Campaigns Connect Past and Future Erasmus Project

Project Title

Campaigns Connect Past and 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 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Social dialogue

Project Summary

RATIONALE, SUBJECT AND LEARNING NEEDS ADDRESSED:
As teachers, we don’t have to rely on PISA test results to be aware of the two educational shortcomings which motivate us to work on this project. 1.) Year by year OECD reports reveal the predominance of dead information over usable competency development in the general curricula, which makes the learning process not just useless, but also demotivated for pupils, 2.) meanwhile the value of the data of “global competencies”, this new category of the testing framework assessing how pupils today think about pressing issues of local, global, and intercultural significance, also shows very little. The results invite us to consider a timely purpose for education: the cultivation of competencies that will lead to more inclusive and sustainable societies.
The shortcomings mentioned above reinforce each other, thus the partnership came up with the idea of trying to connect and alleviate this complex vicious circle with an innovative method. Processing actors from the past with campaign stories simultaneously makes information learning exciting, brings the past closer, provides intercultural learning, and teaches a democratic social advocacy mechanism that in addition to a high level of skills development, also gives future generations a practical tool to assert their interests.

OBJECTIVES:
The project objectives were set up according to SMART goals, and are closely linked to the objectives of Erasmus +. The most relevant tactical targets embedded into the educational process:
– Learning to appreciate that what is just a click for us, has been made possible by centuries and millennia of struggles, research, wars, discoveries, we have grown and informed from the results of the past.
– Making an understanding that the curriculum is not a dead set of information, it hides valuable treasures. Learning to dive into an exciting era and feel the thrill of discovery. Making the learning progress more attractive by combining curricula with methods connected to practical reality.
– Making an understanding that between the past and the present there are tensions, we are from tradition, we feed on it, our everyday lives are connected to them, and the general human problems and values are the same at all times.
– Comparing problem-solving possibilities of past with the present and realizing how lucky we are with both our social system and our means. Realizing that peace, democracy, globalized world, and the free flow of information are not basic fundaments, they must be fought, nurtured and valued, and we have the responsibility to keep them up.
– Presenting, explaining and analysing the widest arsenal of possible campaign methods, tactics and strategics, both on theoretical and practical levels. Providing precise overview of civil campaign definitions, features and campaign types. Gaining knowledge on specific campaign tools such as proper problem defining, gap analysis, targeting and positioning, power and stakeholder analysis, messaging, proper media and PR work, budgeting etc.

CONCRETE ACTIVITIES AND RESULTS:
Parallel to getting aquainted with comprehensive theoretical frameworks, transparent methods, knowledge and expertise about civil campaigns, detailing practical recommendations and handrails for them, pupils also use the learnt information in creative practice. They have to plan a campaign for an ancient figure, who has had a great influence on the European history and has represented an issue that is still important today. “Hero-campaigns” are settled in the past, using ancient tools and contexts, next than in the present, bringing their heroes into the democratic globalized world. The process is accompanied by research, thematic seminars and knowledge transfer workshops created by youngsters, and ends up with a transnational common campaign implemented altogether.

IMPACTS:
The project generates a long-term impact not just on participants’ individual competence development, but also on institutional and social level. In larger aspects, as the campaign is about communication, and the intention to influence others, which turn allows for change. It is about “interveneing” in the normal processes of society, for the reason to force a justifiable change, initiating a kind of “collusion” or “debate” with society, a struggle for insight in which significant groups of people realize that they must pursue their own policies and act for the sake of “common interest” or “common future”. We believe in youth, their attitudes, their values. If we develop their capacities (knowledge forms, methods, techniques, etc.) for the effective application of tools to support the achievement of important social and political change, it is a great benefit – and the only possibility – for healing social gaps and maintaining an acceptable society based on human rights.

The itinerary is based on intercultural dialogue between participants from 4 countries (Italy, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria)

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 85770 Eur

Project Coordinator

I.T. NOTARANGELO-ROSATI & Country: IT

Project Partners

• Budapesti Gazdasági Szakképzési Centrum Békésy György Szakgimnáziuma és Szakközépiskolája
• Colegiul Economic “Maria Teiuleanu”
• Secodary school “Peyo Yavorov”