2018 is the European Year of Cultural Heritage; so we decided to address this issue from the school perspective: What can we do about it? What can the study of this subject contribute to the school? We decided to focus on the intangible heritage, which we believe provides great cultural richness. By other hand, within the modernization programs of most of the schools, new teaching methodologies are included, among which Project-Based Learning (PBL) stands out. By putting together these two questions, we get a project that aims to address several important problems: - The great atomization of the families, with less time and spaces of contact and communication has an impact on the education of children, which affects the functioning of the school, since is expected that school assumes functions of education in values and attitudes that are not carried out at home. - There are very few collective play activities among teenagers. This entails fewer relationships between them and there are no group bonds, with the loss of emotional and social integration, and also promote a more sedentary lifestyle. - Ignorance of the cultural heritage prevents it from being valued. Not only the adaptation to the environment, sustainability, creation of bonds in the community, artistic expressions, knowledge of one's own roots, ... even direct economic effects, such as the promotion of sustainable and quality tourism. Through 5 main activities and 4 LTT meetings we will address some crucial aspects of learning, development of our students and their training as adults and as future citizens in a changing society: - Development of the autonomy and “learning to learn” competence of students, necessary for lifelong learning, and their communicative skills - To promote intergenerational communication and improve affective education, values and attitudes - To enhance social integration - To combat sedentary lifestyle - To establish links between the participating students We also address important objectives for the school and the educational community: - To generate new dynamics of school organization - Improvement and modernization of teaching methods - To get the participation of the entire educational community in the Erasmus+ project - Better coordination between school staff with the cultural environment. - To exchange good educational practices and development of PBL. And for the Cultural Heritage and the European spirit. - Increase in cultural actions related to intangible heritage - Preservation of the intangible heritage through its better knowledge and the dissemination of recordings related to it. - To value of the cultural heritage as a source of knowledge, inspiration, dynamisation and current wealth - To promote the European spirit. ACTIVITIES P3 Recover a traditional game. Students investigate through their families and learn a traditional game to play it. Descriptions and rules will be developed and shared. P4 Folklore and oral transmission traditions Along the regular classes they will learn about this topic; bring grandfathers to tell stories about old times. Students will record it, to write it down and draw about the story. P5 mythological places A local map on google will be elaborated with the location of mythological places, with their traditional names, pics and a review of the history linked to the place. It will be proposed to the municipality the realization of touristic routes. P6 Traditional celebrations and gastronomy. Students will investigate in their families the traditional way of celebrations, the associated music, dances and gastronomy. Also images and old photos. A book with the recipes of all the schools will be elaborated. P7 Celebration of International Mother Language Day Because "Languages are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing our intangible heritage." P8 Celebration day At each international meeting there will be a coexistence day with students and families, cultural associations, other schools and city council staff; with music and traditional dances and games, recipes, crafts workshops, ... Press will be invited. These activities will be mostly developed in the context of the normal classes (an activity for each educational level) with their teachers, based on the PBL method. The main target groups, apart from students (12-17) and teachers, are families and cultural associations, and general public that could be interested in traditions and culture. The associations with which we´ll collaborate in this project will be benefit in several aspects, since they will be better known through the activities, and they will increase the nº of them they carry out. Most of the products and results have a lasting character, so they will last beyond the life of the project.
2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage and new teaching methodologies as Project-Based Learning (PBL) were core issues of this project, that aimed to address several problems: - The great atomization of the families, with less communication, and it impacts on the education and the functioning of schools. - The lack of collective activities among teenagers, with the loss of emotional and social integration and a more sedentary lifestyle. - Ignorance of cultural heritage prevents it from being valued. Through main activities and LTT meetings we addressed some aspects of learning and development of our students as future citizens in a changing society: - Development of autonomy and “learning to learn” competences. Promoting intergenerational communication and improve affective education, values and attitudes, and social integration. Combating a sedentary lifestyle, and establishing links between the participating students We also address important objectives for the school and the educational community: - To generate new dynamics of school organization. Improvement and modernization of teaching methods. To get the participation of the entire educational community. Better coordination between school staff with the cultural environment. To exchange good educational practices and the development of PBL. And for the Cultural Heritage and the European spirit. - Increase in cultural actions related to intangible heritage. Preservation of the intangible heritage, and its valuation as a source of knowledge and current wealth. To promote the European spirit. Main activities: - We investigated and learnt about traditional games, play them, recorded and shared. - In regular classes, using PBL methodology, we learnt about folklore and oral transmission traditions; bring grandfathers and storytellers to tell us stories about old times. Students recorded it, wrote and drew about the stories and published these works. - Students investigated and learnt about nearby mythological places, their traditional names and the history linked to the place. They visited these places, take pics and elaborated presentations with these materials. - Students made an investigation about traditional celebrations and the associated music, dances and gastronomy. We performed some of these celebrations and dances with cultural associations, cooked traditional meals together with parents and shared all of them with the community. We made a recipe book including also the story of the tradition linked with each recipe and nutritional information. - Celebrated International Mother Language Day with expositions, literary lectures, phrasebook, ... We hold 4 of the 5 planned international meetings, due to COVID restrictions of mobility. The first one was an intense short-term joint staff training event for teachers with lectures, workshops, cultural visits and performances. The 3 LTTA hold in Greece, Turkey and Estonia and included presentations about schools and project activities, workshops and cultural visits related to the topics of the project, time for friendship and celebrations. At each one of these international meetings, we hold a celebration and coexistence day with students and families, cultural associations, dance and folk groups, ...; with music and traditional dances and games, traditional meals, crafts workshops, ... The main target groups, apart from students (12-19) and teachers, were families and cultural associations, and the general public that could be interested in traditions and culture. Throughout this project we collaborate with several cultural associations, museums, parents associations, ... included local commerce and companies. And, of course with educational and local authorities. The project was focused on the horizontal priority (The social and educational value of European cultural heritage), and so, we got interesting results about it: short books; rescue of old traditions; knowing the origins of the names of your village, your street, ...; newly old games recovered and played; ... and so on. a lot of visits to ancient and/or cultural places This priority was closely linked with one of the chosen topics: "European Year of Cultural Heritage". We got and used the "2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage" label in our works, presentations, ... as well as the EYCH 2018 logo, slogan and hashtag, making dissemination of its aims. Other two priorities addressed by the project ("Promoting the acquisition of skills and competences" and "Strengthening the profiles of teachers profession") were addressed in a transversal way through the working methodology of several activities: - working in groups promotes responsibility among students, their ability to share tasks, to organise, to present results, ... as well as communication skills; - PBL methodology has great advantages for an apprenticeship, both for students and teachers: it increases interaction, autonomy, curiosity, the skill "learning to learn", ... but also planning, coordination, the achievement of objectives ... For the participating schools, working together in the same activities and with a similar method was an excellent opportunity to exchange educational experiences and good practices. This is related to the second topic addressed by the project: school methods development.