The Dreams and Fears that I have Erasmus Project

Project Title

The Dreams and Fears that I have

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: Creativity and culture; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; Social dialogue

Project Summary

Viimsi Gümnaasium and Stockholm Estetiska Gymnasium are two upper secondary schools striving towards developing education for modern young people. Both schools focus on student mentoring, modern technology, pupils’ motivation in learning, and entrepreneurial initiative. The first contact between these two schools was made in 2019 during the Erasmus KA1 project, when we were job-shadowing them in Sweden. In addition to the similarities mentioned above, we also found common ground in fine arts. As theatre and music are the strengths of both schools, we saw this as an opportunity for international cooperation with active involvement of both teachers and students. As a result of this project, we wish to create a play titled “The Dreams And Fears That I Have”.

With this project we would like to:
– inspire teachers and pupils when it comes to music, theatre, and artistic expression through plays created together.
– promote cooperation skills and foster creativity and entrepreneurship;
– create mutual understanding for differences in culture, school and learning environments;
– create and increase motivation for education and exchange programmes;
– build contacts across borders, especially since Sweden and Estonia have not had much collaboration lately.

The key people in charge of the project in Viimsi Gümnaasium are the theater teacher, who has been connected to theatre for 11 years, and the music teacher, who is also the project manager of Viimsi JazzPopFest, and the project manager.
The key people in charge of the project in Stockholms Estetiska Gymnasium are the coordinator of the project (the principal), the music teacher, who is experienced in a variety of music genres, such as folk music, classical singing and pop/rock, and the theatre teacher, who has a background as an actress at the Swedish national stage and has also acted in films in Swedish television.

A total of forty students are involved in this project: twenty students are involved from the Estonian side and twenty from the Swedish side, thirty of whom deal with the content of the production and ten with the musical side of the production.
As there are many students active in the field of theater and music in both Gymnasiums, we will select the members of the project on the basis of a motivational video. From the Estonian side, the members of the EKSPERIMENT (http://eksperiment.ee/en) troupe and the students of the theater module can apply for the project. All students of our school who are interested and have skills in singing and / or playing musical instruments can apply for the musical part of the production. From the Swedish side, all 12th grade students studying theater or music can apply to take part in the project.

We have built our project on the principle that longer meetings will take place via video conferencing once a month, where we will give each other a more thorough overview of where we are, share ideas with each other and make decisions together. The video meetings will be attended by adults, who are the core members of the project, and some students from both schools, who have expressed a desire to represent the views of the students.
The first meeting with fewer people will take place in November to give the theater and the music teachers and the student representatives from both schools the opportunity to get to know each other and each other’s methods, as well as get a brief overview of the whole school and get acquainted with the students involved in the project.

The premiere will take place in Sweden in April. Twenty Estonian students and two teachers will travel to Sweden. We will spend five days rehearsing together intensively and present our production there. In May, the performance will take place in Estonia, and then twenty students and three supervising teachers will visit Estonia for three days.
The result of our project is a play, which we will also film. It will serve as a model for our future projects involving young people to attract interest in participating in projects. As we will prepare and conduct a larger survey at the end of the project, we will definitely take these results into account when writing and carrying out subsequent projects. Both students and teachers will equip the project with new ideas and methods, which they can use in their future performances.

In conclusion, through our project we might be able to inspire other schools to do extensive exchange programmes with schools in different countries. We also hope to foster creativity and entrepreneurship among our young students and future citizens. In addition to that, we expect to get inspired by and learn from each other’s education system and the academic culture. What is more, an increase in motivation among students is an expected effect and a satisfying result that we will strive for, as well.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 32948 Eur

Project Coordinator

Viimsi Gümnaasium & Country: EE

Project Partners

• Stockholms Estetiska Gymnasium ekonomisk förening