Dealing with Difference – Then, Now and in the Future Erasmus Project

Project Title

Dealing with Difference – Then, Now and in the Future

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; Romas and/or other minorities; Teaching and learning of foreign languages

Project Summary

The main objective of the project is to produce a film dealing with the discrimination of minorities in the present, the past (Nazi Germany in particular) and different approaches of including minorities in the future. Both Germany and Lithuania are facing a comeback of fascist ideas at the moment. That is why we want to address these goings-on with our project: Dealing with Difference – Then, Now and in the Future.
Sviesioji Gimnazija and Erich Kästner Schule are located in neighbourhoods that tell about the Nazi past: In Kedainiai there is an old synagogue that is now used as a multicultural centre, in Hamburg-Farmsen there is the former Arbeitshaus which was used by the Nazis to detain poor and socially disadvantaged people and is now being refurbished to become a memorial. It makes sense to use these environments as the setting of a film.
Another major objective of the project is to show students how they can use new media actively to make their own contributions. The project will also be a test run for an inter-year class that gives students the possibility to create digital products such as videos, blogs or podcasts using English as a working language.
During the project 15 students and two teachers per school will participate in four transnational meetings (two in Germany, two in Lithuania) as part of which the students will visit important historical places and will use the input to write their own scenes based on authentic biographies. In between these meetings E-Twinning video chat sessions and the Twinspace will be used to discuss the results of the two groups and plan further steps. Eventually the film will of course be screened in both schools and uploaded to the school homepages. This way the project will reach a greater number of students, parents and teachers, and hopefully even people not connected to the schools.
Although both schools have very different profiles (Erich Kästner Schule is an inclusive comprehensive and primary school, Sviesioji Gimnazija is a secondary school with very high achieving students) their students have in common that foreign travel is not accessible to most of them. Still, they are very eager to study English and they receive over-average results in comparative assassments and national exams in English. Therefore it is another objective of the project to give students the opportunity to use English as a real means of communication outside the classroom.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 23455 Eur

Project Coordinator

Erich Kästner Schule & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Kedainiai Sviesioji Gymnasium