European School Magazine Erasmus Project

Project Title

European School Magazine

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; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning

Project Summary

Nationalistic opinions and ideologies can actually be seen in whole Europe and it seems that through some political parties both are getting more and more socially acceptable in all European countries.
Populism and fake news manipulate the Europeans and result in a feeling of uncertainty and isolation of countries which can be seen in the Brexit. It is a fact that young people, that means future voters, do not consume different newspapers or news. That`s dangerous for democracy and an open-minded society, behaving like this they can’t help themselves against manipulation and wrong information or fake news. In an intern survey between my pupils a great majority said that they do not read newspapers and a little number told me that they only inform themselves via personalized newsfeeds. That means a selection of information made by a computer program or who knows who and which intentions they have (see manipulations of the Russian in the American elections). Most of them shared the opinion that you can`t trust neither the media nor politicians and so it is not necessary to be committed in politics or social events.
Additionally, many pupils don`t know about the organization and tasks of the European institutions like e.g. of the European Parliament. Thus, they have no relation to the EU and they are not able to see the link between the work of these institutions and their daily private or professional life.
If you add this negative facts to the participation in European elections which is getting smaller and smaller (50,66% in 2019!) we are going to face a difficult future for our democracy with young people who are getting more and more dependent, not informed and not willing to participate socially.
To make thinks more difficult in times of growing racism and international deseases the EU has to work together if we want and have to find successful solutions for these international problems which we can only solve together.

Our projects starts at this status quo and we like to show young people in whole Europe (North: Sweden, East-Poland, South-Spain, West: France and in the center of Germany) that you can face nationalistic isolation, populistic promises and fake news searching with all digital possibilities of the 21 century for own information. That it is worth to be open minded and respect different cultures and that the European community offers the young people an economically strong and future-compliant basis for their private and professional future.
Further, two of the fife participants (Germany 2. half year 2020 and France 2. half year 2022) have the function of the European presidency so we can show our pupils directly in an active role which influence and capacity every European country in the community has (e.g. German plans during the presidency to standardize the sanctions against violation of human rights or climate policy).

To foster our common values and to reach our aims we found a digital European school magazine.
Every school chooses a class which is going to be responsible for one article in every edition. Within these two years we are going to publish minimum 6 editions. So, there will be minimum 6 participating classes in every school and minimum 30 classes in the whole project. Teachers of these classes are going to help, give advices and stay in contact with the teachers of the other schools. Furthermore, they organize workshops for their classes e.g. with external organizations (media centers or regional companies) or help them communicating in the foreign languages giving extra classes e.g. in English.
We choose the classes so that the content of the article fits in the curriculum of the class. Further there are going to be field trips to every participating school. Every school selects a delegation of several pupils and minimum 2 teachers of these classes which are going to visit the school which has its turn. Because of the little number of pupils of every school (in summary minimum 25 pupils) the teachers can select the most courageous and motivated pupils. Another positive aspect of the generous financial help of Erasmus+ is that poor pupils have a chance to widen their horizon and go to other countries.
Before each visit is going to happen, the pupils get to know each other in chats and videos in which they present themselves in English, German, Spanish or French depending on their curriculum and the foreign languages they learn at school. They work together in international groups e.g. in redactional conferences to discuss the editions and contents of the articles.

Because of the mostly digital cooperation in intercultural groups we promote IT competences, teamwork, foreign language knowledge. We also eliminate stereotypes and increase the understanding of the EU and common values. During the visits our pupils get insights in important areas such as for example the education systems or the economies of other european countries.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 162851 Eur

Project Coordinator

Kaufmännische Schule Heidenheim & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Lycée général et technologique Pierre Poivre
• Västerviks Gymnasium
• Katolickie Liceum Ogólnokształcące
• IES PINAR DE LA RUBIA