Under the project title "Using the Weapon of Education: Knowledge as a Tool for Inclusion and Tolerance for a Cosmopolitan School, for a Cosmopolitan Society", high schools from Germany and Spain are working together under similar conditions. The project, whose main focus is on strengthening pupils' understanding of democracy (education as a weapon for change), goes far beyond getting to know each other and transnational language acquisition. The focus is on the development of critical thinking skills, which should enable pupils to find ways and means to support the inclusion of migrant children in school. The project offers students the opportunity to delve deeper into the broad field of inclusion and migration. In last year's European elections, a clear shift to the right was noticeable. Right-wing parties have been gaining ground in European countries (such as AfD in Germany and VOX in Spain) for years. Another crucial point of this project is the use of our students' social networks, wherefore they are supposed to deal with extremist content and hate comments on the net on the one hand and are confronted with the everyday problem of fake news on the other hand. As the number of channels increases, so does the complexity of the process of personal opinion and identity formation. Our project therefore also deals with the question of how we can give students orientation in a world full of fake news.
The project title "With the weapon of education: knowledge as a tool for inclusion and tolerance for a cosmopolitan school, for a cosmopolitan society" spanned a period of three years and included two student exchanges between the 9th grade of the Henfling-Gymnasium from Germany and the IES Juan Villanueva from Asturias, Spain. The aim of the project was to further develop the students' understanding of democracy as a basis for tolerance and successful integration. Due to the pandemic, the project kick-off in 2020 was limited to the preparatory working group and the participants establishing contact via social networks. The project content was implemented with a different group of pupils in 2023 and is described below. Within the above-mentioned framework theme, the focus in 2022 was primarily on the topic of racism in Spain and Germany, well before getting to know the culture through excursions to important sites such as the cave paintings of the Cueva Tito Bustillo. In Germany, particular attention was paid to the period of National Socialism. The visit to historically significant sites such as the Reich Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg illustrated the ideological origins of current right-wing tendencies in Germany. We also showed the possible consequences of giving space to such ideologies. The visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar illustrated this dramatically. The book "El largo viaje" by the Spanish Buchenwald concentration camp survivor Jorge Semprún was read by the Spanish and German students in preparation and evaluated in Spain. Activities on the topic of "fake news" were also used to sensitize the participants to false reports and opinion manipulation in digital media. In addition to imparting knowledge as a weapon, workshops such as "Asturias Acoge" were used to develop recommendations for action with the pupils that allow them to question stereotypes and thus enable inclusion and tolerance. One example of this is the regular collaboration with local partners outside the school. In this case, an Asturian initiative to protect the rights of immigrants. As these topics also have to unfold in digital worlds, the pupils worked on the topic of cyberbullying. A second focus in 2023 was the role of religions in the development of cultural values. The aim was to shed light on their significance both as a cause of division and conflict - as an obstacle to successful integration - and as a basis for reconciliation and understanding. Intercultural differences in the development of Christianity in Spain and Germany could be worked out: On the Spanish side, Catholicism, which led to the Inquisition, and Protestantism in Germany, which was the cause of the Thirty Years' War. Exploring Wartburg Castle in Eisenach and the Luther House there made the students even more aware of what they had learned. Connecting elements of the religious history of both countries were made tangible, for example during a joint hike, first on the Spanish Way of St. James in Oviedo and later on a German section in Meiningen. On the basis of an increased understanding of their own cultural and religious origins, the second step was to explore the current situation of Jews and Muslims locally. Visiting a Jewish community in Oviedo or meeting a Syrian refugee now living in Germany at the Cabrini meeting center in Meiningen was the first opportunity for many children to talk to religious representatives in their own home environment, ask questions and break down prejudices. As one product, the pupils used the digital platform www.actionbound.de to create a trilingual digital city rally on Jewish life in Meiningen, the completion of which will be integrated into religious education lessons at Henfling-Gymnasium due to time constraints. In general, it was found that the topic of religion did not play an identity-defining role within the working group. This made it all the more important to raise awareness of the similarities and connections between the religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam in order to help shape the topic of migration at the school in a responsible manner in the future. The combination of knowledge and experience makes the project a challenge for the participants and makes an important contribution to their personal development towards becoming responsible European citizens.