The project „Facing ARTS together“ is specifically an art-oriented project which will involve four European secondary art schools and it will aim at the development of three areas of secondary art education. The first of all is preserving our cultural heritage by capturing the lives of local artists in short documentary films made by students and by presenting these films to the wide public. The second area we will focus on is using art as a communication platform to address sensitive social issues topics. These topics are represented by the capital letters in the project title where A stands for abuse, R for racism, T for threats and S stands for stereotypes. During short-term student exchanges, students will explore these topics by creating various forms of art (photos, posters, multimedia artworks, spatial art objects, commercial art short films) in mixed international groups. The last but not least, our third area which we would like to deal with is secondary art education and the school curriculums in all involved schools and their countries. At staff training events and two short-term student exchanges, our teachers will take part in job shadowing observations and acquaint one another with their national secondary art education strategies and curriculums. Afterward, we will compare our teaching practices, highlight similarities and differences and, based on our findings, we will formulate the concrete proposal with recommendations for improvement and development of secondary art education in general. This proposal will be written and published in the form of the official report to the education authorities of our countries. To cover all these three areas of the project we will carry out four short-term exchanges of students and two staff training events with the participation of mostly art teachers and students aged 15 – 19 studying different fields of art. There will also be various before and after activities done on eTwinning platform with their main dissemination on social networking sites and the project website. By clearly defining areas of our interests, we aim at developing long-lasting cooperation between secondary art schools in order to improve their art education and teaching practices. It will also create opportunities for young artists and young people, in general, to share their passion, talents and, above all, will teach them the importance of expressing their opinions and views on society through the language of art. Documenting the lives of local artists will, apart from learning about our local culture, provide students with materials and thoughts to base their work on and to realise different paths of becoming an artist. The goals of the project will be materialised intangible outcomes shared and distributed among the public through various channels. We will publish the catalog of all artworks created by our students with quotes and students‘ opinions on four social issues topics which will serve as supplementary material to the English lesson plans (created by the English teachers of the participating schools) on these topics. The content of the catalog will also be offered to the public in the form of a touring exhibition for schools and other educational institutions. We also aspire to draw the attention of national educational authorities to our report on secondary art education improvement which will result from the detailed comparison of educational systems in involved countries.
The project "Facing ARTS together" was specifically an art-oriented project that involved four European secondary art schools, aiming to develop three key areas of secondary art education. Firstly, it focused on preserving our cultural heritage by documenting the lives of local artists in short documentary films created by students and presenting these films to the wider public. Secondly, it addressed sensitive social issues by using art as a platform for communication. These issues were symbolized by the capital letters in the project title, where A represents abuse, R stands for racism, T represents threats, and S symbolizes stereotypes. During four short-term student exchanges, students explored these topics by creating various forms of art, including photos, posters, multimedia artworks, and educational short films, within mixed international groups. Thirdly, the project aimed to compare and improve secondary art education and school curriculums in all participating schools and their respective countries. Through staff training events and two short-term student exchanges, our teachers engaged in job shadowing observations and exchanged insights into their national strategies and curriculums for secondary art education. Subsequently, we compared our teaching practices, highlighted similarities and differences, and based on our findings, drew conclusions and formulated recommendations for the enhancement and development of secondary art education in general. These recommendations were documented and published in the form of an official report which will be submitted to the education authorities of the four involved countries. To address all three project areas comprehensively, we conducted four short-term student exchanges and organized two staff training events. These events primarily involved art teachers and students aged 15 to 19, enrolled in various art programs. Additionally, we carried out various preparatory and follow-up activities on the eTwinning platform and at the national level within all four partner schools. The project's outcomes were disseminated to the public through various channels. Documentary films about local artists were published online and screened for the general public on various occasions. Some of these films even received recognition and awards at various film contests. Another significant outcome of our partnership was the creation of a touring exhibition that included educational texts addressing the four social issues and showcased all the artworks created by our students. This exhibition was made available to educational institutions in our respective countries. Last but not least, our aspiration is to capture the attention of national educational authorities with our comparative report on secondary art education. We hope that this report will serve as a valuable resource for the improvement and advancement of secondary art education in our countries and beyond.