Europe’s Unique Regions – Our Personal Experience Erasmus Project

Project Title

Europe’s Unique Regions – Our Personal Experience

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 : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Regional dimension and cooperation; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Present-day aspirations for European integration are often confused with the positive and negative aspects of globalization. The phenomenon of cultural pervading tends to be a non-reflective process, which, as understood by the originators of the current project, was not a good tendency, therefore the project aimed to educate Europe’s citizens to know both the native sources of tradition as well as customs of life which have been acquired from the outside traditions.
This overall aim of the project was achieved by fulfilling a number of specific objectives, which were as follow: to broaden and systematize pupils’ knowledge of various roots of tradition/culture and the roots of changes in it in order to have them perform different activities in a more meaningful way, to improve the skill in meaningful reflection upon everyday life, to enrich pupils’ knowledge of European integration and its influence on their life, to accustom pupils to analytic and synthetic thinking, to develop pupils’ skills in cooperative working and to improve skills in sharing and exchanging knowledge and research findings. The project also contributed to the improvement of teaching linguistic and non linguistic subjects by introducing innovative methods into the educational process in all partner schools.
The partnership consisted of 6 schools from countries which have joined the EU at various times: 3 of them are post-communist countries and 3 so called western democratic ones. This was believed to be of great value to the concept of the project because it ensured that the young people understood that the EU is not a state of affairs but still an ongoing process and it led to additional result of determining the level to which the EU has changed life in these two groups of countries. The partner schools are public body, non-profit institutions. The total number of students participating directly in project activities was 720 (Poland: 120, Estonia: 120, Italy: 200, Greece: 120, Spain: 160, Romania: 100). The total number of teachers involved directly into the project was 99 (Poland: 20, Estonia: 20, Italy: 20, Greece: 12, Spain: 12, Romania: 15).
The project was divided into four stages of searching for conscious looking for the roots of everyday lifestyle, namely my background, my region, my country and our Europe. Thus, the activities were also divided into four theme groups and they were of various kinds: research on the Internet, interpersonal research, reporting findings on the project website, designing and making pieces of art work (e.g. scrapbooks, posters) or by the use of modern technology (e.g. PowerPoint presentations, films). Each of the subsequently analyzed areas constituented a coherent phase of the project aiming at picturing life of a young citizen of unifying Europe.
The project intended to distribute the equal number of tasks to each partner school, even though they differed to some extent because of the school specificities. The pupils at each school had opportunity to work individually, in pairs and in teams. They were stimulated and supported by their teachers, who assigned tasks to pupils according to their skills, interests and abilities so that each of the pupils to whom the project was addressed contributed (in some ways) to the implementation of the project.
The project brought up two kinds of results, namely, a number of physical results and development of the participants’ various skills and knowledge. The former was not understood as an end in itself: the process of producing the results served the achievement of the latter. The project was directly addressed to the pupils and the teachers of all partner schools and indirectly to the pupils’ families and, generally, local communities, thus its impact included all these target groups by increasing their knowledge on the project topic and by developing their skills in the areas described as the project aims.
Regarding long-term benefits, it is believed by all the partners that the knowledge about various roots of one’s own culture, gained at early age, helped young people become adults who are tolerant and open to innovations. The participation in designing and implementing the project was also of benefit to the teachers who will use the experience in their future work with next generations of children.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 160900 Eur

Project Coordinator

SZKOLA PODSTAWOWA NR 1 IM. JANA KASPROWICZA w KRUSZWICY & Country: PL

Project Partners

• Narva Paju school
• COLEGIO MISIONERAS DE LA PROVIDENCIA – SANTA TERESA
• Scoala gimnaziala “Gheorghe Lazar” Barcanesti
• PALEKASTRO PRIMARY SCHOOL
• Istituto Comprensivo “Via San Biagio Platani”