Summary of the project: The schools in the partnership value ‘cultural education’ very high as an aspect of active citizenship. Knowledge about other cultures, other ways of living, other lifestyles is a condition for acquiring respect, appreciation for these lifestyles. It breaks through individualization and opens up borders instead of building walls. But cultural education in our schools is not granted the important place it deserves. It is cut up, fragmented and divided among different subjects as crafts, music, drawing, drama, geography, history. Curricula just mainly focus on local and national contexts, rarely allowing both teachers and students to get a glimpse of a wider perspective. 1. We will change this into education in cohesion, not fragmented between different subjects but present as a whole, as an entity in the project theme weeks. 2. We will make education in our schools international. The project will concentrate on the cultural diversity of Europe, starting with the thematic field closest to the children in stage one, like their daily lives, free time, school and neighbourhood, moving through the themes that determine their family and social life in stage two, like traditions, holidays (both national and religious) and festivals and finally reaching the broadest thematic field of stage three, in which the children will explore examples of their countries’ contributions to the European heritage in the areas such as music, dance, art or sights / places of interest. The LTT weeks happening in the host schools will be accompanied by LTT weeks happening in all partner schools. Partner schools will plan activities for their students, connected thematically with the main theme of the LTT (which is the same as the theme of each stage). The topics on which we focus are divided into three thematic stages in the following way: 1. Stage one: ‘Me and my world - our ways of life', in which students will learn to understand and appreciate our peers from other countries ; 2. Stage two: ‘My community - our traditions’ in which students will learn to understand and appreciate our respective cultures and their roots. 3. Stage three: ‘My country - our national treasures’ in which students will learn to understand and appreciate our contributions to the European heritage All these topics will first be discussed at schools in the context of each individual child, each individual community and each individual nation and then given an international dimension through exchanging works, presentations, experiences among peers, through LTT events with international groups of students working together and through project Theme Weeks, with each school's students exploring other schools' productions and contributions and doing their own research into culture topics covered during the stage in question. By the end of this projects all schools will have realised cultural education in three structural project weeks each year. Teachers will learn to organise the education in the way to put emphasis on teaching tolerance and understanding in a European cultural context and receive motivating tools for it. Besides: ● All schools will contribute their suggestions, examples and worksheets for a teaching toolbox and teachers’ guide on cultural education, which will be available on the project website. ● Pupils will practice a variety of cooperative work methods, under the supervision of teachers, who will be trained to organize the education process in such a way. ● Teachers will gain competences to train pupils in developing their basic skills in ICT and foreign languages. ● Teachers will create a strong and motivating learning environment for the pupils in general, and in particular for cultural education. ● In the years after this project cultural education will be continued in eTwinning projects with the same or other school partners. There is also a possibility that the schools will find it useful to explore some of the aspects of the project more deeply and consider continuing the research in another partnership.
The project has focused on the cultural diversity of Europe, we started with the thematic field closest to the children in phase one, such as their daily life, leisure, school and neighbourhood, by addressing the themes that affect their family. We focused on social life in phase two, such as traditions, holidays (both national and religious) and festivals. Finally, we dealt with the broadest thematic field in phase three, where the children explored examples of their country's contributions to European heritage. The topics on which we concentrated on were divided into three thematic phases: 1. Phase one: 'Me and my world - our way of life', where students learned to understand and appreciate their peers from other countries. 2. Phase Two: 'My Community - Our Traditions' where students learned to understand and appreciate their respective cultures and their roots. 3. Phase Three: 'My Country - Our National Treasures' in which students learned to understand and appreciate their country's contributions to Europe's heritage. All topics were discussed in each school in the context of each individual child, each individual community, and each individual nation, and subsequently have taken on an international dimension. Although the students were unable to travel internationally due to the COVID pandemic, they had the chance to meet their European peers online. The children engaged in a variety of tasks and activities as outlined in the application process and through these various lessons and engagement with the project content they were able to grow creatively. A huge emphasis was placed on the children’s development of their problem-solving skills and ability to work in a team. They actively engaged in the arts subjects and excelled through their works of art, documenting their lives, and displaying an interest in their local region and country by exploring beautiful places and gathering interesting facts. They documented their lives and invited the project community into their homes and families. Teachers have learned to organize education in such a way that emphasis is placed on teaching tolerance and understanding in a European cultural context and were provided with motivational tools to do so. In addition: - All schools have contributed their suggestions, examples, and worksheets for an educational toolbox on cultural education, which is available on the project website. - The students practiced different cooperative working methods, under the guidance of teachers, who were trained to organize the educational process in such a way. - Teachers acquired competencies to train students in developing their basic skills in ICT and foreign languages. - Teachers created a strong and motivating learning environment for students in general and for cultural education in particular. In the years following this project, cultural education will continue in eTwinning projects with the same and different school partners. The main achievement is that children have gained a very good insight into the lives of their peers in Europe. They collected their own experiences and shared them with children from partner schools. This gave everyone a unique opportunity to compare different aspects of daily life. This helped the children not only to gain practical and theoretical knowledge about the lives of children in other countries and about the traditions of these countries but also to appreciate other cultural, national, regional and religious backgrounds and to observe how these backgrounds contribute to our common European heritage. The students have come to appreciate the impact of their own culture on the culture of Europe as a whole. Their knowledge and awareness deepened, as did their willingness to research and learn more. All visiting teachers held meetings and lessons with the students of the host schools. Here the visiting teachers gave an account of specific areas of interest in their country and shared their cultural similarities and differences. This gave the children of the host school an invaluable opportunity to question and discuss these topics with visiting teachers and hear a first-hand account of the various topics. The topics of learning foreign languages, fostering creativity and increasing awareness and knowledge of culture were addressed as planned throughout the project activities, the results of which can be seen following the project's implementation. Participation in this project has been so beneficial for all partner schools; their staff, learners, local and wider communities. All schools plan to continue their participation in the Erasmus+ Programme and plan to extend the theme explored in this project. We now truly appreciate the benefits of internationalization and the extensive value of being an active EU citizen and organisation.