Theatre Art for Education, Personal Development and European Citizenship Erasmus Project

Project Title

Theatre Art for Education, Personal Development and European Citizenship

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 school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

Growing up in today’s multicultural society, youth must learn to deal with ethnic and cultural differences in a positive way. First they must know and understand their own group’s values and ethical norms, then they can be taught to know, understand and accept the others’ values and to be aware that together they can build a better world.

This project was designed to contribute to the education of young generation in order to become open-minded, to understand and to accept the differences as expressions of our common humanity and further to their better social integration in a multicultural environment.

In this respect, the specific objectives of the project are:
– Create and consolidate relationships between different organizations in Europe with the aim of creating synergies to educate the young generation in the spirit of flexibility of thought, in the view of a better social integration
– Improving teenagers’ ethical values and self-esteem through discover the own roots and awareness of the own culture and values
– Learning to appreciate and understand differences, similarities and other people’s point of view and to consider inter-ethnic relations as European gain
– Improving self-confidence and communication skills of teenagers for a better interaction with others through understanding and practicing the non-verbal communication; identifying and control the emotions for conflict management using theatrical techniques
– Developing artistic skills, creativity, spontaneity, highlight native intelligence and positive thinking of youth by facing with different relationship between characters in exercises of “putting in another’s shoes”
– Improving personal abilities of interacting and building bridges of trust by working in a team with people of different culture and traditions, through theatrical games
– Strengthening relationships between participants, discover that, beyond our differences, we share a common humanity; create a positive attitude towards European values.

Target group of the project are teenagers at the age of shaping their personality, a period that requires improved attention from the educators which must find proper ways to attract the students, blending the formal and non-formal education.

The project led participants along a path that starts from knowing them self, the own culture and values, towards knowing and understanding other peoples’ culture and reaching the stage of working together to achieve a common goal, all these by using the theatre art as a mean of expression.

The objectives were reached by activities focused on workshops of teachers and trainers, theatrical exercises and plays represented by students having the following themes:

Workshops:
“Dramatic Art – evocation and artistic interpretation of the past; History brought in the present, by interpretation and artistic evocation”
“Living together – advantage of European unity; Interethnic relations – European gain”
Theatrical exercises:
“Artistic education – the relationship between characters, improvisation and concentration”
“The Royal Highness – the Public – and the artistic characters; communication and assumed relationship; non-verbal communication – gesture universality”
“Personal development through art education – the game and theatrical intelligence”.

For teachers and trainers, the project was an opportunity to improve their professional skills by working together with other European teachers and trainers by exchanging experiences and developing new tools for the teenagers’ education. The quality of their work was improved by adding a European value to their knowledge, given by the contribution of European partners, having different cultural or professional backgrounds.

Art education can shapes the students’ personality; applied through drama techniques, develop different kinds of emotional intelligence: verbal intelligence, ethics and moral intelligence, musical intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, logical intelligence – even mathematics abilities. Thus by the project were developd students’ attention, concentration, observation, ability to develop strategies to solve problems, flexibility of thought, promptness of response, coordination, self expression, ability to work individually or in teams.

Working and spending time together with people from different countries facilitated the communication between them, improved their skills in using a foreign language and their cultural knowledge. Cultural visits in the host country improved also their cultural knowledge and contributed to the personal development of participants.

The results of the project are: a Brochure of good practices and a Collection of plays and exercises interpreted by students, following the project path. Other results that present the project development are the project website, the leaflet, two newsletters and a photo exhibition. All results will be available on the website of the project.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 71305 Eur

Project Coordinator

Fundatia Cultural Stiintifica Gheorghe Magheru & Country: RO

Project Partners

• Zespol Szkol Gimnazjum im. Solidarnosci w Korycinie
• eurogems aps
• The Organization for Poverty Alleviation & Development
• Centro Público Integrado O Cruce
• VsI Socialiniu inovaciju centras