LET'S BUILD BRIDGES ! Many of our pupils are inactive, they live without any goals and iniciatives and that is the reason why we intend to involve and motivate them to participate in this project. We want to encourage students through the project, to take responsibility for their own lives and their academic education and to live peacefully together. For this purpose six European schools from Poland, Portugal, Croatia, Latvia, Germany and Czech Republic have joined together, in order to achieve the aim of the project. The aim is to help students become active Europeans because active, motivated people with a wider European horizon achieve more in life, become more effective, which avoids the early school leaving. In modern Europe, lifelong learning has an enormous importance. Thus the idea "learning by teaching" is realized in the project. The aim of the project is to teach students how to build bridges - bridges to people of different origins, cultures, older generations, opinions or religions. For a bridge to remain stable, careful preparations must be made. You need a plan, the terrain must be measured, foundations poured and then piers set. Only then can a bridge be hit from one bank to another. That is why our students will first get to know each other, improve self-confidence, for only self-assured people can accept the Otherness. Our intention is to help the students to increase their sense of self-esteem, to discover their own talents, and to use them in voluntary activities in the local environment. They will also highly regard age and experience by learning a lot from the older generations. Then they will show what they have learned to friends from other European countries. They will also learn from their fellow students with an immigration background, thereby increasing tolerance and openness towards other nations. There will be a game implemented called the “Great Discovery”, in which students discover their own talent. Afterwards the performances will be presented: “Share your talent ". Students will develop Tutorials in which they film their own talents and publish them on a website, while also digital skills are developed. Competence in foreign languages and multilingual skills, not only of the students but also the teachers’, will be improved. The project languages are German and English, all tutorials will be prepared in German / English with native subtitles, which helps in the dissemination of the materials. Students will receive language passports and certificates. For the participating teachers it is important to learn and profit from the differences in educational methods and school systems and to use best practices and implement them at their oown schools. The project will embrace the school as a whole, families of the pupils and local partners. The students that participate in the project are attending intermediate and secondary level schools and are aged between 13 and 17. At each school there will be students directly involved in the project and additional stakeholders will be involved, both students and teachers and extracurricular partners (approx. 400). To achieve the above mentioned goals we will carry out activities for 24 months and develop various materials e.g. tutorials, multimedia presentations, films, promotional videos, photo exhibitions, and handmade products. Students and teachers will participate in the learning, teaching or training activities in 6 partner countries, after which they will present , what they have learnt in their own countries, and present it to the partners from the other 6 countries. Two Transnational Project meetings are also planned. The success of the project and the achievement of the objectives is ensured by the precise selection of the partners, the careful preparatory phase, the planned management and the detailed distribution of the tasks. The whole process is monitored and evaluated, necessary changes are made during the course of the project. The objectives are measured and analyzed regularly using the different methods: surveys, evaluation sheets, correspondence, number of visits to the website. The dissemination is carried out mainly via channels on the Internet or public actions: websites, twin-space, infomeetings, visits, media contributions and local events. The results of the project will be integrated into the school and education programs of the partnerships, the contacts will be maintained and they will be used for new projects and partnerships. To achieve our goals we have chosen 6 European schools with entirely different practices, social backgrounds, which are culturally and religiously diverse, because this is the best way to benefit from the differences, from the differentness. When a bridge is stable and strong, it helps over the widest rivers, across the deepest valleys and lasts very long. Let our students build bridges!
LET'S BUILD BRIDGES ! To reach our goals with more self-confidence thinking about the possibilities in Europe. This is how one could summarize the objective of our project. The students should take more responsibility for their own lives and believe more in their own strengths. For this reason, we, teachers from six European schools (Poland, Portugal, Croatia, Latvia, Germany and the Czech Republic), have joined forces to support students aged 11 to 17 in a joint project to discover and try out their talents and abilities through the exchange of knowledge and experience. Because active, motivated people with European life experience have higher chances of success in life. Our common goal was to teach the students how to build bridges - bridges to people from other backgrounds, cultures, to people of older generations and to people with different stories and history. In order for a bridge to be stable, you have to make careful preparations together. You need a plan, the terrain needs to be tested, foundations poured, and then piers set. Only then can a bridge be built from one bank to the other. That's why our students should first get to know themselves, strengthen their self-confidence and discover their strengths. How was this to be done? In extracurricular projects, contacts were established with local institutions where students gained new experiences. This was done in the form of volunteer work and social commitment for example, by helping elderly people, by supporting the local community, but also in sports clubs or youth centers. These valuable experiences were shared with friends from other European countries and passed on to them. With the help of the game "Great Journey of Discovery" (based on the 7 steps to increase effectiveness for young people by Sean Covey) the students should discover their own talents. They should use the "Share your talent" activity to present the discovered talents to others and motivate them to also embark on the "Great Journey of Discovery". The students were asked to share their (newly discovered) talents in workshops and they filmed their experiences for "tutorials" and presented them on the project's homepage and on our Twinspace site. Another goal of the project was to strengthen and expand digital and media abilities and to promote foreign language skills among teachers and students. Language tests were conducted, language diaries were kept and certificates were taken. It was important for the participating teachers to learn about differences in education and school systems, to benefit from each other and to take "best practices" back to their own schools. The project also involved the school institution, families of students and local partners. The students who participated in the project belong to the secondary level. There were students who were directly involved in the project and other people who have been indirectly part of the project: Pupils, but also teachers and extracurricular partners (together about 400). In order to achieve the above-mentioned goals, we carried out activities for 30 months and produced handicraft as well as media products, e.g. "tutorials", multimedia presentations, films, commercials, photo exhibitions. There were 5 learning, teaching or training activities in 5 partner countries where they presented what they experienced and learned in their own countries and taught what they learned to the partners from the other countries. Unfortunately, the Covid19 pandemic changed the schedule a lot: the project had to be extended by 6 months, Germany could not attend the 5th meeting and the 6th meeting had to be held virtually. Progress was measured, analyzed and evaluated regularly; necessary changes were made and documented. Dissemination was carried out as planned, but with data protection limitations. The results of the project were partly integrated into the school curricula of the partner schools, and the contacts gained were further cultivated and used in new projects and partnerships. If a bridge is stable and strong, it leads over the widest rivers, over the deepest valleys and lasts for a very long time. We have built European bridges together with our students!