Drama Based Teaching, Conflict Prevention and Critical Thinking Erasmus Project

Project Title

Drama Based Teaching, Conflict Prevention and Critical Thinking

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

This project was aimed to work with our Secondary School students (12 to 18 yo.) using drama as an art form as well as a collection of teaching tools and for bullying and conflict prevention. Digital technology has also allowed us to carry out the project and implement most of the activities based on collaborative work. Besides, this project has brought us the opportunity to implement co-training activities for teachers based on the strongest abilities of each partner: Drama Based Teaching, Theatre of The Oppressed, Flipped Classroom, Project Based Learning, School Peer Mediation, etc.
Our partnership is made up of 4 secondary schools from different countries: Belgium, Germany, Hungary and Spain.

ACHIEVED OBJECTIVES
1. Promote gender equality, tackle discrimination, segregation, racism, bullying and violence.
2. Develop more attractive education to prevent drop-out.
3. Enhance teachers’ professional skills, including new pedagogies
4. Foster positive attitude towards the European project and the EU values
5. Improve English language skills as our common language to communicate
6. Increase the level of digital competence
7. Promote teachers’ and students’ mobility
8. Reinforce cooperation among partners from other countries

ACTIVITIES AND METHODOLOGY

8 students per country have participated in 4 short term exchanges of groups of pupils. They formed mixed-nationality groups to write, rehearse and perform a play based on different Theatre of The Oppressed techniques, although the last one took place on-line due to Covid-19. There has been one different social conflict topic for each mobility: disability, gender, poverty, cultural differences, physical appearance, sexual orientation. Four theater plays by an author from the hosting country, as Europe’s cultural heritage contribution have been performed, one in each country and, again, the last one happened online and it was recorded to be broadcasted to the rest of the partners. The content was based on a collaborative methodology starred by our learners although supported by their teachers. They took part in every stage of the project: planning, organization and assessment. To do that, students’ committees were created and their representatives were in charge of getting in touch with their peers from other countries in order to make decisions about the common activities and how to get organised and choose the topics for the performances happening in each mobility. Apart from the direct participants in the mobilities involving students and teachers, our purpose was to include the contents and objectives of this project in our schools curricula, so that the vast majority of our students could benefit from it. Some students with fewer opportunities had also the chance to take part in the project as the rest of their peers and they had the priority to participate in the mobilities

Teachers were also a target group, taking part in 5 short-term joint staff training events, which activities had been specially designed according to the needs faced during this project: (web design, Drama Based Teaching, ICT, video editing, The theatre of the oppressed, etc.) or in our daily work (School Peer Mediation teams, Bullying prevention.). These activities have also been a way of sharing the skills each partner was best at, working in a collaborative way to develop more attractive education and including new pedagogies and teaching methodologies. A video about School Peer Mediation has been created to train our students, partners and teachers but also anyone who might be interested in this methodology. The video can be found in the project website.

RESULTS AND IMPACT
Drama, as literature, has also been important for our students to become better writers and therefore increase their literacy and English language skills, through script writing, performance analysis and creative writing exercises, as well as to contribute to raising awareness of the importance of Europe’s cultural heritage through education, which is very convenient to work in the context of Europe’s Cultural Heritage 2018 celebration.

Our schools have had a reduction in aggressive behavior and an increase of empathic tendencies to avoid social inequities of any kind, promoting a constructive atmosphere in school, which has led to increased learning scores. These models for conflict resolution led by students have been evidence of a potential in reducing and preventing school violence over long-term periods, which has been an asset for teachers, students and their families.

Besides, due to public drama performances, apart from our target groups, the project has had an important impact on some other participants: parents, parents associations, etc.

Despite the Covid19, we’ve managed to fulfil most results. Before the pandemic, everything run smoothly and after it we broadcasted some activities and had some meetings online, which allowed us to reach our expectations.

Project Website

https://euerasmusdrama.wixsite.com/drama

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 103725,5 Eur

Project Coordinator

IES Alto de los Molinos & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Magyar-Angol Tannyelvu Gimnázium és Kollégium
• Adolf-Reichwein-Gymnasium
• Königliches Athenäum Eupen