Overcoming Boundaries Erasmus Project

Project Title

Overcoming Boundaries

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: Creativity and culture; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

Teenagers growing up today are confronted with the most challenging problems of mankind, which often make them feel powerless and insignificant. Global warming and the extremely growing social disparity are only a few of these. As a stark contrast to these threats, they often turn to social media to follow individuals that seem to have exciting lives and unlimited opportunities whereas they themselves experience many restrictions. Despite the theoretically existing opportunities they see depicted in the media, young people mainly do not know how to expand their sphere of influence to tackle the problems, which control their lives.
The main objective of the project is to identify, reflect on and overcome barriers that are affecting the students’ personal lives on various levels. The project shall sharpen the students’ perception of boundaries encountered in their everyday lives and will help them to understand how these can have positive and negative effects on individuals. Through the international cooperation, the participants will be able to identify common interests and aims but will also reflect their personal situation from a different angle. This will not only foster understanding and tolerance among the student team but will also promote the development of strategies for becoming active and taking influence. Furthermore, the reflection of the political context will make the students realize the benefits of the EU as a community of states, and will encourage them to establish ways of future cooperation.
The four international meetings planned will investigate different aspects of boundaries, starting off with “identifying boundaries”. At this first meeting in Berlin, students will share their own experiences and explore the city to understand and reflect on the way boundaries influence peoples’ lives. This will build the basis for understanding the impact of “political boundaries” which is the focus of the second meeting. Having reflected on political determinants that shape their lives students will then concentrate on “personal boundaries” such as cultural and language barriers in the third meeting. Finally, the focus of the last meeting will be put on different strategies of “overcoming boundaries”.
The project focuses on a creative, student centered approach as a basis for guided research and reflection. The students will work in multinational teams examining their personal attitudes as well as the local, national and international contexts by working on case studies, research and interviews, which then will form the basis for creative tasks like short stories, graphic novels or podcasts. As a long-lasting work of art in each school a mural will be created, which displays the projects’ progress visually and includes links to digital results. Cooperative learning and inclusive education methods will be applied.
The cooperating secondary education schools are from Berlin, Germany, Izola, Slovenia and Oulu, Finland. The ages of the 34 actively participating students range from 14 to 18. They will be a mix of different backgrounds and cultures as well as different social contexts including refugees. A group of 15 international, experienced teachers of various subjects will work together as an international core team and plan the details of the meetings and interim actions. During the international meetings, a significantly larger group of students, teachers and local networks of institutions will be involved and included.
By using various methods and tools for cooperation, documentation and creative work in and between the meetings, the students will improve their media, research and communication competences. Through the individual and shared activities their capability of team work and critical reflection will also be fostered. Especially reflecting their personal situations in a broader context will make the students more aware of their possibilities to take influence in their communities and beyond. Also, different challenges of mastering new situations, such as conducting interviews and publishing digital content online, will serve to bolster the students’ self-esteem. The materials created, such as the project murals and the produced videos and podcasts will be disseminated in the local communities and will be used in the schools as teaching material.
Our aim is a new network of collaboration both between the participating schools as well as between the involved institutions on a local and international level. This shall encourage future work together and create new projects. The students will not only gain new experiences and skills but will hopefully stay in touch with each other. This way, boundaries in the EU, which partly have risen again because of the current coronavirus crisis, shall be overcome even more easily in the future. In addition, the students will have developed an understanding of the necessity of different ways of participation in their communities and on a global level.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 98408 Eur

Project Coordinator

Max-Beckmann-Oberschule & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Laanilan lukio, Oulun kaupunki
• Scuola media Pietro Coppo Isola