Heroes and Cultural Identity Project

Preparatory Meeting: Istanbul 6-7 January 2006

REPORT OF THE PREPARATORY MEETING HELD IN ISTANBUL, 6-7 JANUARY, 2006

Attendance

Four schools/colleges were represented at the meeting - Istanbul (3 people) and Edirne (2 people) in Turkey, Trondheim in Norway (3 people) and the co-ordinating institution in Edinburgh, Scotland (2 people).

Introductions and welcome

After a welcome from the Istanbul school the representatives of the different schools introduced themselves, and gave brief descriptions of how their institutions functioned. The Istinye school was thanked for hosting the meeting.

A draft agenda was issued and the outline of the aims of the visit was proposed and agreed. The intention was not to make any firm decisions before all the partners of the project could be present, but to try develop ideas of how to work on the topic of 'heroes and cultural identity' so that the first full meeting of the project later in 2006 could be as productive as possible.

1. The rationale for the Heroes Project and its general structure
2. How should we develop materials on heroes with our classes?
3. What sort of collaborative work can we do between our schools?
4. How should we present materials for voting on?
5. The mechanism for voting
6. After the vote - prizes, noticeboards, newsletter, award ceremonies
7. Any other business

1) The project rationale

The first item discussed was the basic reason for the project being presented in its current form. Previous projects had demonstrated three key obstacles to schools in different countries working together: differences in the curriculum, differences in the institutional structures and differences in types of students:

a) Differences in curriculum.
It is often the case that teachers might be doing the same subject - such as history, literature or science - but the way these are dealt with in each country can make cooperation very difficult.

b) Differences in institutional structures
An example of this emerged at the meeting. In some countries teachers can reward students doing project work with grades that contribute to their final school qualifications. In other countries teachers do not give final grades and final grades are decided by external marking. Therefore students cannot receive any formal rewards for project work.

c) Differences in types of students
There can be many socio-economic and cultural differences both between and within countries. Equally important is the fact that in some countries students will be passing through the schools over a period of several years, while in others they may only be present for a year or even less.

The aim of this project was to overcome these difficulties by allowing the maximum flexibility at the school level so that teachers could adapt the project to the needs of their students as much as possible. The choice of heroes, how they are worked upon, and so on should also be as wide as possible.

This raised two important questions: if every school did just what it wanted, then where was the joint project? Also, if cultural identity is in the title of the project, should the heroes not be people who reflect the different national cultures and are therefore national heroes?

There was considerable discussion around these areas. The following responses were put forward:

In answer to the first question, close international collaboration would be achieved through the system of presenting heroes to other schools and voting. Students would encounter the work of other students directly by this means.

For the second question, the conclusion was:

1. We want to engage the enthusiasm and motivation of our students, and so if they are free to choose the heroes they want without restriction, this is more likely.
2. In a multicultural society one person's national hero may not be the same as another person's.
3. We should not restrict ourselves to national figures. Local people who are acting heroically in difficult economic, political or social circumstances, with perhaps a disability etc. could be chosen.
4. The cultural identity of the students themselves will be revealed by the choice of heroes that they make.

It was agreed that a broad definition of heroes and flexibility for the schools and the students in choosing heroes would be appropriate. However, for the project to work as a form of collaboration between different schools in a variety of countries the heroes would need to be presented to schools abroad and the students would need to be motivated through the voting mechanism.

The idea of a forum for discussion would also be important. Here the concepts of cultural identity, heroes versus celebrity and so on would be put forward and developed.

It is likely that students will put forward many different heroes, but only a few could practically be presented internationally. So within the schools themselves students will have to justify their choice of heroes and convince others. This will lead students to reflect on issues of heroes and cultural identity.

2) How should we develop materials on heroes with our classes?

This can be done in a variety of ways. While there will need to be a common form of presentation at the international level this is at the very end of the process. Before that students can take a variety of approaches.

For those schools where English is a foreign language project work can be a useful way of learning to use English. For example some students could develop materials in their own language, and others could translate this.

Not only can the final presentations be used as an exercise, but the forum can also be valuable. Language teachers can also act as moderators on the forum and mark their students' work in that way.

Preparing materials can be a creative process. It was suggested that stories, poems and music could be used as a way of projecting the hero to others.

Heroes could be presented in a descriptive way (chronology, major events of their life and so on) or more imaginatively, or in a combination of both.

The different participants put forward ideas on how they expected to work on the project. One school would set aside a period for project work and students would be awarded grades that go to their final school mark. In another school 2 students per class would be responsible for overseeing the project work of the others, with teachers acting mainly as facilitators. Project work would be done during the 'social club hour'.

3) What sort of collaborative work can we do between our schools?

There could also be opportunities for collaborative work between different schools if students are working on the same hero at the same time.

The forum could also be a means of students collaborating on developing various themes

4) How should we present materials for voting on?

While maximum flexibility was the aim at local level, for effective presentation at the international level an agreed format would have to be developed.

The ideal would be that all partner schools have their own websites and that all student materials are made available through these. It might be the case that schools do not have the resources for this. In that case paper-based or CD materials could be used.

A central website would be set up at Stevenson which would contain links to all the local websites. It would be in English and contain the following items:

• information on the participating schools
• timescales for preparing, presenting and voting on heroes
• links to the participating schools' website and materials
• a voting area
• a forum

For the ICT aspect to work successfully it will be important that each school has one person who will take responsibility for this aspect of the project.

To encourage students in preparing materials it was agreed to propose that voting for heroes would be based on two categories - 1. merits of the hero; 2. quality of the presentation.

Since it was likely that there would be several schools participating and each of these schools might wish to work on several heroes, it would not be possible for every hero to be presented to students abroad for voting on. Therefore schools will need to find a way to reduce the number presented internationally to a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 3 per round of voting. It will be the choice of the school how this is done - either by its own internal voting, or by restricting the number of heroes students work on.

5) The mechanism for voting

Voting is a key collaborative part of the project. It is not so much about competition, but about motivating the students in preparing materials and in encouraging them to look at the work of other students.

Since this aspect has to be carefully organised it was proposed that a timeline for each round would be developed. This would include the following dates:

• start of the period for developing materials on heroes
• date for uploading these materials to the local website and a summary for the voting area
• date for 'hustings' - when students can contact each other to ask each other questions about the heroes
• voting period
• date for announcing the results

Each school puts forward a minimum of two heroes and students from other countries will choose which one is best (merits of hero) and presented most effectively (quality of presentation). This will guarantee that every school has winners.

To make it fair, all schools would have to present their heroes on the central website in a common format - up to a set number of words in English (with perhaps one picture). Of course much more extensive materials would be available on local website if voters wanted to find out more about the heroes that were being proposed.

The central website will allow online voting. To vote students will have to register with the website (and to do this they will need an email address). This process will encourage students who have not yet used email to begin doing so.

For those that have difficulty with online voting due to lack of resources, a paper-based ballot paper will be issued.

Students will not be able to vote for heroes from their own school.

It was proposed that the teachers in the project do a practice run of voting before the whole process is opened up to students to iron out any problems.

One question which was not resolved was whether it would be a good idea to have another round of voting to choose a single hero out of all the different schools.

6) After the vote - prizes, noticeboards, newsletter, award ceremonies

There was some discussion about what sort of prizes could be given in the project. Student mobility was mentioned as one possibility, as well as books, typical local products of the partners, special certificates (perhaps developed by a school art section) etc.

It was thought a good idea to disseminate the work of the project throughout its life and a noticeboard, project newsletter or school magazine would be good places for this. A noticeboard might contain a map showing the location of the different schools involved, details of the heroes currently being presented for voting on, past winners, details of how to register for voting, the address of the website with its forum etc. etc.

The question of award ceremonies was raised, but not resolved. The ceremony might take place locally or perhaps at the mobility meetings. The question of how many rounds of voting - 1 or 2 per year was also raised but left open.

It was suggested that alongside the forum for students, there should be a forum for teachers where they could share their experiences and suggestions as the project developed.

Conclusion

The above report contains the formal aspect of the preparatory visit. However, it was also very useful for all the participants to meet and to exchange ideas at an informal level. We were lucky enough to be able to attend an award ceremony at the school and to learn about how the different education systems of Norway, Scotland and Turkey operated.

Overall it was a very useful and productive visit.