„We prepare tomorrow‘s democracy through the democracy in schools“(Célestin Freinet, 1896-1966) The 21st century experiences a fast-changing world that concerns all fields of life: society, culture, politics and the labour market. This high speed unsettles many people. We observe in almost all European societies a social, political and cultural divide, which is deeper than ever before. This divide resulted in the past years up to today to discrimination, racism, xenophobia and in extremis to violence and terrorism. We observe the great changes in the working life: the technological revolution has a fundamental impact on the profession and the workplaces. All these changes have and will have a great impact on education and more than ever on the education for democracy. In order to face these great challenges, our European societies need to wind down and to reflect their democratic values in the perspective to the living and the working together in the Europe of the 21st century. Education has a crucial role to play within this process. The partners of this proposed project are aware of this tremendous task for education, for schools, headmasters, teachers, parents, students, political decision-makers, all educative experts and even the civil society. The general goals of the proposed project are, to share and exchange with the partners their practice in the field of student’s representation and participation with a strong look on teacher’s competences to prepare the students for their life as active democratic citizens and as future actors on the European labour market. With ten partners from Croatia, Finland, Germany, Poland and Spain the project ensure a cultural and geographical diversity of the partners and a variety of profiles: a. Five schools from each partner country, teaching students from the age of 6 to 17. They are all experienced in the field of education for democracy and values education. b. One University that covers teacher initial and in service training and has a good experience in the project’s topic. c. Three institutions of teacher-in-service-training, which are experienced in education for democracy, ICT, European projects and dispose on large networks of heterogeneous stakeholders. d. One NGO that has a large experience in non-formal education, in European projects, in the work with teachers, adults and youth in the field of the project’s topic and dispose on a network of 78 NGOs in 25 countries. To achieve our goals we plan the following activities: 1. Six transnational meeting of the steering group to ensure the smooth process of the project 2. Five job shadowing and accompanying workshops in the respective partner schools with the aim to discuss and analyses the observation and to define the needs for teacher competences. 3. The production of relevant documents and a set of materials, tools and methods. These activities will be supported by a methodology based on the project management: 1. A well-structured management 2. A strong communication with the partners 3. Application of cooperative and interactive methods during the workshop to foster the cooperation of the partners and their mutual understanding 4. Implementation of the dissemination plan: information in the social and print media, European platforms as well as cooperation with other stakeholders and teaching experts The results will be 1. An introducing description of the current state of the education for democracy, 2. A matrix that supports the observation during the job shadowing 3. A matrix for the evaluation of the observation 4. A compilation of the observation and consultation in the partner’s schools 5. A set of adapted materials, tools and methods of inspiring examples 6. A virtual platform hosted on the project’s website 7. A document including the analysis of the observation and the needs for teachers and schools in order to develop their education for democracy 8. A grid of a regional round table with other stakeholders The impact envisaged is to foster the education for democracy in our countries with the aim to strengthen the competences of teachers, the school development and the development of teaching in the field of values education. This with the support of the outcomes and through their availability on European and project’s virtual platforms, other teacher training institutes and schools all over Europe have access to the materials, tools and methods as well as to the accompanying documents. The longer-term benefit should be a better understanding by all stakeholders in the field of education of the necessity of values education, of the education for democracy, especially for student’s representation and participation as the guarantee of the further development of sustainable democratic societies in Europe. It is without saying that a better understanding leads to more commitment.
The general aim of the project was to share and compare with the partners from Croatia, Finland, Germany, Poland and Spain their pedagogical practices and approaches in the field of pupil participation and representation. Whereby the focus should be on teachers' competences, their students' preparation for their life as active, democratic citizens as well as future actors in the European labour market. In order to achieve this goal, teachers and trainers should reflect together in workshops on what they have observed, deal intensively with questions of democracy building and tools should be developed for observation in schools and lessons in the partner countries. These were to be made accessible to all stakeholders in Europe via a project homepage. Another important goal was to identify the need for teacher training on the basis of the analysis of what was observed and to communicate these results in regional round tables in order to achieve a broader understanding of the importance of democracy education. The aim of the project was to compare how schools in the partner countries manage to accompany young people on their way into a society full of new challenges as described above and to give them the opportunity to obtain the necessary knowledge and to develop action skills as well as democratic attitudes and values.
The 21st century is marked by an increasingly accelerating transition that affects all areas of social life: living and working together beyond local and national borders. These changes unsettle many people and cause social division in many areas: openness and pluralism vs. retreat to cultural identities, respect for otherness vs. discrimination, up to violence and extremism. The technological revolution is changing the world of work in particular: work profile, workplace as well as professions are undergoing massive change. The partners were aware that all these transformations have and will have an impact on education and especially on education for a democratic culture. They see school as an area of living, learning and education that must face these challenges and enable young people to become active, democratic citizens in their society. The partners asked themselves how they could learn from each other's practices and pedagogical approaches to support teachers and schools in this transformative educational process.