My Place, Your Place, Our Place Erasmus Project

Project Title

My Place, Your Place, Our Place

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

The project
Across countries, we were aware that the impact of cultural heritage upon economy, environment and society is large (Horizon 2020; “Getting cultural heritage to work for Europe”). The aim of this project was to support students and teachers in developing skills in order to research their own culture and become proud of their heritage. We were also eager to develop their ability to engage with the heritage of other cultures and the confidence to discuss culture differences confidently and openly. We also hoped to provide students and teachers with a range of tools in which to measure attitudes to different cultures and map their development through different activities and projects.

The project we designed had four goals that we aimed to attain.
1. Supporting the students on the project to engage in critical thinking about their previous ideas regarding stereotypes and prejudices about other countries, whilst also reflecting upon their relationship with their own culture.
2. Developing a teacher training programme that would empower teachers to open up classrooms to cultural conversations that were not merely celebratory: allowing students to reflect on which aspects of cultures (their own and others) they enjoy and which they merely tolerate.
3. Using this rich intercultural dialogue to set up a series of “tried and tested” lessons to teach culture within the classroom. These lessons would be generated and tested out by different partners, who would feed back on their value in an honest professional exchange about best practice for cultural teaching and learning.
4. Bringing students and teachers together using digital means (including a Model United Nations format) to enable them to practice and share the skills they had learned in the sharing of and negotiating with different cultures and use these varying perspectives to engage in innovative solutions to global problems.

Our hope was that, through engaging with this project, we would observe an observable growth in the knowledge, skills and attitudes outlined by the Oxfam guide for Global Citizenship. Below you can see a breakdown of how these knowledge, skills and attitudes related specifically to our project:

Knowledge
Diversity – participant can describe the impact of prejudice and stand up for equity
Equality – participants can describe the value of different countries to the collective, that each are diverse but equal

Skills
Critical thinking – Participants can identify stereotypes and ask honest questions
Self-Awareness – Participants are aware of how their culture allows them to see the world from one perspective

Attitudes
Identity and self-esteem – Participants can explain their identity and is open to those of others
Respect for human rights – Challenges prejudice and believes in integration

These definitions have been taken from the Oxfam Education for Global Citizenship Document. For a full reference, please go to https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/620105/edu-global-citizenship-schools-guide-091115-en.pdf?sequence=11&isAllowed=y

Whilst the definitions above references the intended outcomes for students, we also aimed to see teachers develop both in their ability to start conversations with students and in creating a classroom that looks thoroughly at culture. The Oxfam guide breaks down the themes described by age, and the hope was that teachers would work at the higher levels of the same themes, where they would develop in their own practice of critical reflection and engage in a rich and multi-cultural professional dialogue which would enable their teaching and learning techniques to become richer and more thoughtful for future years.

The progression shown by students, teachers and schools on the My Place, Your Place, Our Place project have demonstrated that it is possible to engage students in thinking critically about their cultural development but that we must revise the way that we teach and learn in order to do this. This may come from giving schools more time to teach this subject discreetly or in reflecting on the value of what we currently provide for students. In supporting teachers, we need to continue developing and sharing tools that allow for controversial conversations and first-hand experiences, whilst also offering time to collaborate critically with other cultures and reflect on their own practice. In this way, we can begin to allow students to build their own cultural relationships and connections through a series of first hand experiences, including student exchanges with new, unfamiliar practices, people and languages, a practice that will introduce them to a world that is only growing more globalized.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 361874 Eur

Project Coordinator

COUNTY COUNCIL OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF CARDIFF & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Scoala Gimnaziala Coresi
• Muruvvet Faik Uguz Ilkokulu
• CONSELLERIA DE CULTURA, EDUCACION E UNIVERSIDADE (XUNTA DE GALICIA)
• ABDULLAH GUNAYDIN ILKOKULU
• Welsh Centre for International Affairs
• CFR de Ferrol
• Liceul de Arte “Balasa Doamna” Targoviste