The contemporary world of technology, ICT and industrial development the more nad more often needs cultural education. Contemporary Europe, the fusion of contrasts and opposites needs working on the feeling of unity and mutual understanding. This goal can be achieved by referring to common historical and cultural heritage. Our project will serve this goal. It is a strategic partnership of three organisations educating adult learners from three different countries. Jelenia Góra Third Age Academy, LUTE University – Milazzo from Italy and Spanish Universidad De Castylia-La Mancha will organise classes for students where they will: - develop and deepen the knowledge about the culture and history of own country - learn the culture and history of the senior partners - look for common elements of culture and history of the partners’ countries The idea of the project was developed during the realisation of another partnership project, where we concentrated on teaching English to seniors. Evaluation of the activities showed that seniors learning English lack the opportunity to use their language skills. Hence the idea of common work in the field of culture between the three groups of seniors from different countries. Common work and activities will be direct during the blended mobilities and indirect with the use of ICT (the Internet, Skype, social media). In the project we are planning: - three transnational partners meetings, where we will discuss all the issues connected with the realisation of the project - three blended mobilities of adult learners , where we will conduct workshops on music, literature, theatre and history in partners’ countries. Common searching for information , preparing materials, developing the results. During these mobilities the students will use the ICT and develop their language skills. - two short-term joint staff trainings which the English teachers working with the seniors will take part in. The common meetings of the teachers will not only allow the development of the workshops programme but also will enrich their own working workshop. Besides the international meetings also local activities will be realised in the project (cultural workshops) where the seniors will be preparing to mobilities. Each partner will benefit from the project learning from the best practices of others and gaining ideas for the further development. Partners will get to know the life-long-learning organisations in other countries, use of digital tools, educational use of social media. The created network of partners will allow to share the ideas even after the project has finished. The set of best practices will be uploaded on the Internet websites and will serve the partners’ organisations, their staff members and also the wider life-long-learning community by showing steps of cultural education development. Adult learners participating in the project will enrich their knowledge about the culture of other countries. They will openly get to know new people, traditions and history. They will overcome the barrier in speaking a foreign language and open to to the contemporary challenges .
The project „Common Cultural Heritage” was realised in the partnership of three universities of third age: - Jelenia Góra Academy of Third Age – led by Foundation „Aktywni XXI” - LUTE University - Milazzo, Italy - Universidad De Castylia-La Mancha - Spain Contemporary world of technology, ICT and industrial development needs cultural education. Contemporary Europe – the blend of contrasts and opposites, requires the feeling of unity and common understanding. This goal can be achieved by referring to common historical and cultural roots. The goal of our project was common work of seniors from three countries to search for common historical and cultural elements. During the local workshops as well as in the blended mobilities the participants developed and deepened their knowledge of the history and culture of their own countries and of the partners’ countries. In the project, we had planned three blended mobilities of the adult students, where they took part in in workshops referring to chosen cultural and historical topics. The seniors prepared to those meetings during local workshops. They were looking for materials on the chosen topics and preparing multimedia presentations. In the international meetings they presented their materials, exchanged experiences and knowledge about common cultural heritage and the differences which show diversity of history and traditions in each country. They also took part in common workshops. Each blended mobility was devoted to a different area of culture and history. The first meeting “Music soothes the savage beast” took place in Poland. The participants presented their materials, took part in the concerts, sang popular songs together and took part in dancing workshops. Polish seniors were surprised with the Italian seniors’ knowledge of Polish opera and Polish opera singers. The second meeting “Art knows no boundaries” took place at the Italian partner’s and considered art in a broad meaning. The Italians prepared a presentation on futurism in Poland, Italy and Spain. The Polish presented material about Italian and Spanish artists working in Poland and about Poles in Italy. The Spanish presented similarities int the architecture of the three countries. In this mobility, the participants took part in ceramic and floral workshops. They visited interesting artistic places on Sicily (constructions of historical importance, the museum of sculpture, galleries, etc.). Unfortunately, the third meeting didn’t take place due to closed borders in Europe (Covid-19 pandemic). However the materials to the meeting titled “Common past, common future” had been prepared and they were presented during the on-line meeting of the partners. The evaluation of the project among seniors showed how big impact the participation in the project had on them. Not only did they deepen their knowledge of the culture and history of the three countries but also they developed their ICT skills by looking for materials, preparing presentations and taking part in the on-line meeting. Also their language skills improved: they prepared and presented their materials in English, they worked together in the workshops and they kept in touch on the Whats App project group. There were also to short-term trainings for the workers, in which trainers/educators working with seniors took part. They prepared international workshops for seniors in the first meeting and discussed the realised workshops and seniors preparations in the second meeting (the second meeting was on-line). The meetings resulted in 9 workshops plans for seniors in the area of culture and history. All the partners’ organizations will use the workshops plans and continue the cultural education. The materials will also be available for anyone interested. Since the participation of the seniors was the main goal of the project, all the presentations prepared by the seniors will also be available to anyone interested as a product of our project.