HEROES focuses the pedagogical issues linked to the relevance of Cultural Heritage Education, combining some of the main concepts included in the Faro Convention (EC 27.X.2005) with the priorities established by Erasmus+ about the social and educational value of EU cultural heritage as contribution to social cohesion, economic growth and job creation. The EU Faro Convention underlines the need to promote the knowledge of cultural heritage as common resource for the peaceful co-existence within cultural diversity, encouraging the integration of these aspects in lifelong education and VET, both within and outside the educational system. So, the project aims to strengthen synergies between Educational System and Cultural Heritage Education, improve the quality of education and support effective and innovative pedagogies, fostering permeability between different education and training pathways. Within HEROES, partners will develop an original educative Model focused on Cultural Heritage Education (I.O1), providing teaching staff for innovative competences to apply it in classroom or in other educative settings. The HEROES Model will include specific Guidelines and an operational Educational Peer Method, to introduce teachers and cultural educators to innovative pedagogical strategies combining Cultural Heritage education with non-formal learning. These strategies could be effectively added to the traditional formal ones, being an effective resource to sustain students’ motivation and participation to school life other than providing teacher/educators with renewed competences for managing adolescents’ most delicate educative and growing transition stages. The methodological choice to base the Model on the Peer Approach can contribute also in improving relationships quality between students and teachers and- most widely – learners and educational system, making it more inclusive and so limit different potential disaffection dynamics such as ESL. The concept of Cultural Heritage focused by the project makes the treated issues adequate to be effectively included both in the curricular and extra-curricular activities on this theme in every kind of school. Moreover, the Model’s specific features make it suitable and effective also for educative professionals working in the Didactic Depts. of museums or in other public/private institutions devoted to promotion and protection of cultural heritage with educational assignments. The adopted concept of Heritage should be considered in its extended meaning: not only artistic, museums and monumental patrimony, but widened to all the other significant life elements constituting the cultural, historical, identity and social heritage of territories and populations. The HEROES Model will arise from the mutual exchange of partners’ pedagogical experiences to be combined, improved and enriched through Peer Education, flowing in a new and original NON-formal learning path. Its implementation will be preceded by an initial phase of mapping and comparison of methodologies and good practices already in use in partner countries and by the involved partners to treat cultural matters and approach students to cultural heritage issues. The need to broaden/deepen the research on EU educational methods and to provide teaching staff with innovative tools to tackle the educational challenges of contemporary society also allow to identify some sectoral and possible teaching staff’s training needs in this area. The whole Model will be evaluated and validated through a set of Internal Workshops for teaching staff and cultural educators-to deepen and discuss its practical and theoretical contents- and a field test. The test will be realized in each country by teachers/educators in their activities and its topic moment will be the final LTA, where a selected group of students coming from each partner country will be hosted in the others, where they will be involved in a set of peer educational European experiences, giving to the Model its wider applying. So, HEROES target groups are: •Secondary Schools teachers, regardless their specific curriculum, according to the trans-sectoral priorities and issues to be treated • Cultural educators such as educative professionals and operators working in the Didactic Depts of museums or in other public/private institutions devoted to promotion and protection of cultural heritage •Secondary Schools students 14-18 years old, regardless their educational curriculum, underlining the innate value of inclusivity of Cultural Heritage Education. Partners will also set an Online Platform (IO2) acting as a multifunctional and interactive project’s frame. It will be structured as an easy and agile online environment, hosting all the educational contents and pedagogical instruments, developed within the project and uploaded as OER for their wider widespread, circulation and use among all the cultural and educational institutions interested in and among their professionals
Implementing the project, we wanted to create an educational proposal aimed to integrate the traditional school teaching with a fresher, more interactive and participatory approach to introduce learners to cultural heritage issues and knowledge (and to its social and civil value), making them protagonists of their own learning process. It has been done by building an original Model composed of theoretical and practical contents to provide Secondary School teachers innovative pedagogical strategies combining Cultural Heritage Education with non-formal learning (with special regard to the Peer Education). The Model’s features make its specific contents suitable and effective also for educative professionals from the Didactic Depts. of museums and/or from other institutions devoted to promotion/protection of cultural heritage with educational assignments. So, through the commonality of educational purposes between Educational and Cultural Institutions (School, University, Training Centres, Museums, Art Galleries, etc), we intended to highlight and value their existing mutual collaborations and to identify and trace new possible and innovative synergies, so as to foster permeability between different educational and training pathways.
HEROES arose from the intent to focus the pedagogical issues linked to the relevance of Cultural Heritage Education, combining some of the key concepts of the Faro Convention with the priorities of Erasmus+ about the social/educational value of EU cultural heritage as contribution to social cohesion and economic growth. Among the principles listed by the Convention there are the need to promote the knowledge of cultural heritage as a common resource for the peaceful coexistence within cultural diversity, encouraging the integration of these aspects in lifelong education and VET, both within and outside the educational system. This general aim is complemented by the need to: a) Provide Teachers/Cultural Educators specific expertise enabling young people to become protagonist of their own personal development/knowledge path, fostering their active involvement in educational and cultural activities b) Foster among adolescents the value of mutual knowledge, critical thinking and respect of differences to develop intercultural awareness, combat prejudice and encourage EU identity and active citizenship through CHE c) Add the value of ACCESSIBILITY to the concepts of youth participation and wide access to the common EU cultural heritage