In the 21st century, European citizens are confronted with a multitude of challenges with a global dimension. Although these problems require a global approach, the focus in 2019 seems to shift to the national context while emphasising what divides us rather than on what unites us, with a strong focus on the notion of identity. The larger and the more integrated the European Union becomes, the more difficult it appears to be to interpret our identity in such a way that it leaves room for the diversity that is characteristic of a large union. With this project we want to stimulate the participants to value both the private and the common and to help build a foundation for an inclusive European identity rooted in its rich past, its heritage, and stimulate media wisdom and thus strengthen a democratic attitude. With our project we want to stimulate social inclusion as well inside as outside of our schools. We want to share our story with the outside world and open it up to people from all over Europe. In our heritage we look for both the common denominator and the unique in order to enter into a dialogue and write a new story: we strive to have everyone aboard. In our questioning of our heritage, we want to appreciate everyone's contribution equally. In our exchange we strive for contact with a diverse audience, across social, age, culture and gender barriers, all in serving the goal of promoting social cohesion. The question of identity lies at the heart of the social debate, and thus in a context where stereotyping and polarisation peep around the corner. With our project we want to sharpen the media wisdom of our pupils, and help them to grow into resilient citizens on the internet. We have 5 participating schools on the project, the Portuguese Escola Secundária de Loulé, the German Adolf Weber Gymnasium from Munich, the Finnish Oulun Lyseon lukio, Bulgarian Profiled Mathematical High School from Pazardzhik and Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-Presentatie from Sint-Niklaas in Belgium. The participating schools are medium sized, with school populations of in between 700 (Bulgaria) and 1200 (Sint-Niklaas and Loulé). The schools offer a wide range of courses, preparing the pupils for higher studies as well as for the work field. Participation to the project is open for all levels. Each school has a core group working specifically on the exchange programme. This group consists out of pupils of the age of 15 to 16 at the start of the programme. For the actual exchanges we aim at maximum participation by pupils within the margins of the available budget. During the exchange periods, we will immerse in a specific domain of national heritage, each time adopting a different vantage point, in order to appreciate the layered interpretation our past can foster. For example, during the Belgian exchange period, we’re going to immerse in the history of World War one from a multicultural vantage point. This way we’re going to be able to open the classic historical view for a layered interpretation, reflecting the diversity of the European population. This will then be the basis on which we will create educational games which will enable us to share our learning experiences with the outside world. During the exchanges, we will share our individual experiences with the home crowd and our E-twinning network via VLOGS. This way we try create space for individual reflection in our program. In between the exchanges, we will be datamining via E-twinning. We want to form a solid objective base, by gathering data, mapping these data and using statistical techniques on them. This way we want to promote critical thinking and even more media wisdom. We will distribute our findings and our plays via our website. For an even further proliferation of our experiences and results we’ll also be communicating via social media. In october 2019 we’ll have a kickoff teacher’s meeting in Belgium. In february 2020 we’ll have the first exchange in Munich, in may 2020 in Loulé, in october 2020 in Pazardzhik and march 2021 in Oulu. We’ll be finishing the project in september 2021, back in Belgium. In between meetings, we’ll be preparing our next meetings via E-twinning and share our games and results with our partner schools outside the actual exchange, via E-twinning. We aim at creating at least five different games, which we also want to evaluate by playing them with different target groups. We want to consolidate and proliferate our findings via our project website and E-twinning spaces. We aim at inclusion, also in the process of the exchange. We strive for a diverse field of participants in our schools, and also via partnering organisations. We aim at promoting an open attitude towards inclusion with our pupils. As for the participating teachers, and the other colleagues in our schools, we want to share them our experiences and help strengthening a school culture in which inclusion and cohesion are firm values.
Looking back at 2019 from now seems like looking into a remote past. 2019 was pre-pandemic, in 2019 there was peace in Europe, in 2019 the world hadn’t yet witnessed a coup in the US. Since then we had to learn how to cooperate in this new context as well as appreciate how these new challenges could unite us, as well as divide us in ways we didn't know before. With this project we had the ambition of stimulating the participants "to value both the private and the common and to help build a foundation for an inclusive European identity rooted in its rich past, its heritage, and stimulate media wisdom and thus strengthen a democratic attitude". Neither could we have grasped the practical difficulties we would encounter, nor could we have imagined how important and relevant our goals would prove to be. As social inclusion was at the heart of our project we strived for a maximally diverse group, be it within the sometimes very strict boundaries as defined during the pandemic. With our project we stimulated social inclusion inside as well as outside of our schools. We shared our story with the outside world in virtual ways by sharing our games via our website and E-twinning. We entered into a dialogue with our heritage and tried to write a new, more inclusive history. We did this by bringing historical topics close to our participants' reality and value their appreciation, by creating games. The avatar they chose and created was the perfect summary of their personal experiences. During the exchange periods, we immersed ourselves in a specific domain of national heritage, each time adopting a different vantage point to create a multifocal view on the past. During the Portuguese exchange we immersed ourselves in the Arab past of the Algarve avoiding a western vantage point. In Belgium we Played a city game reflecting the difficult relationship between our actual diverse world and Belgium's colonial heritage. This way we traded the classic historical view for a layered one, reflecting the diversity of the European population. During the exchanges, we shared our individual experiences with the home crowd via VLOGS. This way we gave space for individual reflection in our program. With our project we sharpened the media wisdom of our participants, immersing in the communist past in Bulgaria and learning about the Lügenpresse in Munich. We had 5 participating schools on the project, each of them having a core group working specifically on the exchange programme. This group consisted of pupils of the age of 15 to 16 at the start of the programme. For the actual exchanges we aimed at maximum participation by pupils within the margins of the available budget, meaning each school could send up to 7 pupils abroad. As the project was prolonged for a year because of COVID, most of the participating schools had to start with a totally new group in september 2021. This meant we had a constant rescheduling to cope with, resulting in 4 mobilities during the last eight months, with the Finnish one turning into a virtual one at late notice. In october 2019 we had our kickoff teachers meeting in Belgium, followed by the first real mobility in Munich in february 20, soon after which COVID turned everything upside down. We restarted our mobilities in october 21 in Pazardzhik and november 21 in Loulé. The february 22 meeting in Oulu turned into a virtual one, but we managed to have the final meeting with complete delegations in Belgium in may 22. In between meetings, we prepared our next meetings and shared our games and results with our partner schools outside the actual exchange online. We created five different types of games, which we evaluated by playing them with different target groups. The games created in Loulé were played with kids from nursery school, those prepared in Pazardzhik were played by fellow high school pupils. In the Belgian meeting we played our games with former refugees. Reality forced us to downsize the ambitions we had on proliferating our experiences online. There was the complete change in participating students in 2022 to deal with, as well as the fact that we had a very tight schedule with 4 mobilities in one year, as well as the fact that the constant online demand in our regular schoolwork was bearing hard on all participants, be it pupils as well as teachers. We did develop tools to evaluate the games we created, and we discussed our findings during our meetings. This way we promoted critical thinking and also media wisdom. We distributed our findings and our plays via our website and shared our experiences via social media.