Come together

In the application we described the challenging situation in our schools, where teachers sometimes struggle to handle pupils with minority backgrounds. The main aim was to share ideas and develop tools to use for working with inclusion of people with different cultural backgrounds in the classroom. How can cultural institutions and schools cooperate to find these tools? Actually, our need was to find tools that would improve the situation for the teachers, and perhaps also the curators in museums. The partners in this project have different perspectives, and coming together would hopefully give interesting results and discussions. By sharing our ideas and developing something together we will understand the needs of each partner better, and we will also strengthen the professional background of everyone taking part in the project.

We wanted to achieve more inclusion in our schools, particularly in regards to the multicultural challenges. We wanted to improve the conditions for teachers but also for curators in museums who meet classes visiting museums. When the teachers share ideas, they get respect and acknowledgement for what they share, and also fruitful feedback. When we developed something together, we also strengthen our relationship and make use of our resources as professionals. By taking part in this project all professionals, whether curators or teachers, have expanded their toolcase and improved their professional practice.

We planned 5 transnational meetings for this project. The first 4 meetings were intended for sharing good practice, for learning something new and for developing someting in common. For the transnational meetings we made a template for the expected contents of each meeting. This helps each partners to plan when hosting the meeting, and makes the project predictable. Each meeting lasted 2 days. For the final meeting we decided to organize an event in Brussels. For the event we invited persons who could be interested in finding out what our project has achieved. In addition to the event in Brussels, we visited a museum and a library in Brussels which has worked a lot with inclusion in their local neighbourhood, we had presentations from the German county Baden-Würtenberg about international cooperation, from the regional Brussels office for Normandie and from the Norwegian head of education in the Norwegian embassy to Belgium. Our project was then placed in a true European context at the final meeting.

The most concrete output of our project are the activites and stories we shared and how these affected all of us. These activities have been described in writing and will be published on a website linked to the homepages of the coordinator's organisation. During the last transnational meeting in Norway we developed a concrete game. The French delegation brought the outline of a new game for communication without speaking the same language. Together we made rules for the game and discussed different ways of using it. Another result is the event we planned in Brussels, to make our project known and to share the pride of being part of a project. Some of the participants have expressed personal views about the importance of being in a project. Their participation has changed their professional struggle and dilemmas to more enjoyment of and satisfaction in their work. They do not feel alone any more, and recognize that they have colleagues in other countries who feel the same and share the same struggles. In addition, the curators in the museums think that they have more tools to use in their meetings with their audience.