To be european : yesterday, today and tomorrow Erasmus Project

Project Title

To be european : yesterday, today and tomorrow

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 : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Teaching and learning of foreign languages; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

The project is entitled: “Being European: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”. It will begin on September 1, 2020 and end on August 31, 2022 (a 24-month project over two school years).

The project involves two agricultural vocational education institutions with similar profiles:
– The Savy Berlette Agricultural Education High School, located near Arras, in the Hauts-de-France region;
– The instituto di istruzione secondaria superiore L G M Columella located in Lecce, Puglia in southern Italy.

In each country, 30 students participate in the project: these students are teenagers between the ages of 15 and 17, in vocational training in agriculture, hotels and equipment maintenance. For the most part from rural areas, these students face difficulties in their studies but also in opening up to each other and to Europe. We also chose as a priority for our “Common Values, Civic Engagement and Participation” project, with three main objectives:
1) Prevent and recover the school drop-out of vocational students, especially in general subjects, through innovative and collaborative activities that will arouse their interest;
2) Develop active student citizenship, through intercultural education, memory work and democratic education, through peer exchange;
3) Improve the learning of foreign languages by students, especially English, which is necessary for their good professional integration.

Why address these topics as part of an Erasmus project?
Simply to enable students to meet students from another European country and offer them engaging and strong life experiences; to develop interculturality in a cross-cutting way to the different subjects studied by students with an alternative pedagogy; to make the student an actor of his European future.

The project includes two mobility activities that will allow students to visit places of remembrance and democracy and encourage a stronger and more lived commitment to all the themes related to peace and European integration. These collective mobilitys will enable students to exchange between peers, discover the traditions and customs of another European country and strengthen their sense of belonging to Europe.

The implementation of this project will also be based on remote exchanges, as part of an eTwinning project and through the use of social networks favoured by young people (WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook). These virtual activities will use the “Public History” methodology to restore historical memory through all available resources (museums, public and private institutions, associations, archives, libraries, historical sites, etc.). This remote work will be done in two stages:

1) Getting to know: Students will be invited to introduce themselves, to describe their school and their environment in English. They will work together on the communication around the project: writing a press article, creating a digital poster and contesting the creation of a project logo.

2) Italy and France during the two wars: before and after visits during mobility activities, students will work remotely on interviews in English and an exhibition to be displayed in their school. Together they will study common works in their language (Matin Brun by Frank Pavloff, The Found Friend of Fred Uhlman, Maus d’Art Spiegl…) and exchange their analyses of these texts in English.

It is expected that this project will contribute to:

– Increase students’ motivation to learn foreign languages
– Significantly reduce school drop-out
– To raise awareness of the need and importance of a united Europe
– Gaining knowledge about historical memory and European citizenship
– Repel all forms of extremism and intolerance
– Understand the mistakes of the past so as not to repeat the same mistakes.
This project initiates a new partnership between the two institutions: it is hoped that its results will lead to further collaboration, in order to promote the mobility of vocational education staff and students in Europe.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 65979 Eur

Project Coordinator

LYCEE d’ENSEIGNEMENT AGRICOLE PRIVE SAVY BERLETTE & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Istituto di Istruzione Secondaria Superiore “L.G.M.Columella”