Our Erasmus + project arises from an observation, a difficult situation for our students daily (conflicts, rejection of others, malaise, early school leaving, loss of self-confidence). Our town knows a cultural and economic poverty, which contributes to self-exclusion and to exclusion of others, sustained by nationalism, if not extremism. Nevertheless Chauny is situated at the crossboards of big French cities (Paris, Lille, Reims) and foreign cities (Brussels, London) and could take benefit from their positive impacts. Our director, Mister Charles, embraces and encourages all initiatives that help resisting all forms of discrimination. The school's chief educational adviser and teachers regularly conduct several actions (peer-mediation, week of fighting discrimination with workshops and conferences, participation in national competitions to fight against school bullying, interventions of the Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Brigade ). In spite of these plans of action, there are still a lot of conflicts and incivilities. Our Erasmus + project refers to the project of the regional education authority of Amiens: make school climate everybody's business, encourage students' mobility and ambition and increase teachers and education staff's training. Our area is not the only one concerned by these social problems, it's an European issue. That is the reason why we have decided to share our experiences with other European partners, Spain, Italy and Bulgaria, in order to develop together strategies to fight against all discriminations. Every semester each country will receive the other partners during five days. These meetings will happen four times during the project, that is in November 2019 in Italy, in May 2020 in Bulgaria, in November 2020 in Spain and finally in May 2021 in France. Digital tools will be the teaching aids of picking up and spreading our ideas in order to show our productions, meetings and thoughts lead between us and the contributors. These tools will also participate in the development of the collaborative work with the European partners and contribute to the renewal of teaching practices. It's our role to arouse among our students the desire to open up to the wider world, to learn, to participe in debates, to search for informations, but also to argue, to show artistic openmindedness and to improve their skills in foreign languages. Whatever our social and territorial roots, this project has an ambition: make our European students enlightened citizens who are able to move with confidence in their society and participate in the construction of the social link. That is the reason why school bullying, gender equality and racism are the topics and issues of our reflections during these two years. The sharing of practices of the four partners will enable students and teachers to organise, during the last meeting, a big event to show the students' works done during the two years. It will also be the opportunity to exchange on the innovative teaching practices in order to enrich and renew our practices. This project will give to the students the opportunities to discover another way to embrace other cultures, thanks to a better self-confidence, a linguistic autonomy and a true desire to open themselves to others.
Strengthening ties, developing empathy, reaching out to others, overcoming the fear of communicating in a foreign language, disseminating a critical look at differences through the visual arts, theater, dance, writing and digital: these were the foundations of the project. In France, we chose eleven students that we wanted to follow over the two years, as the profile of each was atypical and did not in any way presume their encounter. Two hours a week were set aside to work on the project, outside of their regular schedule. In our partner countries, eight different pupils have been selected for each mobility, the wish being to involve the greatest number of pupils. The work on the project was done during class hours. In September 2019, when we launched our project, entitled "Let's promote tolerance between students and countries in order to fight against discrimination", we wanted to propose solutions to the recurring problems of school bullying, the lack of equality between girls and boys and racism within our various establishments. This project focused on collaborative artistic and reflective work around the theme of "living together". We carried out a first mobility, in Spain, in November 2019. All our students had never gone abroad, or even had never left their region, their family. These first exchanges made it possible to forge links, bonds of friendship, which still continue today. Creating social links means gaining self-confidence, opening up to others in order to become European citizens. Human encounters, reflections and collaborative activities are the pillars of living together. Our students created their logo, participated in questionnaires and virtual meetings, attended shows, interviewed women from a variety of backgrounds, produced posters, presentations, artistic productions, exchanged around a "speed-dating", visited the emblematic places of Andalusia, danced flamenco together, played together, cooked a typical Spanish recipe (paella) or wrote texts denouncing school bullying. As for the educational and administrative team, we discovered how the different school systems worked and took the time to discuss our teaching practices. Becoming aware of our operating differences, of the choices and strategies to support our students in their learning is also a way to open to others. Since the start of the health crisis in March 2020, the work and exchange conditions regarding the project have deteriorated and have therefore impacted relations between the partner countries. The program, as well as the timetable that we had drawn up, could not be respected. The meetings planned with external speakers had to be canceled. Under such circumstances, it is difficult to consider long-term benefits for our project.