober community. However, they also motivate youths towards disrespectful behaviour like bullying, substance abuse, joining illegal groups, leaving school early or absenteeism. In some cases pupils are even influenced by leaders of malicious and illegal groups hurting both themselves and other people with their actions in order to prove themselves. Undoubtedly, terrorist activities in recent years have made the urgence to work on the topic of this project obvious. It has become clear to everyone that democracy is a goal to strive for in unison, it is an ideal a community has to spend efforts for to reach.In order to achieve this goal, we will raise awareness of the value of the world peace and democracy by introducing the students some historic(al) individuals who were peaceful, supported democracy and the world peace, devoted their lives for these ideals and thus made their names written in the history books because of their virtues. Our aim is a young generation who are against war, away from terrorism, supporting the world peace, being open-minded, understanding and respectful to the other people.The European youth has often grown up with the feeling of animosity against other nations. Being six partner schools we can critically reflect on the phenomena of tolerance, world peace, human rights, democracy, friendship or identifying with EU-citizenship in our societies. Under the guidance of role models with social and cultural sharings in combination with the art of theatre and music – which are anyway universal and far-reaching means to bring different cultures together – we can support the students ideally.In accordance, each partner school will select role models who devoted their lives to these ideals. The participants will prepare theatre plays about these people and send one episode to each partner. The students will act out the plays assisted by their teachers. Beside the theatre plays, in each school, student choirs will be formed. They will sing peace songs. Thus, all the participants in the project will coalesce to achieve the common objectives. Some students taking part in the project might have severe problems in recognizing the importance of a sober education and who even might face early school leaving. By giving them responsibility, we will raise their self-confidence and support them to contribute to the world peace. The young will open gates through intercultural dialogue and transnational cooperation. Our partnership consists of teachers who participated in Erasmus+ seminars, who did some project management in their own countries, who are altogether experienced, dedicated, highly motivated and gifted supporters of teamwork. The key persons have known each other from eTwinning portals and have been in touch to exchange opinions via modern media.The six schools intend to reinforce cooperation between schools, families and community for a safer and more peaceful world promoting exemplary role models to decrease students' misbehaviour issues in schools, to prevent them from illegal groups and violence, but also to increase their inner attitude of being citizens of the European Union who support human rights, who perceive world peace a key prerequisite to prevent terrorism, besides the importance of academic engagement to become resilient citizens ready for the challenges of the 21st century.A detailed dissemination has been planned to promote the objectives of the project. The students will put out all the performances on the stage. Students, families, teachers, city repesentatives and regional media will be invited to the performances. All the documents produced will be published on project websites, Facebook, Youtube channels and eTwinning platforms. Monitoring and evaluation is very important to create quality documents, too. An external evaluator will also contribute to an effective evaluation process. With such an innovative approach many people will be welcomed to join and discover new facets of European co-operation. In the wake of the recent terrorist attacks in Europe we can thus contribute to the well-being of our offspring knowing that they know who they certainly "don't want to resemble".
In a period of global uneasiness and manyfolded mistrust, the Erasmus+ project "Democratic Values in A United Europe: Forming Resilient Citizens" was meant to assist adolescents from different countries and different walks of life to overcome clichés and stereotypes and to identify with a democratic and united Europe. The teachers and pupils involved decided to choose individual role models as they - according to the fundamental assumptions by motivational psychology - have a particularly lasting effect on the target group itself but also on other, not directly involved personnel. So finally, each of the altogether six schools found one relevant role model who met the criteria in the project's overall context of "democratic values" and "united Europe". The role models fit the core values - which were distributed to each school for a detailled approach - as there are: tolerance (Germany), peace (Turkey), human rights (England), democracy (Spain), EU Citizenship (Italy) and friendship (Portugal). Altogether there were six schools involved in the proect which are spread all across Europe. The Geschwister-Scholl-Gymnasium Waldkirch (Germany) was the co-ordinating school. Partner schools were as follows five further institutions: Gazi Anadolu Lisesi in Samsun (Turkey), Lewisham Southwark College in London (England), C.P.I. Santa Lucía in Moraña (Spain), I.I.S.S. Carlo Maria Carafa in Mazzarino (Italy besides Agrupamento de Escolas de Albeufeira Poente (Portugal). Showing a high degree of heterogenity in terms of pupils and students (e. g. age and background), the internal accentuation of certain focus areas (e. g. early childhood development at a primary school vs. vocational education at a secondary school) and last but not least the geographical position in a way completed the schools one other. These different profiles early on appeared to be beneficial in order to preserve the acctractiveness of the numerous tasks and activities to the target groups in the long run. Focussing on a particularly intensive analysis on the role model's biography another goal was to bolster the member's resilience, too. Working on concrete situations in the life of the role model, identification with that personality became possible - which now will have a lasting effect on the pupil. Just because of the fact that this project aimed at rather weak students and their participation, too, all participants early on put much emphasis on various means of communication and up-to-date exchange platforms. The heterogenity of the partner schools did not appear to be a problem with the intensive and extensive use of ICT appealing to students. It was in fact the opposite. Without a doubt, there were different age groups involved (predominantly primary school kids at CPI Santa Lucía vs. much older vocational students from Lewisham Southwark College). However, a productive exchange of ideas took place with the result that all the aims of the project could be achieved. The main activities done were amongst others: - the creation of numerous web-based results platforms: Facebook, Youtube, Instagram (video and photo documentation) - two eTwinning projects (one per school year) including concrete project-bound tasks - one pre- and one post-survey on democracy and role models at the six schools - the creation of a project magazine (at least one per school) - the composition and staging of a relevant theatre play - an active and in-depth (re)consideration about the values of a united Europe - a biographic analysis and identification with a role model displaying high affinity to the given core values - the extensive and intensive use of ICT - the involvement and incorporation of major school departments and major groups of students at the schools - numerous intensive and targeted public relations activities with non-school institutions and partners - the safeguarding and continuous development of personal competencies and resources ("soft skills") - a final evaluation of the project by a neutral institution The results achieved correspond with the aims set once in 2016. Some themes and activities had to be adapted due to outer influences and situational decisions (Brexit, diplomatic crisis between Turkey and Germany). Still, problems of this kind were solved by the partners with no greater complications. Both teachers and pupils felt very pleased in the course of these two years. Many people had the chance to get involved and thus diverse ideas influenced the realisation of the project. In the short and the long run lasting model scenarios of friendship occurred - amongst students and teachers - which, as a result, will trigger future projects. The target group overcame the fear of all that is foreign or unknown. Particularly in the course of the short-term exchanges of pupils such an identification with a united Europe became apparent. But also the intensive debates and research on the individual role model enriched each school.