YOU ON MY MIND Erasmus Project

Project Title

YOU ON MY MIND

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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Migrants’ issues; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning

Project Summary

Our project called YOU ON MY MIND was conducted by six middle schools from the Czech Republic, Poland, Finland, Greece, Croatia and Germany. We established this project group thanks to our contacts from job shadowing, a Centropa project and E-Twinning. The coordinator – the Czech school – was the only school with previous experience from two successful Comenius projects. All partner schools were state schools, apart from the Polish one, which is a private school. All provide their students with general education.
Our project aimed at students aged 13-18 and its working language was English. It dealt with two main concepts: tolerance and courage as these issues have become more and more important in modern Europe. The project had a theoretical and practical part. The first one was partially inspired by a multi-national Centropa project (see www.centropa.org) that focused mainly on events connected with the Holocaust and the tragic fate of Jews during WWII. In our project we made the content more general, i.e. we explored both the past and the present to discover “tolerant/courageous persons” or “acts of tolerance/courage” that were inspirational for us (e.g. T.G.Masaryk, Václav Havel, Milada Horáková, The Prize of Michal Velíšek, Marie Kahle, Jan Kirski, Stipe Bozic, Tarja Halonen, Melina Mercouri and many more). In addition to this, we combined the theoretical part with a practical one by using methods of “experimental learning” or “learning by doing” to give the project participants the chance to deal with the concepts of “tolerance” and “courage” also in a creative way. Thus students took part in various activities during the project such as: guided visits to places of historical value (e.g. Jewish synagogue and cemetary in Mikulov, Gestapo headquarters in Cologne, Gross Rosen concentration camp in Poland), lectures (e.g. educational specialist of the EU Bill Martin in Wroclav, Dalton system at the German partner school by the principal Ms Sabine Kreutzer, Finnish school system by Ms Tiina Hervonen in Nurmijarvi), seminars in places of religious, cultural or historical interest (e.g. the reconciliation centre Krzyzowa or the Museum of Solidarnosc in Poland, Croatian Parliament in Zagreb, the House of History in Bonn, the Stavros Niarchos Cultural Foundation or the Inter-Orthodox Center of the Greek Church in Greece), workshops (Jewish dances in Mikulov, work therapy in the psychiatric hospital in Strmac/Croatia), meetings with politicians (e.g. Rafal Dutkiewicz – the mayor of Wroclaw, Pekka Haavisto – Finnish MP and EU negotiator in Syria, Danijel Marusic – deputy mayor of Slavonski Brod) and city games (“ tolerance run” through Hodonin, Helsinki – using the Seppo app when exploring the city) . Other activities included sport-oriented tasks (e.g. outdoor activities at the Saaksi lake in Finland: cross-county skiing, snow-shoeing, curling, ice-fishing, ice-swimming; hiking in the Karkonosze mountains in Poland or at the Pendeli mountain in Greece or conquering fears during outdoor activities with the Croatian Mountain Rescue Service) and artistic workshops (“The Lion Sleeps Tonight” boomwhacker show in Hodonín, “One country, one flag, one T-Shirt” art workshop in Hodonín, drums and graffiti in Croatia, sketches about tolerance vs. intolerance in Finland, photography-painting in Germany and many more). At the very first project meeting we organized a logo competition (the winner was Finland). Each project meeting started with presentations of our countries, hometowns and schools to our partners and ended with an “Erasmus+ Evening” for the public, among others parents, grandparents, teachers, local politicians, local media etc.
The main aim that we expected to achieve during the project and on its completion was that the participants would be able to act tolerantly and use the principles of critical thinking at the same time. We also expected that the concepts of “tolerance” and “courage” would not be empty phrases for the project participants after this project. According to the evaluation sheets that each participant filled in at the end of each project meeting, the feedback from host families and parents of our students and also on the basis of our observation during discussions led by Croatian students during the project meeting at their school (topics: “People from war-affected areas should immigrate to other countries” and “Corporal punishments are acceptable when raising children”) our aims were achieved or at least approached.
In between and during the project meetings students worked together on various smaller projects, exchanged ideas, learned to communicate, work as a group and reach decisions in a fair and democratic way thus they learned soft skills that will be useful also in their future life. By learning about different cultures, traditions, art, history and geography we encouraged our students to become tolerant, supportive young leaders of the European community.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 117960 Eur

Project Coordinator

Gymnazium, Obchodni akademie a Jazykova skola s pravem statni jazykove zkousky Hodonin, prispevkova organizace & Country: CZ

Project Partners

• Nurmijärven Yhteiskoulu
• Marie-Kahle-Gesamtschule, Bonn
• Gimnazija Nova Gradiska
• Prywatne Gimnazjum Jezykowe Parnas
• 1o GEL PALAIOU FALIROU