"Frieden ist nicht selbstverständlich." These words of Jean-Claude Juncker are central for our project which is addressed to students aged 13-17 years from six European countries. In a time of increasing separatism, nationalism and latent racism also in EU countries the motivation of our project is to make our students aware that peace and international cooperation is a treasure which has to be protected actively. Our aim is to promote respect – for both persons and cultures - and responsibility – social and personal - as values for a fair and non-discriminatory society. Our students will learn about constructive and destructive moments of European history, find out about various cultural connections among our countries and detect values which connect them across times and borders to one cultural unity: Europe. Working on the project collaboratively, the participants themselves will practice constructive and respectful intercultural interaction. Objectives of our project are: - increased sense of respect and responsibility - strengthening of transversal key competences such as digital, language, learning, social and civic competences - improved creative and interdisciplinary thinking, cultural awareness and expression - a broader European dimension of learning and teaching. To reach this we plan the following activities: 1. APPROACH: Our project has two starting points: near future, ancient past. One point are myths from Greek antiquity as cradle of European culture. Myths tell us about men's hopes and fears and the struggle for defining one's role in nature / kosmos. Our students show their interpretation of myths creatively as lyrics, sketches, philosophical essays and by comparing ancient thoughts to modern scientific approaches. With the same creative means they show their feelings towards “Europe 2040 – our hopes, fears and wishes”. Thus, they reflect about differences and similarities through time and regions and necessary improvements. In multilateral teams they think up small activities which contribute to improvement. Locally, they carry them out. Thus, they realize how effective, but also necessary civic engagement is. This meets the needs of a young generation who wants to speak up for their future. 2. LEARNING FROM EACH OTHER (research and ICT): The students look for examples of civic engagement and moral courage in their countries' history. Another focus is on migration in history of their families, schools, regions. They present their results online and combine them with their partners' results putting historical events of all partner countries next to each other in a huge timeline on a wall in the school building. In multilateral groups they work on styles and movements in art and culture which link our countries to each other and add these cultural links to their timelines. Together they create board games whose settings the students plan online and whose equipment they design with software for a 3D printer; thus, they make their results of our first project year available to other student groups in a playful way. 3. CREATING WITH EACH OTHER: In year 2 the students continue in international groups to work on historical events and to integrate cultural and artistic expression; they combine the results into scenes for a stage play about cooperation and confrontation with focus on common values. They integrate philosophical thoughts (e.g. Arendt's “banality of evil”), learn about theatre traditions of the partners (e.g. shadow theatre), try them out together. They invent plot and scenes by collaborative writing. They visit memorials and add their reflections as scenic interpretation to the stage play. Finally they perform their play as an international team. Methods we will use are: cooperative learning such as collaborative writing, gallery walk etc.; research (library, online, interviews); product orientation; blended learning (online activities, traditional lessons in various subjects according to curricula and needs of each school, off-campus activities). Results, impacts and long-term benefits we expect of our project are: + increased quality of learning and teaching by: better integration of ICT into all sbujects; increased willingness and ability to learn and teach in interdisciplinary, intercultural, European context; better teamwork skills; growing cultural awareness; greater motivation of our students in language learning and multilinguism; increased motivation of our teachers to try new methods + long-term integration of activities of civic engagement and responsibility in regular intervals in our school routine + additional recognition and attractiveness of our schools due to the combination of digitization and internationalization by: presentation of our products (ebook "Europe – our hopes, fears, wishes", timetable, board games, stage play, TwinSpace / project website) in school, local community, online.
"Frieden ist nicht selbstverständlich." These words of Jean-Claude Juncker were central for our project which was addressed to students aged 13-17 years from six European countries. In a time of increasing separatism, nationalism and latent racism also in EU countries the motivation of our project was to make our students aware that peace and international cooperation is a treasure which has to be protected actively. Our aim was to promote respect – for both persons and cultures - and responsibility – social and personal - as values for a fair and non-discriminatory society. Our students learned about constructive and destructive moments of European history, found out about cultural connections among our countries and detected values which connect them across times and borders to one cultural unity: Europe. Working on the project collaboratively, the participants themselves practiced constructive and respectful intercultural interaction. Objectives of our project were: - increased sense of respect and responsibility - strengthening of transversal key competences such as digital, language, learning, social and civic competences - improved creative and interdisciplinary thinking, cultural awareness and expression - a broader European dimension of learning and teaching. To reach this we carried out the following activities: 1. APPROACH (year 1): One starting point of our project was the past: myths and philosophy from Greek antiquity as cradle of European culture. Myths tell us about men's hopes and fears and the struggle for defining one's role in the world, philosophy interprets it. Our students showed their interpretation of antiquity creatively in videos, texts and sketches (and developed it later into board games and on stage) and by comparing ancient fears and hopes to their own. This connection to their present became more intense due to our ice breaking and approaching activities of year 1. Spending most of this time in lockdown they couldn't meet their peers physically, but on TwinSpace and videoconference, compare their momentary situation and dreams for future. 2. THEATRE YEAR (year 2): In year 2 we moved from cooperation to collaboration. Task for students was to create together a drama with the motto "United in diversity". They invented plot and scenes by collaboratively (TwinSpace, video conference). Local research about persons of cultural importance and historical circumstances and collaborative writing of linking themes and scenes in international groups (online, finally as part of two physical meetings) alternated. They worked out how to express on stage the importance of cultural expression and variety, common values and, at the same time, to show that spreading these values is a constant process that needs active engagement and responsibilty also beyond European borders, e.g. for times of colonialism. They integrated philosophical thoughts from Greek antiquity, had acting training with local drama teachers or extern actors and, when physical meetings finally were allowed again in all partner regionals, performed their drama together. 3. BOARD GAME YEAR (year 3): Under the impression of the war at the European borders stressed the motto "Frieden ist nicht selbstverständlich" even more and promoted the chance of cultural connection as statement against war. The kick-off LTTA of this year in East Croatia made us work both on friendship among European artists as on the fact that there had been war in Europe, in many respects similar to the recent one, also three decades ago (the Balkan wars). The students visited memorials and talked to testimonies; they made the topic 'exchange war for peace, confrontation for collaboration, an Iron curtain for reconciliation' prominent in their production of this year - collaborative board games that show European biographies in historical context, each game taking it starting point in one of the countries of our partnership.They developed challenges and questions (historical, cultural, fun ones) for each game together online in international groups; physical meetings marked the transition to a new step of this main activity: a workshop in 3D printing f.x. allowed local creationof equipment. The final products were played and evaluated together, later made available at every partner school. Methods we used were: cooperative learning such as collaborative writing online or various workshops on-site; research (library, online, interviews); group work (e.g. jigsaw method); product orientation; blended learning.