The project will address the following key questions: ‘How can we help young people to recognise the ways that migration has shaped the modern world? Can we develop new ways to teach history, to connect more with young people’s lives, and help them understand complex current realities? How can we also address the needs of different learners, and integrate learners from different cultural backgrounds? How can we build greater trust and understanding between communities – both within the school environment, and beyond?’ The project will focus on the experiences of migrant communities in different countries in the past. What happened to these communities? What traces remain of them today? What kind of traditions and heritage did they bring with them? How far have these traditions survived? It will provide a model for a different way of teaching history in schools, based in Narrative Inquiry. This is a groundbreaking approach which has been developed by Midland Actors Theatre for use in schools. It places an emphasis on individual stories and experiences, as a way of exploring wider trends and developments in history (for example, the story of a particular individual or family in the past, in migrating to a new country). The project will bring different communities and groups together, to foster integration, and build greater understanding between communities. Project participants will examine historical patterns of migration in Europe, as a way of helping them to understand, and develop a broader perspective on complex current realities. The Project Adviser is the noted historian, Professor Carl Chinn. The project will develop new teaching methods and strategies, to foster the integration of students from different cultural backgrounds, and with different language needs, and to build basic skills. The project will combine Narrative Inquiry with Digital Storytelling (DST), which brings together the tradition of oral and personal narrative with contemporary digital tools. DST develops digital, transversal and basic skills. The project will bring together a range of education providers: two arts-in-education organizations (Midland Actors Theatre, Strawberry Words); a UK secondary school (George Dixon Academy); a secondary school in Turkey (Mehmet Akif Ersoy Ortaokulu); primary schools in Portugal and Italy (Projeto Scholé, Istituto Comprensivo via Ferraironi); a university in Poland (Collegium Baltica); and an educational digital technology company (Melting Pro). Partners will plan schemes of work together, which they will then deliver in their own classrooms. A total of some 280 students will take part, in different countries. The project will target young people from refugee and migrant groups, who may be experiencing challenges and barriers to integration, and other disadvantaged groups. A filmed record of the project will be made; it will be edited and issued as a dvd, and project videos will also be posted online. The films will show planning meetings, interviews with participants, and project delivery in classrooms in different countries. We will also produce a Teaching Guide, with schemes of work and teaching resources, and also an online Digital Storytelling Toolkit, so that other teachers can use the project in their own classrooms. The project will have a wider legacy. It will be rolled out and embedded as a teaching programme in a number of schools in partner countries; and it will also be incorporated in teacher training courses. We will raise awareness of the project through national and international networks, We believe that it will have an impact on the development of educational policies in partner countries, and on curriculum development, in its development of new ways to address diverse needs in the classroom; as an innovative model of learner-centred and enquiry-based education.
The main aim of the project was the development of innovative teaching methods and strategies, to help teachers to deal with complex classroom realities, and foster inclusion and diversity. It was designed to support the integration of students from different cultural backgrounds, and with different language needs. It brought different communities together, to learn from each other; and combat discrimination, and promote understanding, between communities and groups. The project explored a different way of teaching history in schools, based in Narrative Inquiry. This is a groundbreaking model of learner-centred and enquiry-based education, which has been developed by Midland Actors Theatre for use in schools. It places an emphasis on individual stories and experiences, as a way of exploring wider trends and developments in history. There was a particular focus on the issue of migration, in terms of both the historical patterns of migration in Europe, and the experiences of migrant communities, and people’s individual stories and memories. The project has addressed a number of key questions: ‘How can we help young people to recognise the ways that migration has shaped the modern world? Can we develop new ways to teach history, to connect more with young people’s lives, and help them understand complex current realities? How can we build greater trust and understanding between communities – both within the school environment, and beyond?’ The project has placed an emphasis on raising awareness of the local community as a space which different communities call ‘home.’ Partners have carried out a range of activities and projects, which have encouraged young people to find out more about the places where they live; and which have also engaged people from the local area, brining people from different groups and communities together. In this way, over the course of the project, partner organisations have increasingly turned ‘outward,’ and taken on a new and leading role in the community, helping to foster a greater sense of community identity, and breaking down cultural and social barriers. The project has developed new strategies to enhance the participation and learning performance of disadvantaged learners, particularly young people from a migrant / refugee background; and to promote open and innovative practices and pedagogy in the digital era. There was a particular focus in the project on using different technologies in the classroom. Partners received training in digital storytelling, and introduced this method in the classroom. They also developed the innovative education application of other digital technologies including: Instagram; the creation of new ‘apps’; and the use of digital teaching resources. The project was led by Midland Actors Theatre and brought together: a UK secondary school, George Dixon Academy; two UK arts-in-education organisations, MAT and Kala Phool; an arts-in-education organisation in Italy, melting pro; a primary school in Italy, Istituto Comprensivo Simonetta Salacone (via Ferraironi); a primary school in Portugal, Projeto Schole; a middle school in Turkey, Mehmet Akif; and a university in Poland, Collegium Balticum. Each partner institution developed a number of schemes of work, using the Narrative Inquiry method, which were trialled in classrooms. A selection of these schemes have been published on the project website, breaking-down-barriers.org. The website includes other resources which have been produced through the project (as intellectual outputs), including a Guide to Narrative Inquiry; Schemes of Work; a Digital Storytelling Toolkit; together with a series of films featuring examples of the method in practice, as well as interviews with partners, and records of training sessions. Together, these materials will ensure the project has a lasting legacy, serving as model for other teachers and practitioners. The films we produced have also been compiled and issued as a dvd, for distribution at multiplier events. Partners have also developed resources in their own languages, including booklets and online publications. The Narrative Inquiry method has been embedded as a teaching method in partner organisations, and is being rolled out to other schools and institutions. We have also raised awareness of the project through national and international networks.