The project we want to carry out is a project that reinforces the knowledge of our students in dealing with the central questions of „war and peace“. The main aim will be to create awareness of mechanisms of discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance. To reach these aims we plan to begin with a special focus on the importance of history and the commemoration of the victims of World War I with 2018 marking the 100th anniversary of the end of the war. In this context the commemorative culture in the different countries will be dealt with, which may also be closely connected to cultural values. To avoid the history of war to happen again the students should reflect on their own behaviour but also their own identity by dealing with their cultural heritage. This is meant to support the students’ process of finding their own identity but also make the participants aware of its meaning for the formation/emerging of both national and European identity. The students will collect examples of cultural heritage in oral tradion (stories, songs etc.). They will share it with the other nations, compare it and find similarities and differences. So they should get aware of cultural divisity. The reminding of the first world war and of the cultural heritage should lead the participants to a better reflection on their own behaviour as individual as well as European citizen. Discussions with former members of nationalistic organizations (e.g. right-wing scene) or discussions with local politicians about current topics like migration and integration should foster critical thinking and make the participants aware of the latent dangers of extremist thinking and/or encourage social and civic engagement. They will deal with original stories of migrants or refugees in a project called "Let me tell you my story" to create a better understanding for their situation in general and to overcome fears of contact and prejudices. Students will work with this stories during the school year and last project meeting. These stories will be collected and published. They will thus have the opportunity to practice non-violent communication, reflect on latent forms of discrimination around them, for example cyber bullying, and to actively fight against racism and discrimination by dealing with their thoughts and fears in a creative way. To foster media literacy and critical thinking the students’ final product will be the preparation and presentation of a poetry slam and illustrations and also a song which will also be published. The importance of current peace-keeping missions, especially on a political level, is meant to be underlined by simulating a "Model European Union" to appeal to the students in a personal way so that they will be motivated to deal with the possibilities of maintaining peace in their everyday lives. During the project meeting the participant will have the possibility to get to know the manners of the host country to deal with commemoration, cultural heritage or other project-related subjects. Also teaching and training events and the time management and will be an important topic on the project meetings to make sure that all activities will be done. All participant schools have different experiences with the topics of our project. Each school takes over an adjusted part of the project related to its competences. E.g. the German school is experienced in working with the poetry slam, the Swedish school has a good program for avoiding discrimination in everyday life and the French school is situated in a historically important area and deals with the content of WWI etc.. So the project will suit perfectly to learning from "best practice".
The UNITED project idea was shaped by two major priorities characterizing its start in 2018. These two were very closely connected and comprised the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI and the European Year of Cultural Heritage. As a cosequence the project was aimed at dealing with the central questions of "war and peace“ by learning from the experiences in the 20th century to consider answers to current challenges of growing nationalism. The main aim was be to create awareness of mechanisms of discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance by working on common activities based on theortical discourse, creative output and communicative challenges with a special focus on today's forms of commemoration and the meaning of cultural heritage to further our understanding of the connection between past and present. One major aim was the concept of including local or regional heritage sites into the learning process and to use these as stating points for research on forms of commemoration. Thus the region surrounding the French school with its remains of the fightings in WWI (Vimy) lead us to focus on the importance of history and the commemoration of the victims of World War I. Further visits to the castle of Wewelsburg near the German school and the house of Anne Frank in Amsterdam also helped to work out strategies for extracurricular places of learning dealing with the history of WWII. Unfortunately, the planned visit to the Race biology Institute's archive in Uppsala in Sweden could not take place. To avoid the history of war to happen again the students reflected on their own behaviour but also their own identity by dealing with their cultural heritage. This was meant to support the students’ process of finding their own identity but also make them aware of its meaning for the formation/emerging of both national and European identity. The students collected examples of cultural heritage in oral tradition by doing research on the history of WWI, by creating "museums in a suitcase" and conducting interviews on the meaning and making of traditional dishes documented on video. They shared it with the other nations, compared it and found similarities and differences to become aware of cultural divisity. The reminding of the two world wars and of the cultural heritage lead the participants to a better reflection on their own behaviour as individuals as well as European citizens sharing many common grounds. During the project meetings the participant also had the possibility to get to know the manners of the host country to deal with commemoration, cultural heritage or other project-related subjects. To pay tribute to current developments and the integration of students with a refugee or migrant beackground the participants dealt with stories of migrants or refugees in a project called "Let me tell you my story" to create a better understanding for their situation in general and to overcome fears of contact and prejudices. Some of these interview and/or stories were recorded and published on the project website and etwinning. The importance of current peace-keeping missions, especially on a political level, was meant to be underlined by simulating a "Model European Union" to appeal to the students in a personal way so that they would be motivated to deal with the possibilities of maintaining peace in their everyday lives. Instead of realizing and staging this model EU during the last meeting with mixed teams from all partners this had to be done in the respective schools with the students taking over the roles of different countries. As a long-term result of the project the respective schools now have a well-founded stock of methods to work on the topic of commemoration and cultural heritage such as the "museum in a suitcase" (together with the presentation method of a gallery walk), interviews with contemporary witnesses recorded on video as well as more personal and creative forms like conducting a poetry slam. The students thus had the opportunity to practice non-violent communication, reflect on latent forms of discrimination around them, for example cyber bullying, and to actively fight against racism and discrimination by dealing with their thoughts and fears in a creative way .All these have found their way into the curricula of the respective schools to rely on for furture learning activities. To foster media literacy and critical thinking the students’ final product was the preparation and presentation of a poetry slam and illustrations which were collected in a book and printed out by the Dutch team. The creation of a song against racism and well as the planned discussions with former members of nationalistic organizations or discussions with local politicians about current topics like migration and integration meant to foster critical thinking/ making the participants aware of the latent dangers of extremist thinking and/or encourage social and civic engagement had to be cancelled because of covid 19.