"Sharing Our Cultural, Historical and Artistic Heritage" has finally been, due to the Covid pandemic, a three-year project in which we have tried to make our students to be more aware of the growing global desire to find out more about each other, about other cultures. We have aimed to settle a new conscience in them so that they make the difference between students who simply pass or fail exams and those who become lifelong learners who can thrive in the fast moving European environment of the 21st century. Thanks to SOCHAH, our students have been able to focus on personal learning and thinking skills about how to promote their own identity, and volunteer to give their schools, communities and cities an opportunity to be known abroad. At the same time they have had the chance of knowing the diversity of the six schools and nationalities involved. These schools have worked on how to help young people to become better learners, both in school and out by cultivating habits and attitudes that enable young people to respect each other, and even to face difficulties in a calm, confident way. One of the project’s main initial objectives was making our students aware of their own heritage, traditions and wide culture as well as knowing their colleagues’ and new friends. Cooperative learning, while working on the topics of the Project, has been a main issue for the schools, as we wanted them to share in every possible way. Teachers and pupils have taken part in all kinds of events and activities that have been prepared at hosting schools for the local community and the participants from other countries. We have involved our students in a kind of voluntary service where they have helped their partners and teachers in many different ways. Another main objective was making them realize the importance of their own language as well as the other countries’. So, learning expressions and ways of communicating has been constant throughout the duration of the project, in their native languages and in the language of the project, English. We have focused on the process of learning as on the content and allow students to be leaders. We have encouraged them to take the initiative, always taking into account the respect to other people, no matter gender, race or religion. Our aim was to create independent enquirers, creative thinkers, reflective learners, team workers, self-managers or effective participators so that they became the best ambassadors of their schools. As citizens of the 21st century, we have worked in the duality of enhancing ICT skills, working with new technologies: Internet and some applications to be used in the classroom and in their everyday lives, a website for the project, YouTube presentations or eTwinning linking; and also realizing that we have to take care of our planet and its environment, with traditional methods our ancestors have used for ages and are Earth-friendly: handmade products, slow food, saving water or the use of paper through a wider use of technology and reducing the carbon-footprint. The activities we have done in our mobilities are: each school made a presentation about the different topics dealt in every mobility: dance and music, handcrafts, games, food, architecture, ICT technology, their schools, cities and countries. After the topic was agreed by coordinators and students, every country and team decided the way to present the topic: video, powerpoint, Prezi, Youtube and mainly live on site when possible, where the rest of the school and parents could participate. Later on, we made cultural visits to historical places where we shared the precious heritage of our countries and where we had great and unforgettable moments that will last forever in our minds. Our assessment is that, in the long term, the project will have the following impacts on all the students who took part on it, friends and families: - A wider knowledge and point of view of their Cultural, Historic and Artistic Heritage so that they are aware of how rich they are and they can share it. - Improvements in the sense of solidarity, cooperation, team spirit and communication skills among partners and countries. - A better emotional and social well-being, with an increase in social skills, sense of initiative and entrepreneurship. - Developments of the “learning to learn” competence, at the same time that they gain a volunteering work spirit. - A big improvement of linguistic skills, in English because of being the language of the Project, as the eagerness of learning other languages of the partners they have shared the project with. - A bigger awareness of global and environmental issues and the influence we have on our planet, with the hope that this new technology era will make them all well-equipped to deal with the complex demands of living and working in the 21st century.
The sparks which flew up to join us altogether in this project were three main elements: making our pupils able to catch the real universal values, shape their attitudes and get ready to design a suitable career in such a way they become responsible and critical members of our common great modern industrialized society: the EUROPEAN one. The fact that the six schools involved in this project are from such different parts of Europe: Spain and Portugal - south west; Italy - south; Bulgaria - south east; Turkey - even more southern part, and France - occupying the most northern part among the others, makes the right mixture of Cultures and Traditions which will be able to reach the result we set since the very first beginning: SHARING our cultures in order to, on one hand, promoting identity, on the other respecting, accepting and welcoming diversity. Since most of the students attending our six schools are becoming more and more unmotivated to study, also because they are aware about the difficulties of finding a job, the target group we are going to involve will be represented by all those students for which we need to find out attractive methodologies and make them move closer to school activities. We are also going to invite other schools in the districts in order to do surveys, share local activities and disseminate the final results. As well as we are going to involve parents, since we believe that families must represent another important pulling element in this programme. Finally local shakeholders (Authorities, folk groups, NGOs ) will be indirect participants. So in total the number of the involved people in all the project will be about 1.200. In order to give the project the right start we are going to plan 2 TM in which all partners together with the coordinator will organise, prepare and evaluate activities, 6 international activities, each one of them will be focused on a different aspect of all countries cultures and traditions, and of course local activities among the International meetings. All of these activities will be recorded and shared on the e-Twinning platform, specially the local ones. The results we expert to obtain are the following: Our students have to acquire: -true knowledge about their own traditions and about their partners’ ones; -becoming proud of their own mother tongue as well as knowing the importance of the other countries’ languages; -reaching the aware and the right respect towards other people, professing other religions; -inhencing ICT skills together with English speaking competences; -improving cooperation among schools, local authorities and local shakeholders. The tangible results will be: -e-book containing the most common cultural aspects of each involved country. -website, collecting all the activities carried out in the project; -videos showing traditional dances and performances -didactic material about the different languages for both teachers and students The final products will be downloaded both on each schools’ website and on the ERASMUS+ platform.They will be, of course free copy-right in order to permit the maximum dissemination among schools. After the project in each school seminars, conferences will be organised, inviting other schools in the district to show the whole project and be ready to help other teachers in designing new projects.