Music as a motivating factor in education of students with vulnerable background Erasmus Project

Project Title

Music as a motivating factor in education of students with vulnerable background

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 : Partnerships for Creativity

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Romas and/or other minorities

Project Summary

The main objective to use music as a motivational tool again early school leaving, to provide student with vulnerable background additional music education, so they can easier express themselves, to gain self confidence and better school attendance and grades, and in the same time to make it easy for the teacher working with this group of students. The idea is to socially include these students through music as official motivation tool and to raise the awareness of the influence of the music and musical engagement on school and life success.
Music and education are two words that are often used together in many studies and all of the have so far provided evidence that they are strongly connected. The only thing everyone forgets about are the teachers handling this universal language called music. Usually it all stops at psychology experts and therapy. This project offers a total new overlook and a whole new approach to the proven connection between these two these two terms. Everyone is talking about making the classroom a safe place for the learners, but again when the learners make problems due to their difficulties and bad social and health backgrounds they are sent to experts to solve the problems. The experience of working with this group of students has shown that it slightly leads to solving the education problem and most of the students facing this kind of problems become drop outs and isolated. The aim of this particular project is to provide instructions and raise the awareness that it will be better if we try to solve the problems inside the classroom. Off course everything should be done according to the situation needs and not every student will be helped, but if we take into consideration that music is a food for our souls and sometimes it feels like it is our only friend as we can express ourselves in full, we can assume that many of these students can be taken back to the school desks and will gain self confident which will lead to liking the school and it will surely influence on their grades and socialisation.
During the project there will be a short documentary (case study) involving two Roma students who will talk about their experience after starting music and how it has affected their overall development with a special focus on school success. The message of this documentary will be clear and precise and in addition to music it will include a message of anti-discrimination, antigypsysm, but there will also be a message to communities and parents to support and believe in their children.
There will also be a study involving at least 300 students aged 6 to 16 (60 from each country involved as a partner and ) who will be working on an ongoing and previous basis in order through statistics and structured interviews to be shown how music affects regular school attendance, self-esteem, school success and social inclusion.
This study will cover Roma students, students with autism (Asperger syndrome) and students from the countries where the organisations involved in the project work and operate. It will be translated into Macedonian, Spanish, Turkish, Slovenian, Italian and English.
The project will also issue a short guide for teachers working with students who are at risk for Early School Leaving and Social Isolation. The idea is to make it easier for teachers and professional services and to have a starting point on how to incorporate music into the daily education of these students in all school subjects. This guide will also be translated into Macedonian, Spanish, Turkish, Slovenian, Italian and English.
The ultimate goal of all activities within this project is to include these students, to motivate them to stay in school, but also to gain skills thanks to music and within music. All organisations are working on this issue and will monitor the progress during and after the project, but the long-term goal of the project is to make an initiative for music education from an early age exclusively with music teachers instead of class teachers and music to be a compulsory subject with more hours than it is now per week in each school. In addition, all of these activities will have a major impact on students from vulnerable categories completing their education properly, leading to a reduction in drop-outs in general in the countries involved in the project and beyond, but it can be also worked out with all other students not facing serious problems and to influence their school success on a positive level. The results of the project will be available and will influence other similar studies and initiatives for social inclusion through music and music against ESL, as well as on using the music as a motivator because of all the magic it offers.

Project Website

https://www.yourmuseproject.com/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 73870 Eur

Project Coordinator

OU “Brakja Ramiz-Hamid” & Country: MK

Project Partners

• KECIOREN ILCE MILLI EGITIM MUDURLUGU
• Istituto Omnicomprensivo “Pestalozzi”
• Aval Asperger – Asociación Valenciana para la Inclusión laboral de personas con TEA- Asperger
• Drustvo Bodi svetloba
• Assosiation for Multi-Ethnic Music Education “Roma Rock School”