Nowadays Europe debates the lack of tolerance and respect and the rise of extremist movements. A partnership formed by four schools- IIS ENRICO MEDI, Leonforte, Italy, CDP Santa Maria de Los Angeles, Málaga, Spain, A Escola Secundária Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro, Caldas da Rainha, Portugal and Gymnázium V. Mihálika Sereď, Slovakia decided to contribute to this current issue by preparing a project whose aim is to lead students to a better EU citizenship avoiding dangerous acts of intolerance, xenophobia and even violence against minorities. Our project is called NOE, which is an abbreviation of its title: No to Extremism- remember our past, created to avoid making the same mistakes our nations made during the period of World War II and in particular, Holocaust. As biblical Noah (in Slovak NOE) gathered all the animals in his ark in order to survive the flood, in one phase of the project students will gather the testimonies of Holocaust survivors, they will gather opinions of their peers, parents, grandparents about war to form a new generation of Holocaust witnesses (based on Elie Wiesel legacy: “When you listen to a witness, you become a witness) when soon there will be no more Holocaust survivors, so their message endures. The objectives of the project are to learn from each other and share best practices in order to develop a transnational pedagogical approach to Holocaust and anti-extremism education. This project highlights the importance of thinking critically, recognizing facts from hoaxes and propaganda not to repeat mistakes from the past, particularly from the period of WWII. It aims at motivating teenagers to learn more about history of their countries including the painful period of World War II. Also it will contribute to struggle against discrimination, xenophobia and racism, for example through workshops in the Museum of Holocaust in Sereď. On another stage of our project, it aims to enhance students' skills that are necessary to achieve democratic culture such as learning to learn, analytical and critical thinking, listening and observing, empathy, flexibility and adaptability, linguistic, communicative skills, co-operation, and conflict-resolution. Through these skills, we want to highlight the benefits of active citizenship and demonstrate that teachers can contribute to the creation of sustainable democracies. Participants of this project are students from 16-19 years old, 120 of them will take part in the exchanges and approximately 500 students will be affected indirectly. There will be at least 20 teachers participating actively and other 50 affected indirectly. Other target groups include host families, local community and the media. Some student activities, including listening to a former neo-Nazi or a story of a Holocaust survivor, will help students relate to these abstract concepts through personal accounts. Other student activities, such as creating a photo exhibition will engage students in thinking about stereotypes, prejudice and the consequences of unequal treatment. They will lead to strengthening of the students’ democratic values. Apart from these activities held at schools and implemented via online management tools such as eTwinning, there will be 6 transnational meetings planned in 2 years. There will be different issues solved on each of these meetings, such as “Recognizing fake news and propaganda on social sites and evaluation of sources”, “Impact of misinformation in media and social sites on growing extremism in Europe”, “Educating critical thinking of youth through media literacy” and “Holocaust and its role in European heritage”. The tangible results will be a website, short films, an e- book, a photo exhibition and a conference. With regard to methodology a student – oriented approach, critical thinking methods and experience- based education will be used. The impact of the project will be measured by surveys and questionnaires about values and attitudes of the participants. We hope this project will lead to long- term relationship among the partner schools and an inspiration for other common projects.
The lack of tolerance and respect and the rise of extremist movements are currently being discussed in Europe. A partnership formed by four schools – IIS ENRICO MEDI, Leonforte, Italy, CDP Santa María de Los Ángeles, Málaga, Spain, Agrupamento de Escólas Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro, Caldas da Rainha, Portugal and Gymnázium V. Mihálika Sereď, Slovakia decided to contribute to this current issue with a project whose goal was to lead students to European citizenship and to avoid dangerous manifestations of intolerance, xenophobia and violence against minorities. Our project was called No extremism – remember the past. Each of the participating countries brought their own perspective on the issue of extremism and its manifestations. The aim of the project was to learn from each other and share best practices in order to develop a transnational pedagogical approach to education about the Holocaust and the fight against extremism. This project emphasized the importance of critical thinking, distinguishing facts from hoaxes and propaganda in order not to repeat the mistakes of the past, especially from the World War II era. The ambition of the project was to motivate teenagers to learn more about traumatic chapters in the history of the partner countries and fight against discrimination, xenophobia and racism. Another goal of the project was to improve students' skills that are necessary to achieve a democratic culture, such as learning to learn, analytical and critical thinking, listening and observation, empathy, flexibility and adaptability, language, communication skills, cooperation and conflict resolution. Through these skills, we have highlighted the benefits of active citizenship and shown that teachers can contribute to the creation of sustainable democracies. The participants of this project were students aged 14-19 years, 94 of them participated in exchange stays and it indirectly affected approximately 500 students. 31 teachers actively participated and another 50 were indirectly affected. Other target groups included host families, the local community and the media. The activities of the project led to the development of media literacy, critical thinking, getting to know Europe in a historical context, and ultimately to strengthening the democratic values of all participants. In addition to these local activities, 6 transnational meetings took place over the course of 3 years (the project was extended by 12 months due to the Covid-19 pandemic). Each of these sessions addressed a different issue, such as "Recognizing fake news and propaganda on social media and evaluating sources", "The impact of disinformation in the media and social media on growing extremism in Europe", "Teaching youth critical thinking through media literacy" and " The Holocaust and its Role in European Heritage'. We created specific outputs, e. g. a website, short films about hoaxes, an e-book with methodologies for teaching critical thinking, a youtube video channel, a theater play about deportations during the holocaust, an art exhibition and a safe internet guide. This project led to great cooperation between the partner schools, and we plan to develop this theme in other joint projects in the coming years. From the long- term perspective it is necessary to spread complex knowledge which protects and enhances democracy and humanism. These are the basic tools to face the challenges of the 21st century.