Heroes and Cultural Identity Project

Project meeting: Edinburgh, 3-8 October 2006

REPORT OF THE COMENIUS 'HEROES AND CULTURAL IDENTITY' PROJECT MEETING HELD IN EDINBURGH, 3-8 OCTOBER, 2006

Tuesday 3 October

Participants arrived. The following teachers were in attendance during the week:

Cristina Fuga	Marzia Zabbatino	Michele Minenna
Astrid Myskja	Arne Øiaas	Ivar Sognli
Renáta Kelemenová	Henrieta Martincová	Aleksandra Szczepińska
Oktawia Gorzeńska	Ewa Wołowska	Katarzyna Hołownia
Serpil Doğanyiğit	Mehmet Yesilürdü	David Bouttier
Donny Gluckstein	Penny Gower	Harry Kogon
John O'Neill	Gordon Plews

The delegates were from schools in Italy(3), Norway(3), Slovakia(2), Poland(4), Turkey(2), Scotland(6)

Wednesday 4 October

Welcome

Each of the participants introduced themselves and their schools. The refusal of the British Consulate in Istanbul to grant a visa to one of the Turkish delegates was noted with dismay and it was decided to send a letter of protest.
Aims of the meeting set out
Plan of the 3 days explained

Rationale for the project

The intention was to enable teachers and students from widely different educational systems to be able to work together constructively. Therefore the project is not based on a particular curriculum area, because this varies so much from country to country, but on a theme that can be applied in any country.
Schools will have maximum flexibility in the way that they involve their students and work on the topic of heroes.
However, for the project to work as a genuine cultural interchange, at the international level it is important that all schools cooperate effectively. This is made possible through students voting for the heroes presented by students in the other schools, and the winners gaining prizes. (The word 'losers' should not be used).The prizes act to encourage students to produce work on heroes, while the voting system means that students will be looking at the work of students in other countries.

Implementation - activities for producing work on heroes

The voting system will work so that there will be a winner in each participating school
The importance of the prizes and voting system was emphasised. Possible prizes included
- travel to the next project meeting
- typical products of each country donated by partners
- a symbolic prize (Oscar/Olympic Gold)
- possible prize ceremony using videoconference/webcam/telecast

Discussion of different types of hero. 'Unsung heroes' such as health and safety representatives was mentioned as an alternative to more conventional heroes (national etc.)

Variety of content was discussed - text, pictures, music, video

Although for voting purposes the amount of material for each hero up front on the website would have to be limited, there could be links to more details and extensive materials 'behind'.

To keep the numbers of heroes being voted on at a manageable level schools should choose (through internal voting procedures) a maximum of two heroes to be put on the website for voting at the international level.

So there would be two levels of voting:

National - no limit on number of heroes or amount of material. The choice of this rests with each school
International - a maximum of 2 heroes per school.

Survey of each school's level of involvement and intentions

Norway

30 students, aged 16, plus 15 media students. Extensive use of ICT based education (PowerPoint etc.). Students would work individually or in groups of 2 or 3 on heroes of their choice.

Heroes could be:

National
Why is someone a hero to me? (what makes a hero?)
How may I become a hero?

The new curriculum included personal texts based on creative work, pictures, etc. and this could be incorporated into the project.

Italy

150 vocational students, not using computers. Students would discuss what heroes they wished to look at, and then work in groups. It will be possible to make the project work officially part of their end of year work, and so contribute to their qualifications.

Turkey

15 students in a language class, aged 15-18.
Students will decide which heroes they want to work on.

Scotland

Pilot project with a dozen health and safety reps already completed. They did projects on making their own workplaces healthier, a 10 minute videoed presentation in class, plus 2000 word report. A winning hero had already been voted on to be put forward by the class.

Psychology - 15 'Adult Returners'. Class split up into five groups to look at 'heroes' of the different psychological schools of thought - Freud etc.

History - 15 'Adult Returners', working on William Wallace.
Probably about 60-100 students would be involved overall.

Slovakia

60 students split into 5 groups. But others in the school can become involved if they want. Students would work in groups.
The project would be in the form of an end-of-term presentation using PowerPoint. There would need to be an agreement on how many slides could be used.

Poland

The aim was to involve the entire school of 650 students (aged 13-16) in 24 classes. The heroes would be drawn from politics and history, but no anti-heroes would be allowed (e.g. Stalin or Hitler).

It was stressed that the aims of the project prevented racist or xenophobic anti-heroes being promoted.

After considerable discussion about how to deal with issues of content and presentation, text and multimedia, the following conclusions were reached:

Conclusions

It was decided that at the international voting level, the following rules would apply:

Each school would present 2 heroes. Since schools cannot vote for their own entries, this would mean voting on 10 heroes
All presentations had to include some text, up to, but not exceeding 200 words
Multimedia presentations would have a maximum of 10 PowerPoint slides and/or 1 minute of music, and/or 1 minute of video
The language for text would be English. To ensure that the quality of English was similar for each school, the Scottish partner volunteered to 'polish up' the English on the 10 heroes presented by the other partners.

Thursday 5 October

Workshops - Aims
Workshop 1: Language - Using the project as a medium for teaching English.
Workshop 2: Humanities - Using the concept of Heroes.
Workshop 3: Implementation - How to develop the project in the classroom.
Plenary

General group

How to introduce the project?
How to get the students interested?

The group felt that the key question to ask was 'why is this person and hero, and what do they mean to you'? The students should be able to say why they are choosing such and such a hero.

One idea put forward was the possibility of finding common heroes, upon which students from different countries could collaborate.

There was discussion of the need to avoid controversial heroes or fallen heroes (the obvious ones being Hitler or Mussolini.

Discussing the question of national heroes and other types of hero it was felt that it might be appropriate to ask: 'Has this hero made a contribution outside their own country?'

The different approaches to teaching were brought out in the groups. In Norway, for example, the approach was very student-centred, with the teacher acting only as a facilitator. In Scotland the nature of the curriculum meant that the teacher has to be more directing.

It was proposed to have a discussion forum on the website where students would be able to do more than just vote for other people's heroes, but could comment on these heroes, on the presentation and raise general questions about what makes a hero, the distinction between heroes and celebrities, and so on.

It was also thought that there should be a discussion forum for teachers, where they could discuss problems that arose (such as what to do if students insist on choosing heroes that are inappropriate, and so on).

Humanities group

In this group teachers talked about their different approaches and situations.

Gordon (Scotland):

The students work with children in schools. The questions to ask them could be:

Who are heroes?
What are heroes?

Are heroes people who have influenced your values through things like:

Celebrity
Music
Cinema
Sport

Or people who have been influential in other ways, e.g. teachers.

Oktawia & Ewa (Poland):

Heroes are not the same as celebrities, but people who have had an influence on values such as Lech Walesa, Pope John Paul. There could also be others like writers, poets and sports people.

Work on heroes would be integrated into different subjects - music, history, art, civics/sociology and drama.

Cristina (Italy)

The teachers involved teach Italian language and history. Contrast was drawn between hero/idol and myth.

Students are unlikely to be interested in national heroes like Garibaldi. But they might be more enthusiastic about ordinary heroes who do extraordinary things like firefighters in 9/11.

Would it be possible to unite the idea of national hero and ordinary hero, perhaps?

The issue of difficulties of translating was raised. Some of the material might be in Italian and some in English.

Arne (Norway)

Talked about the high standard of pupils as well as the use of media such as music.

Challenges:

Gordon - we only have students for one year and you have to fight to fit the project into the schedule. If the project is extra-curricular then, for adult students, there is the question of motivation. A determining factor would be how much they have to produce. Small groups will define the concept of heroes and discuss who their heroes are, and from that try to find the common characteristics of a hero.

Arne - our students are very motivated and academic, though the project may involve more classes, including vocational ones.

Cristina - there may be a problem involving other teachers. But we will have a flexible programme with people volunteering to do the project. All the students were vocational. It was very important that the students do the production, comparing heroes across nations and across ages.

Oktawia - in our school all the teachers will be involved.

Language workshop

We compared language classes in each school.

Curriculum - what is supposed to be learnt is different for each partner.

A framework for approaching the project

Brainstorming (using ICT/History etc.)
What is relevant for my hero?
Use peer evaluation. Let different groups evaluate each others' work.
Questions to ask - Do I understand why this person is a hero?
Teacher evaluation should act as quality control and give grading
ICT to assist with PowerPoint presentations
Oral presentations will earn an oral grade
The project can be used for the exam

The issue of student-centred v. leading role for teachers was discussed.

Plenary discussion

The problem of individuals like Hitler was raised and it was pointed out that the project application form from the EU and our response to it both stressed that the purpose of the project was to overcome xenophobia and prejudice.

Tour of the college

During this we witnessed a science demonstration and also we engaged in a discussion with a social care class.

They suggested that a hero is someone who:

Makes a difference
Overcomes their own disability
Sacrificed themselves for others

There might be age differences. Young people might choose rock stars while other students might have more mature choices.

Demonstration of the website

During this it was agreed that each school would have its own website which would be linked to the main website at Stevenson. The issue of language was raised and it was agreed that websites would be in both English and national languages.

During the demonstration of a dummy 'hero' it was argued that the presentation should not say 'Vote for X' because this may trivialise the exercise. It would be better to have 'Please vote for the heroes presented below' or words to that effect.

Links from the hero summary to the more extensive material located in the different national websites could be either to the site in general or to the specific hero. No final decision was taken on this.

Practice session on forum

How to use the forum and vote (led by HK, supported by SCE Comenius team members)
How to get a hotmail account
How to register in the project forum
How to post / reply to the forum
How to send summary materials to Stevenson College Edinburgh
How to vote

Main conclusions from Day 2

It was important to ask the question 'why is someone a hero, what makes someone a hero, and what does this person mean to me? Students should be encouraged to think critically.
Controversial figures such as Hitler or Mussolini are excluded because the spirit of the project is to oppose prejudice such as xenophobia, racism
A discussion forum for students to do more than just vote for other people's heroes. They can comment on heroes, on presentations and raise general questions about what makes a hero, the distinction between heroes and celebrities, and so on.
It was also thought that there should be a discussion forum for teachers, where they could discuss problems that arose (such as what to do if students insist on choosing heroes that are inappropriate, and so on).
Each school will have its own website linked to the main website at Stevenson.
These websites would be in both English and national languages so that students and teachers from both the local country and abroad could navigate them
'Vote' would be at the top of the forum page rather than in each individual entry
Links from the 200 word hero summary to the background material could be either via the site in general or direct to the specific hero. No final decision was taken on this.

Friday 6 October

Agreed to send a joint letter of protest to the British embassy in Istanbul protesting at their refusal to grant one of the Turkish delegates at visa. Copies to be sent to MEPs and the national agencies.

Timeline until next meeting

Summaries to be sent to Harry by 16 February 2007
Voting to commence on 2 March 2007
Final date for voting to be completed - 16 March 2007
Next meeting in Gdynia: 10-15 April 2007. Main meeting days 11, 12 and 13 April.

Newsletter for dissemination

It was agreed to issue a newsletter towards the end of 2006. This will help publicise the project, present the different schools to the students who are currently working on heroes and tell people about the website and the voting system. Edinburgh will ask for short contributions from each put the newsletter together.

ICT contacts for the project

Harry - Scotland
Michele - Italy
Astrid - Norway
Serkan - Turkey
Renata - Slovakia
Oktawia - Poland

Prizes and awards

There will be four levels of prizes:

Student travel to next meeting
Produce from the different partners' countries
A trophy/medal (Norway to produce)
Certificate for all students who participate in the project. (Scotland to produce). Logos of each institution to be included

Student mobility

Partners are hopeful that they can be funded for student mobility as follows:

Italy - 2
Norway - 2
Poland - 4
Scotland - 4
Slovakia - 2
Turkey - 2

There was discussion about the difficulty of automatically linking winning the vote to mobility because of the tight timescale. Different partners will need to consider how best to arrange this. It might be possible for winners of the first round of voting (in March 2007) to attend the October 2007 meeting, for example. The Polish partner agreed to look into cheap accommodation for visiting students, as the subsistance allowance given is small.

Email addresses

All the participants' email addresses were collected and will be circulated by the Italian partner.

Outline agenda for next meeting
Evaluation of the whole process
Workshops on same basis as in Edinburgh
Visting students to present their work
Teachers to make a presentation to the Polish school.

Renewal

It was agreed that Scotland would produce the information required for renewal and that this would be sent as early as possible to the partners, in good time for translation.

Evaluation

The project meeting was judged to have been useful and productive.