Post-factEUal. Transforming Europe from the 1930s to the Present

Europe has recently seen a rise of populism, a growth of nationalism, and a wave of fake news and propagandistic campaigns, which go against the European core values of democracy, solidarity, liberalism and enlightened political discourse. History has taught us that the 1930s showed some striking similarities in terms of mass manipulation, populist rhetoric and misguided patriotism. Based on Art. 2 of the Consolidated Version of the Treaty on European Union, this multinational project therefore aimed at helping young Europeans of the 21st century to become astute critical thinkers in the quest for knowledge and cultural and national identity so that they may build a Europe that is founded on mutual respect, understanding, tolerance and freedom of thought. "Post-factEUal. Transforming Europe from the 1930s to the Present" offered high-quality, interdisciplinary learning opportunities for secondary students from CY, DE, DK, IT and NL, based on concrete tasks, which fostered historical and political awareness, EFL competences, ICT skills, creativity and international mindedness in students between 14 and 18. The five schools involved in the project all share an international focus in their various pedagogical programmes and the conviction that international dialogue and collaboration are essential in developing highly skilled and open-minded European citizens, who will - in line with the Europe 2020 Strategy - successfully navigate their way into tertiary education. The project was divided into five modules. Four student modules focused on European cultural heritage, collective memories, historical legacies and different remembrance cultures; on the reliability and distortion of data; literature’s anti-totalitarian power; the role of propaganda and nationalism; the transformation of the spheres of knowledge and communication, all between the 1930s and today. A final teacher module sought to analyse the role of digital media and critical thinking in modern European classrooms, which intend to set a counterpoint to post-factual tendencies and obfuscations of the truth. The impact of the project became most visible through a) the intensive international networking between partner schools and other institutions, such as The Amsterdam University College, The German-British Societies in Essen, Düsseldorf and Münster, The Old Synagogue in Essen and The Herning Team Theatre; b) the active engagement of experts like political cartoonist Dr Sotos Voskarides and Twitter Staff Software Engineer Diego Puppin and c) the implementation of innovative learning and teaching methods. Methodologically, students collaborated within this project in a number of ways, which allowed curricular themes to be studied both analytically and creatively. Activities ranged from station learning, the completion of case studies and surveys, creative writing and acting to cartooning and debating. Subject knowledge was deepened by the cross-border production of meaningful results such as eTwinning web pages, wikis, podcasts, exhibitions and theatrical performances. The main project result was an interactive ebook which documented the students' and teachers' joint transnational work on Europe between fact and post-factualism. Long term benefits included the development of new teaching ideas and classroom resources, which ensured that the project was not only of relevance during the European Cultural Heritage Year 2018, but has since then continued to inspire learners to cherish both the cultural wealth of the past and present and the wealth of knowledge which will shape Europe’s future.