Enseignez à vivre! Erasmus Project

Project Title

Enseignez à vivre!

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

Project Summary

Both Modellschule Graz and CEPMO Oleron schools, have a long tradition in democratic education. Founded in the late 1960s and the early 1980s their core values and ideas are connected to the ideals of these periods’ pioneering pedagogy where students truly practice, rather than just read about, the principles of free speech, free association, and freedom to choose their own activities; where students vote on the rules that affect them, and serve on panels to hear from those found in violation of those rules and decide on the sanction to take. A democratic school, as the term is used within this proposal, is a school where students are trusted to take responsibility for their own lives and learning, and for the school community. A core value of these schools is that democracy must be experienced to be learned. To our schools, democracy is much more than a tool used to agree on a system of rules or, a way to decide whether the school canteen should serve two vegetarian meals a week. To our schools, democracy is a way of life where understanding, adapting, showing courage and sharing your personal vision are part of our day-to-day interactions, where taking initiative is the preferred option to solve difficult situations and challenges. Therefore, starting from the very personal and familiar context of their schools, students are going to expand their horizon on the topic of democracy and togetherness to the European level.

As the participants come from two different countries with different traditions, encompassing school systems, methods and ways of learning and teaching; a first objective is to make sure that each group of students fully grasps the specificities of their counterpart, notably in terms of how they learn practising democracy. This will happen through the active participation in a project of the partner school involving democratic learning and decision-making. This dimension of the project will enhance intercultural learning through the understanding of how democratic learning works in the partner school’s system.The students will experience themselves as having reached beyond their original situation as they follow the path of their European elders in Brussels and try to elaborate systems of cooperation based on common values that should make sure that they grow stronger as Europeans without giving up their identities, but better understanding each other’s.

The project can be divided into three different parts: Firstly, students are going to work on the topics of democracy, principles of free speech, protest movements, participation and democratic systems in general. The two groups are going to exchange their thoughts and ideas on these general topics as well as recent political events. They are going to get to know each other better and prepare for the exchanges. The second stage of the project are the mobilities, where each school prepares workshops and excursions on the topic. There are going to be plenary sessions, they are going to visit the other school´s classes and are be introduced into the peculiarities of each country’s education and social system. The third part of the project is a common excursion to Brussels, the political capital of the European Union. Here students are going to expand their democratic horizon from a personal, school and national level into a European dimension. The first step in Brussels is going to be a visit to the House of European History, a museum about transnational phenomena which have shaped our continent. Interpreting history from a European perspective connects and compares shared experiences and their diverse interpretations. It aims to initiate learning on transnational perspectives across Europe. As a follow up activity the group will be going to the European Parliament. In a roleplay students will step into the shoes of a Member of the European Parliament and take a crash course in European lawmaking as they negotiate new legislation for the European Union. By debating on actual issues and themes, they learn how European Union legislation is created and how the future of Europe is forged.

This project is meant to offer our students an environment where they can practise, experiment and discuss the meaning, value and vision of democratic societies, where each individual actively participates. Writing this proposal in the midst of a global pandemic crises, not being able to teach in school, but having to do it from home instead, shows us more than ever, that our and the future of our students can be described as a VUCA situation (acronym first used in the late 1990s to describe or reflect on the Volatitlity, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity of general conditions and situations). The future generations need to be prepared with a concept of life to help them embrace those conditions rather than suffer from them.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 53376 Eur

Project Coordinator

RG Modellschule Graz & Country: AT

Project Partners

• Centre Expérimental Pédagogique et Maritime d’Oléron