“Living Values – We for Europe – Europe for us”: intercultural and social responsibility as a contribution to the European education for democracy and vocational integration. Erasmus Project

Project Title

“Living Values – We for Europe – Europe for us”: intercultural and social responsibility as a contribution to the European education for democracy and vocational integration.

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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Quality Improvement Institutions and/or methods (incl. school development); Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

Background and goals:
The project`s aim was to improve the social, intercultural and foreign language skills as well as the historical knowledge of German-Polish history through a multifaceted confrontation with free democratic and social values, and thus to contribute to the strengthening of the civil society commitment and the democratic and European consciousness of the participants. By promoting a mature, active EU citizenship and integration into a European employment and educational biography, the project reacted to developments in Europe that were marked by a resurgence of populist propaganda, an increase in Euroscepticism and the questioning of democratic achievements and political institutions.

Participants:
The project was designed for pupils at secondary level 2. The transnational learning and project activities directly involved 41 pupils from the two partner countries (ages: 16-18, m: 10, w: 30), including hosting a guest pupil and visiting the partner country. A total of 49 pupils were involved in other project activities of the transnational learning activities and the Erasmus+-working group. In addition, learning groups from grades 9 and 10 and from secondary level 2 of approx. 150 pupils were involved in further different project activities within the institutions.
The extended project work involved 13 participating teachers who, depending on their key competences, assumed different responsibilities (project management, implementation of activities, evaluation, monitoring, dissemination and publication of results). The close project team comprised 5 teachers in Germany and 5 teachers in Poland.

Activities/Results:
1) “Scrutinize values”:
The teaching of democratic-free and social values and the contextualisation of value attitudes in their historical and current developments was integrated into curricular teaching, project-related activities and visits to extracurricular learning venues (concentration camp Auschwitz, Stolpersteine-Projekt Bollendorf, Family-of-Man exhibition Clerveaux, Haus der Geschichte Bonn). The analysis of values was linked to a survey on value attitudes of young people, which the participating students developed, carried out in their schools and whose results they evaluated and compared in a transnational learning activity.The image of Poland in the German media was examined and a collection of links to current topics and articles was created.

2) “Living Values”: We for Europe – Europe for us:
We followed an approach of task-based learning which led the theoretical basics into the students’ lifeworld. The pupils of both partner institutions prepared presentations with examples of their social and democratic co-responsibility in their schools, which they presented and compared in a transnational learning activity. During another transnational project activity they developed their own projects of social participation, which they carried out independently in the following months at their schools and neighbouring institutions (kindergarten, old people’s home and nursing home).

3) “Europe for us”:
Through vocational orientation measures and project activities, the importance of intercultural, social and foreign language competences as key competences for the future professional career was elaborated. In a transnational learning activity, the pupils prepared their personal CVs and translated them into different languages (German, Polish, French, English). The individual results were compiled in a joint German-Polish glossary for the preparation of CVs.

Effect: “Sustainable European added value”:
There was an intensive and varied discussion of the values issue, which promoted the students’ central competences and knowledge, counteracted prevailing stereotypes about the partner country and promoted the students’ social commitment. A European added value could be realised, because democratic and European achievements were not perceived as given, but as a common European effort.
The partner institutions were able to further develop school development in the areas of social participation opportunities for pupils and the Europeanisation of career guidance measures. The foundation stone was laid for a sustainable German-Polish partnership between the two institutions. The project also contributed significantly to the Europeanisation and internationalisation of the school concept and the school orientation and was able to improve the European networking of the institutions.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 52200 Eur

Project Coordinator

Privates St.-Josef-Gymnasium & Country: DE

Project Partners

• I Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace im. Stefana Zeromskiego w Opocznie