EUROPE PLUS

According to the recommendations made by the Research for CULT Committee - Teaching Common Values in Europe back in 2017, each nation should try to find a good balance between policy steering and ...

We wanted to promote the European Union values through school education by empowering teachers and pupils with the tools to make those values effective and practical. Among some of our key objectives were: - Stimulating teachers to acquire content knowledge about values and knowledge about learning and teaching these values. - Acquisition by teachers of value-related skills and learn how to help students reflect, enter into dialogue with others and develop democratic skills. - Support teachers in dealing with controversial issues, in particular, by offering collegial support and profound expertise on the content involved. - Provide teachers with possibilities to experience the values of the European Union themselves, as well as value teaching and learning processes, in local, national and international settings. ‑ Identifying core European values and learning goals for students in a cross-curricular way. ‑ Detecting opportunities and dangers for students during the learning process of common European values. ‑ Making students as well as all teachers aware of the need for developing and exemplifying common European values.

According to the recommendations made by the Research for CULT Committee - Teaching Common Values in Europe back in 2017, each nation should try to find a good balance between policy steering and giving autonomy to schools. The perspective of steering expresses what society expects from all schools with regard to teaching common values. Autonomy, on the other hand, gives schools the space to develop their own pedagogical vision for developing values, within their own context, through the active involvement of teachers and students. Schools should be at the center of their community and serve as the pedagogical engine for community development. Parents, community groups and NGOs should surround the school and partner up in educating young people. Mutual support makes education more meaningful for students and can create a strong pedagogical community. The European Union's fundamental values are respect for human dignity and human rights, freedom, democracy, equality and the rule of law. These values unite all the member states – no country that does not recognize these values can belong to the Union. We carried out the project in a transnational way to reach further and apply common core European values in action.

We achieved the main Results / outputs as follow: R1: Value Theatre - Teachers developed their own educational vision on teaching common values through theatre plays. Studying each other’s visions and holding dialogues about them can further contribute to a meaningful debate on what constitute the common values in the EU, and what is the role of education in cultivating them in citizens, in particular young people and newcomers. Different stakeholders like NGOs, civil society organisations and parents were participated in those dialogues. The EU values stimulates the development of innovative practices (and curriculum materials) that can function as examples for teachers. Theatre is conflict-oriented, the focus is on social and personal conflicts. Starting out from these specific stories, it is easy to get talking about one’s own attitudes and views. R2: Box of Values - This result / output has been focused on the development of materials based on a box of values to implement exercises and games to pass on those values in classroom practice. This activity aimed to reach all teachers in a cross-curricular way. Teaching common values needed more reflective and dialogical learning processes in which students reflect and enter into dialogue with others about their experiences and values. Teaching common European values also needed more democratic learning in which students can learn to collaborate, deliberate, appreciate differences and find consensus. These different kinds of learning processes require a school organisation that facilitates teachers in working with their students in less traditional and more pedagogical ways. The box of values can is an excellent means to achieve this purpose. Other results and outcomes had endeavoured to: -Stimulate teachers to acquire content knowledge about values and knowledge about learning and teaching these values. -Get teachers to acquire value-related skills and learn how to help students reflect, enter into dialogue with others and develop democratic skills. -Support teachers in dealing with controversial issues, in particular, by offering support and profound expertise on the content involved. -Provide teachers with possibilities to experience the values of the European Union themselves, as well as value teaching and learning processes, in local, national and international settings. ‑Identify core European values and learning goals for students in a cross-curricular way. -Detect opportunities and dangers for students during the learning process of common European values. ‑Make students as well as all teachers aware of the need for developing and exemplifying common European values. ‑Create effective tools to be used in by teachers and educators to motivate and engage their students with core values. ‑Create theatre plays led by teachers to be enacted in schools by students. ‑Awareness of opportunities that common European values will bring to future generations. ‑Develop materials based on box of values to implement exercises and games to pass on those values in practice. -Disseminate the results of those plays and box of values to other schools and institutions that could benefit from this output.