To be or not to be a hero Erasmus Project

Project Title

To be or not to be a hero

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 Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Regional dimension and cooperation

Project Summary

One day we asked Albert Einstein how we could make our children smarter. His answer was both simple and wise. “If you want your children to be intelligent,” he said, “read them fairy tales. If you want them to be smarter, read them more fairy tales. ”

This sentence is the gateway to our reflection.

Our objectives were to bathe the children for two years with the contact of storytellers, storybooks, shows, particular places but also stories of fictional or real heroes of our country but also, of course, of all our partners.
We wanted to allow children to open up to imaginary and real worlds in many ways, we wanted to make them dream, to make them grow.
Through the analysis of all these encounters, we wanted to gradually decode these heroes and to remove the values ​​they convey in order to become, in turn, heroes who convey the values ​​encountered.
We also wanted to produce our own shows, our own storybook, our own exhibits in different schools.

The six organizations (Belgium, Turkey, Portugal, Italy, Poland and Bulgaria) participated from the outset. The 6 organizations were solicited during the writing of the project. They were primary and nursery schools.
The profiles of the schools were very similar: number of children, mixed, inland, not tourist, semi-urban or urban, ….

The main activities implemented:
Website: it was mentioned that our site lacked some consistency. I can also conceive it, but this site is, at least in part, built by children aged 10-12 years. They have the power to choose the “look” of it as well as what must be there. The use of IWeb (not now commercialized) has made this possible with regard to the user-friendliness of this application. The more than 300,000 page views for 6 years are a real pride. www.comenius2011.com
Setting up a show for children and parents: children aged 5-8 and their teachers have put together a show featuring the characters encountered during the reading of new books that appeared in the various libraries of the school. This show was seen by the entire school community to know more or less 1500 people.
Invitation of storytellers: professional storytellers were invited with proposals tailored to each age group, including parents.
Meeting of contemporary heroes: at each meeting, the host country allowed us to meet a local hero. On returning to the schools, the story of this hero was shared with some of the children.
Setting up a survey on the reading habits of our students: at a transnational meeting, a questionnaire was constructed, the survey was carried out among all the children of the 6 schools, the results were centralized and Analyzed (graphs) during a second transnational meeting. These results are shared on the site and on the platform.
But also …
The hero of our dreams in 3D
Establishment of exhibitions in schools
Writing and illustration of a tale
Finally …
Production of a book: a little the symbol of our work … This book takes up tales written and illustrated by children from all countries. These tales are available in English and in the language of the producers.

In view of the established program, the circumstances and the intermediate evaluation, we have at a transnational meeting adapted our program to be more realistic. This redesign was beneficial for our second year activities and for the organization of our meetings.
The results achieved correlate with our initial objectives at least 80%. The cultural and geographical specificities have sometimes been a brake but only in specific cases.
The productions of children and adults were very numerous and of very good quality. During the two years, we were able to keep our enthusiasm and work in parallel according to the established schedule. All countries sent their production to the coordinator on time. This made it possible to impact the actors (children and adults) of the different schools in a very regular way. The quality of the proposed works permitted pedagogical exploitation in the different schools.

In the long term, it is clear that the different actors in the school (organizing authority, director, 100% of teachers, 90% of parents and 100% of children) are convinced of the interest of this type of project. All want continuity on the one hand by introducing a new project and on the other hand by maintaining contacts with the schools already encountered.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 80795 Eur

Project Coordinator

Institut Saint Joseph & Country: BE

Project Partners

• KAMBER GULUZAR DEMIR ILKOKULU
• Agrupamento de Escolas de Mangualde
• Szkola Podstawowa nr 31
• “Prof.Dimitar Dimov” Secondary School
• ISTITUTO OMNICOMPRENSIVO “DE GASPERI-BATTAGLIA’