European cultural environment – different colours, similar pattern Erasmus Project

Project Title

European cultural environment – different colours, similar pattern

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: Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

The main objective was to encourage the active citizenship in the participants through multidisciplinary artistic approach and to improve their language skills in natural situation, which occured during the project. Each of the participants had the posibility to deeply connect himself with the subject of the project in a way appropriate for him, to use, show and document his/her best abilities, competencies and their personal progress and this way to be more interested and involved in different activities of the project. To achieve this participating students took their own part in the process – from the planning and choosing the themes till the evaluation. On this base they could build relationship and out of it real understanding of the project objectives. Project therefore supported active development of various abilities and competencies and their evaluation, so the participants can recognise and record their potencials and this way be prepared to actively step into the world of work.
Our way of life flourishes in different environment naturally, culturally and socially. To consciously recognise the qualities of our lives we need to face and appreciate the differences as well as the similarities in the life of people, who are embedded in different environment. When we do so, we can develop more understanding of the environment and empathy for the other peoples´ situation in general, which is the first step to overcome racism and xenophobia. To achieve this participants were encouraged to experience and study the culture of the partner country and express and mediate their own culture to the partners.
The natural and social landscapes of the participating schools have many differences (industrial x cultural, seaside x inland, regional centre x capital), but they have similarities as well (urbanistic changes influencing nature and culture in modern times), so there was a lot of space for different approaches and outcomes, what was intensivelly used by participants.
The project in detail:
1. The participants worked generally in joined (from both schools) groups, which partially overlaped, but where each small combined group had a specific task. They had two main fields to chose from, which were combined during the project to the shared results:
a)visual art and architecture and its´relation to the cultural expression of each nation
b) performing art in connection with the cultural expression of each nation.
2. The groups first searched the locations, objects and materials to work with:
a) architecture group first found interesting objects of folk, historivcal and contemporary architecture of both countries, observed it and its´ connection to the cultural environment, gathered the material and prepared the artistic presentation of the objects (photos, drawings, videos), focused on connections of the object to the social environment.
b) performing arts group first searched for the typical folk and modern art expressions (music, dance), then they prepared the performance using the chosen pieces of art, presented it to the public and documented it focusing on cultural similarities and differencies).
3. All the groups brought their outcomes together and showed them to the public in the performance and then in a recorded form (videos, photo collection).
This way the project provided opportunity for the people with wide range of cultural interests.
The main innovation the project was, that the participants showed the results of their formal, nonformal and informal learning, developed their soft and hard competencies in a holistic way and through the recorded self reflection described them in portfolio in a way understandible for the world of work.
Fulfilled aims of the project in summary:
– to make young people aware of the values of life and the value of the cultural environment, in which they live, through the shared experience
– to build the conscious approach to similarities and differences of young people living in different areas of Europe
– to search for the possibilities of improvement of the lifespace through the active involvement of youth
– to improve language, social, and cultural competencies.
Outcomes:
– 1 films of architecture and 1 film of the performing arts – the film from the performance due to Covid 19 was presented only on the web.
– 2 presentations and cultural performances of both countries
– research studies – architecture/visual arts – the studies were provided to the working books prepared by the teachers
– 1 joned bulletin in English
– European portfolio certificate for each participant – (documented achieved competencies)
– Europass for each participant

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 59914 Eur

Project Coordinator

Stredni odborna skola waldorfska, Ostrava, prispevkova organizace & Country: CZ

Project Partners

• Helsingin Rudolf Steiner -koulun kannatusyhdistys – Understödsföreningen för Rudolf Steiner skolan i Helsingfors r.y.