Summary
In this work we present the reader the European Youth Work project ´Comenius` which is supported by the EU. To give you an impressive overview we firstly present you the European Union and its work for the youth generation. Hence, we introduce the Socrates Project and its subordinated programme Comenius in which we are mainly involved. Our topic is “Europe: Tradition and Future” and this year we focused on national sports. In the following parts our activities, like the creation of the questionnaires, the analysis of them and the meetings are described.
List of contents
Summary
1.Introduction
2.The European Union
2.1European Youth Work
2.2The Socrates Project
3.Comenius: ´Europe: Tradition and Future`
3.1Creation of questionnaires
3.1.1Analysis of questionnaires
(students)
3.2Cooperation between the participating
countries on e-Twinning
3.3Meetings
3.4Comparison of the involved schools
4.Evaluations
5. Appendix
1.Introduction
The EU is a union of democratic (mostly) European countries which has the aim to live in peace and harmony together. People should not understand it as a new state though it has more importance than other international organisations.
But what does that mean to us? Does it change anything for each and every single person to live in such a union than in a ´traditional country`?
In our everyday life we live in various communities: family, school classes and club. We know each other because we spend a lot of parts of our lives together. But naturally it is hard to realize
that unity because of the huge distance and the anonymity. Therefore the EU offers different projects in order to overcome these borders.
We, as writers did not feel the idea of such a community in the beginning. In our everyday life personal issues like school life take the main part of our actions. Sure, no-one can’t deny that we rarely participate in international activities. That is quite understandable because private things are much closer to us and easier to handle. If you want to act in an international organisation such as the European Union you have to be aware of certain skills. Firstly you have to be able to deal with the English language in a communicable way. This is the most important skill because it is the basic bridge language. Another skill often has to be is the use of New Technologies like working with a computer and the Internet, which shortens the time between certain actions a lot.
Naturally it is also an advantage to be open minded, friendly and -what is most important- without any prejudices.
If you have those certain skills or are willed to improve those in a way, it is perfect for you to work for the EU.
While working on this project we noticed the idea of a union step by step. It is possible to feel so close to people of other origins that it seems they live right next door. Among all of the teenagers more and more similarities appeared while working than we first thought. Of course there are certain differences, but those did not make the others less likeable for us!
2. The European Union
Motto: ´In varietate Concordia`
(Latin: Unity in diversity)
Europe is a continent with many different traditions and languages but with common values. The EU defends those. It promotes the cooperation between the European citizens by creating a unity based on keeping diversity.
´The European Union (EU) is an intergovernmental and supranational union of 26 democratic member states`. Those delegated this single sovereignty to a common institution to deal with certain issues in a European dimension. This guarantees democratic decisions focused on joint interests. This bringing together of sovereignties is also known as the ´European Integration`.
The history
The first idea of a unity came in the 1950’s at the end of the Second World War. The only political aims were the rebuilding, the prevention of coming wars. As a result from this motivation the Schumann² declaration was signed on the 18th April in 1951 to establish the European Coal and Steal Community. Aimed at the utilization of steal and coal it should strengthen the relationship between Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, and therefore the European economy. From that basis the first ´original`
union was established in 1957 by the Treaty of Rome, gets known as the European Economic Community³.
Later on it changed to the European Community ´which is now the ´first pillar` of the European Union`. In year 1973 Denmark, Ireland, the United Kingdom joined. Greece, Portugal and Spain followed from 1981 to 1986. The EU as we know it today was formed in 1992 by the ´Treaty of the European Union`, called the ´Maastricht Treaty`. On the 7th February 1992 the member states of the European Community signed it in Maastricht, Netherlands. This was the creation of the EU and formed the three pillar structure of it. On that date it was also agreed to introduce the Euro by three steps. Three years later Austria, Finland and Sweden participated as well. In 2000 the 15 member states hold a conference to subscribe the ´Treaty of Nice`, which decided about the coming enlargement on the 1st May 2004. Consequently Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia joined.
Naturally there are some conditions of joining which are to forbid the death penalty and to respect the human rights. There also exist political criteria like there has to be a democratic and constitutional system. The market economy has to be greatly strong to stand the pressure of competition firm. This year(2007)Romania and Bulgariawill join the EU.
The institutional system is divided into five authorities, each one with specific tasks: the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union, the European Commission, the European Court of Justice and the European Central Bank. ´The European Union’s activities cover all areas of public policy from health and economic policy to foreign affairs and defence`.
2.1 European Youth Work
Though the EU occupies with different affairs we should not forget the younger generation. Therefore the Council of the European Union and the representatives of the Governments of the member states make resolutions from time to time for the promotion of young people. Those should invite the Commission and the member states to include the youth into their political work.
Such resolutions give the following tasks to the Commission: firstly to encourage young people to be interested in political affairs in connection to ´the preparation of Community cooperation policy`.
Thus education and training are extremely important.
Secondly the Commission should ensure that the EU does not forget to care about the youth because they surely know about the high importance of the younger generation as the future.
Thirdly they should inspect the minutes given by the involved students/ teachers from the youth programme. Fourthly the European Commission should introduce strategies for better learning especially eLearning programmes. Sure, it would also be good to work out new strategies which facilitate the way of learning.
The member states are also invited to take care of the following tasks: On the one hand side to ´encourage young people’s initiative, enterprise and creativity in all fields`, like in school, in the daily life and in the social intercourse. Teenagers should get the possibilities to get the opportunities and support pointed out, which is available for them in supranational interests.
The member states could also teach their inhabitants to live actively in the EU and to be a conscious citizen of it. The pupils are animated to train themselves and to do research out of school in order to gain knowledge. Youth programmes are important to create a pleasant relationship between teachers and their students as well as to spur the teachers on improving the process of teaching and learning. On the other hand there should be a practical and active work as well as the exchange of information and experiences in the end. On the whole European Youth Work helps to open minds to prevent ´racism, xenophobia and intolerance`. Especially nowadays it is important ´to educate young people as critical consumers and practitions` so that they can handle with the media and other industries.
We all should try to live in peace without any prejudices against other humans and cultures.
3. Comenius: ´Europe: Tradition and Future`
Generally the Comenius Project is a sub programme of Socrates and thus one of the numerous Youth Work projects promoted by the EU. It lasts three years and this was the second one. Next to several topics which are prepared by other schools and countries our three main topics are:
- New Technologies (1st year)
-Sports (2nd year)
-Culture and Tradition (3rd year)
The following countries are involved in the project: Germany, Great Britain, Italy and the Republic of Ireland. It is important that there is always a coordinating school, which is responsible for global coordination. In our case the high school ´A.Avogadro` of Biella, Italy takes care of all the administrative tasks. Each participating school has to find a teacher who feels responsible for the management of the project. Those coordinators have the competence to form an internal work group in school and to coordinate the activities of the group work itself. Besides theyhave to contact the other coordinators regularly to guarantee an uncomplicated discharge. It would be desirable that those teachers seek other colleagues out of their school who agree to be involved in the project. Such teachers should be able to communicate in a common language, which is English. We should not forget the pupils who have a great importance as well. Sure, each student should adopt some tasks so that it is possible to work in an efficient way. Therefore the team must be well chosen in order to avoid that not all the work falls on the same shoulders.
The meetings are organized and managed by the coordinators, too. Each year there will be such meetings to schedule and coordinate the activities of the period of working. According to the deadlines there will be an examination of the results each year. The results in general should be:
- a questionnaire about the students’ attitude towards sport , worked out by the work groups
- a film, which is supposed to give a good overview of the whole work.
Meanwhile minutes have to be worked out to show current events.
Especially our topic relates to other European Youth Work projects done by the EU in order to promote ´young people` s initiative, enterprise and creativity`, because the youth generation is our future- not only for Europe, for the whole world. Particularly the EU offers lots of attractive possibilities in cultural, social and political ways because of the small size. Teenagers can easily travel in a short time so that it is not a big effort to experience other countries. Advantageous for pupils who are involved in international projects is that they can be as active as never before because of missing borders. Naturally they forget the idea of a unity in their everyday life but especially therefore such projects are established to engage young people getting closer to each other. Nowadays the society is determined by fun, technologies, fastness and anonymity. It is important not to forget the roots. So obviously we have to connect specific traditions from former times and New Technologies. We cannot deny that we are so used to them that we nearly can’t live without them.
Other reasons for this project are the promotion between the involved schools and countries to bring a European dimension to individual educational subjects. It should encourage young people to open their minds to other cultures and languages of foreign countries. It should also improve the teachers` mobility as well as the linguistic and technological skills for the members. In the end educational methods of various countries can be comparatively analyzed. It also teaches about other cultures and supports an intercultural dialogue and creates the idea of a European unity and a harmonic atmosphere.
3.1 Creation of questionnaires
Generally questionnaires help a lot to express people’s feelings, thoughts and issues about certain topics. Those concern to social problems, current events or other themes which we have to deal with. By the answers of the single persons you can easily create statistics, diagrams or you can just learn something about the consulted human.
In connection to the topic ´Europe: Tradition and Future` we were responsible to create such questionnaires. So each group created a questionnaire for its school, in order to know what teenagers think about sport and their attitude towards it.
After that we mixed them and created a new common one (see Appendix).
3.1.1 Analysis of questionnaires (students)
Students from all the participating countries have been consulted about whether and how they deal with sport in school and in their ordinary life. As a result the countries - Great Britain, Ireland, Germany and Italy - can be compared.
FINIRE con analisi questionari meri
3.2 Cooperation between the participating countries on e-Twinning
To guarantee a smoothly collaboration the project needed a connection between the participating countries with all their teachers and students to overcome borders.
E-Twinning, which is the main action of the European Union’s eLearning programme, is the neutral basis for the communication between Great Britain, Italy, the Republic of Ireland and Germany.
Thus it is an Internet platform where the involved people could log in and exchange the latest news.
On the one hand it offers new opportunities for an easy connection between the European countries and on the other hand it increases the pedagogical scope of teachers and their students.
Furthermore it motivates the students to study in an exceptional and more effective way than usual ´and opens the class rooms to Europe` (
Schools from the EU, Norway and Iceland, which offer the primary and secondary education, can get involved. Therefore it is necessary to determine a coordinator who can be teacher in any subject, headmaster or other school staff.
To put it all in a nutshell it creates a recent and modern way of learning which opens the minds to culture and value.
3.3 Meetings
We met in Sittingbourne from March the 10th to March the 15th 2007: we worked together and had a lot of fun. We also visited some interesting places such as the White Cliffs of Dover or Canterbury.
It was a great opportunity to learn hoe to live together and to cooperate, since we all stayed in a b&b.
MEETINGS PROF DA AGGIUNGERE
3.4 Comparison of the involved schools
Liceo scientifico “A.Avogadro” was founded in Biella in 1945/46, as a branch of “G.Ferraris”’ high school in Turin.
It was established in Via Galimberti in 1970.
The number of students increased constantly and in 1980 it was necessary to open a new branch in Cossato, a small city 15 km away from Biella.
The 1700 students are now divided into 73 classes and 6 courses, some located in a different building in another part of the town. Anyway there’s only one head master is Mr. Pier Ercole Colombo.
Who was Amedeo Avogadro?
He was a famous Italian physicist and chemist, born in Turin in 1776. He became a maths and physics teacher at TurinUniversity and then he studied the relation between atoms and electricity. He dedicated his chemistry studies to the observation of gases, coming up with the famous Avogadro’s law.
The numbers of the school
School of Biella
In Biella there are 118 teachers for 1261 students of 55 classes in the main school (825 boys and 436 girls) and 383 students in the other building (365 girls and 18 boys).
Classes A, A1 and A2 are the traditional course.
Classes A3 are the traditional courses and the economic course.
Classes B and B1 are the PNI (informatics national plan) course.
Classes C, C1, C2 and C3 are the double language course.
Classes D, E and F are the social- psycho- pedagogic course.
School of Cossato
In Cossato there are 18 classes with 40 teachers. The students are 420 (144 boys and 276 girls)
Classes A are the traditional course.
Classes B are the PNI (informatics national plane) course.
Classes C are the double language course.
Classes D and G are the social- psycho- pedagogic course.
School courses
Traditional course
It provides an excellent cultural background for University. Students study scientific as well as humanistic subjects.
Double language course
Highly competent teachers prepare students on both French and English grammar and literature; from the 3rd year it’s possible to study Spanish too. It gives a solid cultural background and it offers cultural exchanges with foreign schools.
PNI course
The national information technology plan is similar to the traditional course, but it focuses on maths and on the use of PC. Cultural exchanges in Italy and abroad are also planned.
Economic course
The economic course makes it easier to succeed at university, especially if you decide to study law, economy, statistics.
Social psychological pedagogical course
The social psychological pedagogical course gives the ideal background for university in the field of psychology and pedagogy.
Linguistic course
The experimental linguistic course “Brocca” includes English, French and German, and it provides good conversation and writing skills. You can also participate to many exchange experiences abroad organised by the school.
School activities
European Computer Driving License
For some years, Liceo Avogadro has been a test centre for AICA (Italian Association for the Automatic Computing) and it organizes support examinations for students, giving the ECDL license.
The European Computer Driving License is a project by CEPIS (Council of European Professional Informatics Societies), the authority that reunites the European Associations of Information Technology. Italy is one of the member countries and it is represented by AICA. The ECDL is a certificate recognized at international level, attesting the necessary abilities to work with a personal computer.