The 21st Century has already been defined by the most widespread migration of people into Europe in more than 100 years, coupled with existential threats to our moral, spiritual and cultural conventions. Schools are clearly the only agency through which every young person in our continent can learn how to live side by side, shoulder to shoulder with other young people from different cultural backgrounds and life experiences, young people displaced from their countries of birth for political and economic reasons, reasons outside of their own control. Schools must be a beacon of community cohesion as the very fabric of our future societies depends upon the successful management of new arrivals into our education systems, bringing with them new customs and traditions that enrich our already diverse continent. We need to successfully remove cultural and linguistic barriers for our immigrant communities, promoting community cohesion at the heart of all that we do, after all these are the very values of tolerance, collaboration, innovation and invention that have transformed Europe into the international cultural superpower that it is today. Posing the question ‘Do you speak culture?’ will give our students the opportunity of appreciating their own cultural identity and understanding that of other peoples, in this equitable way we will promote cultural exchange and mutual understanding in the spirit of cooperation, solidarity and mutual respect. Students will investigate whether and how refugees and economic migrants have retained, their traditions, their customs, their mother tongue in their new homelands and in what way their traditions and customs may have been transformed by their new realities. This exploration will take the form of workshops, on-line platforms and conferences, art work and creative publications, festivals and seminars, a celebration of all that is vibrant and diverse in our school communities. Students from schools in Italy, Great Britain, Romania, Poland, Slovenia and France will have the opportunity to attend four international conferences, each with a focus upon different curriculum areas, additionally there will be two further international meetings for teachers from all six countries to plan and evaluate collaboratively the impact of their work and findings. We believe this project will provide immeasurable opportunities for teachers in all six partner countries to pool their ideas and their resources, to share best practice and increase their repertoire of teaching methods, to upgrade and to deepen skills in this professional field. Moreover, the materials created in the project will be used in language classes and other subjects during subsequent years, ensuring provision for future students learning in a second language in all our schools is permanently transformed to a higher standard. Children from different starting points will properly have the chance to excel at school both academically and socially in spite of the political landscape that has impacted upon their schooling and development thus far. We will raise standards, improve outcomes in teaching and learning and forever embed an international dimension into the curriculum that promotes fundamental European values whilst equipping all our young people to live and work successfully in a global society, free from prejudice, free from cultural misunderstandings and free from barriers to learning. Do you speak culture, or do you learn it? Let’s find out.
Given that the 21st Century has already been defined by the most widespread migration of people into Europe in more than 100 years, coupled with existential threats to our moral, spiritual and cultural conventions our project objective was to better equip teachers in all five of our schools with strategies, skills and best practice to cope with educating migrant children. Schools are clearly the only agency through which every young person in our continent can learn how to live side by side, shoulder to shoulder with other young people from different cultural backgrounds and life experiences, young people displaced from their countries of birth for political and economic reasons, reasons outside of their own control. To this end we focused on activities in the short term exchanges of pupils and teachers that promoted community cohesion as the very fabric of future European communities depends upon the successful management of new arrivals into our education systems, bringing with them new customs and traditions that we could show enriched our schools in Britain, Italy, Slovenia, Romania and France. Posing the question ‘Do you speak culture?’ we gave our students the opportunity of appreciating their own cultural identity and understanding that of other peoples. In Italy for example we all took part in ‘Erasmus+ Got Talent’ allowing our pupils to use the medium of dance to express the stories of migrant children from places in Sub-Saharan Africa to mainland Europe. The children loved this opportunity to sing and dance and learn about new cultures, with this event taking part in Italy we all got to learn the Tarantella too! In France we hosted an Erasmus+ Olympics accentuating the spirit of fair play so central to the Olympic ideal. We used this opportunity to teach each other about our national sports as well, eg. Cricket in Britain and by making the Erasmus+ experience so much fun a celebration of diversity, it meant that hundreds of children at each school were able to get involved, participate or watch the festivities. Over 100 children, from five different countries attended one of these short term exchanges. Eating the local cuisine, attending lessons in school with new friends from other countries who were hosting them in their homes and home towns. The effect on the host school is also profound, encouraging us to look at ourselves to examine the things that define our own identity and reveal similarities eg. the importance of coal mining to the people of Newcastle-under-Lyme in the United Kingdom and the people of Velenje in Slovenia. The impact on each school is measurable in the increased tolerance of the customs of others. The increased awareness and respect for unaccompanied asylum seeking children and the struggle that they have to deal with their own inner emotional turmoil at the same time as learning a brand new language and fitting in with a new group of friends. This was illustrated with heart-breaking stories from refugees from Syria and Afghanistan. We saw a reduction in racially motivated bullying in all schools and the long term impact will be that children arriving in our schools in the future are better cared for and better understood. We also involved children from disadvantaged backgrounds and children in care as they wouldn’t have the opportunity to travel otherwise due to child poverty. A digital book was produced to record the highlights from each meeting, TV reports from Romania and Italy were shared on our school websites and resources produced were shared between each school. In conclusion we realised that language is not a barrier to learning, that in fact you don’t speak culture, you eat, dance, sing, celebrate and share culture. It’s the very fabric of what we do day in, day out in schools. Beacons of hope and diversity.