Our school, IES Bachiller Diego Sánchez, is a public school located in Talavera la Real, a municipality in the province of Badajoz with about 5,500 inhabitants. Agricultural activity is deeply rooted in the area, and there is a high level of unemployment, especially among women, young people and the most vulnerable groups. About 70% of the parents of our students have primary studies, and only 0.7%, higher studies. In our school ESO, Baccalaureate, and a Middle Degree Cycle of Administrative Management are learnt. The behavior of the students is correct, and the relationship with the teachers is good, as well as the degree of conformity with the teaching they receive. However, there is a lack of motivation and interest in the classes and activities of the school, which directly affects school dropout and failure, since we have a very low number of ESO graduates in relation to the number of students who enrolled. For example, in the 2014/2015 academic year, 89 students enrolled in the first year of ESO, of whose promotion only 45 obtained the title of ESO, 50.5%. This made us think about the need to promote a change in our school, redirecting the behavior of the students, seeking more active and dynamic behaviors, reinforcing the cultural and artistic dimension of education. We have tried to take advantage of the opportunities we have had to achieve this objective and we have participated in various programs to respond to the needs of our students. The most immediate antecedent of our project is the KA1 project, “Culture in education: learning from Europe”, understood as one more step in the improvement of our teaching practice, and as the beginning of the internationalization of our school. To develop the project we looked for a partner who had the same needs as us and who would like to use folklore to achieve the same goal: the N. J. Vaptsarov school, from Vratsa, in Bulgaria. In this project we jointly planned activities divided into 4 content blocks: music, dance, gastronomy, crafts, which we worked in parallel, making a sharing that culminated in four exchanges that we had designed, in which we combined reflection on what we had worked on with different workshops and joint activities. Our main objective, to use folklore as a common thread so that our students learn to value cultural diversity, to work in a respectful and multicultural way with other European students, thus giving our school an international character and a European conscience, has been successfully achieved, thanks to the activities carried out: in the gastronomic block, we have studied traditional foods (nutritional value, economic contribution to the area, traditional trades, celebrations related to harvests and field cycles, traditional recipes, festivals associated with the countryside, landscape that draw these crops in the area...). Regarding musical activity, we have performed interpretations of traditional Christmas carols, jotas, jota rhythms with gastronomic musical instruments, research on the music and musicians of Bulgaria and Extremadura, musical language of the traditional repertoire, accompaniments and ostinatos... On dance, we have known the main dances, dancing a Bulgarian and Spanish dance; we have used traditional clothing. On traditional games, we have worked on the songs that are associated with them, as well as we have played different games with our partner (hopscotch, sacks, badges ...). In short, we have used cultural and artistic competence as the backbone of all subjects, to help our students to express themselves and to appreciate the different manifestations of culture and art, in addition to roots and identity and a respectful attitude towards the diversity.
Our school, IES Bachiller Diego Sánchez, is a public high school located in Talavera la Real, a municipality in the province of Badajoz with about 5,500 inhabitants. Agricultural activity is deeply rooted in the area, and there is a high level of unemployment, especially among women, young people and the most vulnerable groups. About 70% of the parents of our students have primary education, and only 0, 7%, higher education. In our school ESO, Baccalaureate, and a Middle Degree Cycle of Administrative Management are taught. The behavior of the students is correct in general lines, and the relationship with the teachers is good, as well as the degree of conformity with the teaching they receive. However, there is a lack of motivation and interest in the classes and activities of the school, which directly affects school dropout and failure, since we have a very low number of ESO graduates in relation to the number of students who enrolled. For example, in the 2014/2015 academic year, 89 students enrolled in the first year of ESO, of whose promotion only 45 obtained the title of ESO, 50.5%. This made us think about the need to promote a change in our school, redirecting the behavior of the students, seeking more active and dynamic behaviors, reinforcing the cultural and artistic dimension of education. We have tried to take advantage of the opportunities we have had to achieve this objective, and being a young school, we have participated in various programs to respond to the needs of our students: the network of entrepreneurial schools, with the support of the social and educational agents of their community, launching a program of educational, creative, playful and community activities; the Librarium project, educational radio ... 53% of the teaching staff have joined these initiatives. The most immediate antecedent of our project is the KA1 project, “Culture in education: learning from Europe”, understood as one more step in the improvement of our teaching practice, and as the beginning of the internationalization of our school. Since then we thought that we should look to Europe to become aware of new teaching methodologies and good educational practices. To do this, we looked for a partner who had the same needs as us and who would like to use folklore to achieve the same goal: the N. J. Vaptsarov school offers Secondary Education and a Certificate of Professional Qualification. It offers its students the opportunity to visit commercial companies, participating in the work process. These activities are part of his vision to foster flexible, creative and knowledgeable students of their future work lives. The school's specialties are: Systems Programming, Computer Techniques and Technology, Electronics, Automotive Mechatronics and CNC Machines. Students have the opportunity to participate in activities and competitions organized at the school, regional and national levels. In this project we jointly planned activities divided into 4 content topics: music, dance, gastronomy, crafts, which we worked in parallel, making a sharing that culminated in four exchanges that we had designed, in which we combined reflection on what has been worked with different workshops and joint activities. Only the first meeting could be carried out in the planned way, with a great impact on the students of the two educational schools. The emergence of the covid made us have to rethink the activities, holding two virtual meetings that, although we consider satisfactory, do not have the same impact on students as real immersion in another country. We have used cultural and artistic competence as the backbone of all subjects, to help our students to express themselves and to appreciate the different manifestations of culture and art, in addition to roots and identity and a respectful attitude towards diversity. We consider that our main objective, to use folklore as a common thread so that our students learn to value cultural diversity, to work in a respectful and multicultural way with other European students, thus giving our school an international character and a European conscience, has been successfully achieved.