Being Europeans today Erasmus Project

Project Title

Being Europeans today

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: Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

In the years 2015-2017 three secondary schools, French, German and Polish realized the project called Being Europeans Today. From war to peace, how European peoples make peace possible. The inspiration for choosing the topic was the Nobel Peace Prize received by the European Union in 2012. The authors of the project decided to join the youthful enthusiasm connected with getting to know and understanding the world with solid historical basis. The intention was to show how, after the period of intensive rivalry (World War I, World War II, the Cold War) Europe went to the stage of building longlasting peace. The project emphasised the role which the European Union had played in creating modern Europe.
The project involved almost 200 students, two-thirds of whom came from rural areas. It aimed at being interdisciplinary. It connected historical aspects with knowledge from ethics and philosophy (war and peace), physics and chemistry (the use of poison gases in Ypres, war technology), foreign languages (English was the working language of the project) and modern media and computer technology. Another important assumption of the project was creating openness to cultural variety of other nations among students taking part in the project, as well as their peers who were not directly involved in it. Despite the longlasting European integration and efforts of many institutions, the level of stereotypical thinking is still quite high and it also refers to the youth.
There is only one method to increase the openness to cultural variety of different nations – as many interpersonal contacts as it is possible so that other nations stop being anonymous. The project gave opportunities to make close personal contacts thanks to which students from different nations have become conscious citizens of Europe which is diversified but also based on solidarity and brotherhood.
The objective which could not be omitted in an international project, that is increase of the linguistic competence, reached by numerous personal contacts as well as working on project products which was held in international teams, had positive effect on these young people and, by the same token, on the future of Europe.
The project was innovative for at least a few reasons. The very choice of the topic, in which the starting point were the historical events which are in most cases not attractive for young people who predominantly concentrate on the future, was unusual. The project emphasised the importance of the historical past for each nation separately and for Europe as a whole and it proved that we can build common peaceful Europe in the future and feel the citizens of Europe, even learnt lessons from the past.

To put this objectives into practise we organised four mobilities, and chose very symbolic places and moments like the Somme standing for the cruelties of the first world war battlefields, Munich, Dachau and Obersalzberg for the brutality and crime of the Nazism and second world war, Saint-Maixent for the remembrance of the end of the first WW, Warsaw and Gdansk for the Cold War; for Solidarity and the fall of the Iron Curtain. And finally Bruxelles, the Parliament, the Commission, and different agencies as the symbol of a peaceful common Europe following the motto « In varietate concordia »

For the participants it was a very intensive experience. They discussed and worked in different mixed groups during workshops and debating sessions and produced articles, presentations, speeches, websites and movies. They also shared their experiences in different ways with their classmates, their schools and also outside.

The project also had a pedagogical dimension. Working in an international team and watching other teachers work made it possible to exchange experience and introduce pedagogical innovations. It added some more prestige, especially to the French and Polish schools which become noted in the local society thanks to both, taking part in the European programme and having teachers with international experience.
The project ended but the experience remains and it will enable schools to develop the main ideas of the project.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 97950 Eur

Project Coordinator

Lycée du Haut Val de Sevre & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace im. Komisji Edukacji Narodowej
• Staedt. Kaethe-Kollwitz-Gymnasium