Vieste, Italy

Leuven, Belgium

Trabzon, Turkey

How it all began

The first contact between our schools (Miniemeninstituut and Lorenzo Fazzini) was established in Opalenica (Poland). Together with colleagues from Opalenica (Poland) and Storkow (Germany) the first application form was completed. However the project application "fears and hopes of youngsters in EU" was rejected and founding members Jarek Kasparek (Opalenica), Pino Corso (Vieste) and Dirk Staf (Leuven) decided to go and look for other partners.

New possible partners were found in Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Turkey (Trabzon) and a second call for proposals turned out to be successful. Unfortunately only three national agencies accepted the application. Four partners had to leave the project due to financial reasons.

The project was titled "the Art of Free Time" and counted twenty-four travelling mobilities, originally meant for seven partners. Therefore participants were supposed to travel a lot, which offered numerous teachers the opportunity to travel and embark on their first transnational teaching experience.

Goals

Right from the start, our school managements have supported the following project aims:

• Invite pupils and staff to become more interested in other countries and cultures
• Improve knowledge about school life and school systems
• Improve tolerance towards foreign countries and cultures

Involvement

The active involvement of the school management in all three schools has been a major key to success. It was clear right from the beginning that the project could only succeed with the full support of our headmasters Kris Florquin, Giuseppe d’Avolio, Saban Erdem (2009) and Zafer Gomleksiz (2010). All three delegations started off with teams of three or four teachers but the number has eventually grown to more than ten teachers involved. Consequently a number of classes in Italy and Belgium worked together to prepare a guided tour in Leuven, which brought approximately eighty pupils together in March 2010.

Preparatory work

1. A comparison was made between our school rules, curricula, habits (differences and similarities)
2. Three questionnaires (surveys) were completed by approx. 400 pupils to investigate their well-being at school, organisation of free time activities and travelling habits (results can be found here)
3. Tactics for dissemination and sustainability were established:
   • Inform colleagues and pupils regularly by means of a Comenius newsletter, school website, presentation at staff meeting, talk to pupils in classrooms
   • Encourage pupils’ involvement by inviting them to take part in next visits (selection procedure based on written and oral motivation).
   • Inform local press about Comenius activities
   • Higher visibility: posters, flags, banners, pictures, window dressing
   • School shop (Leuven) will sell regional products from Turkey (nuts, Turkish fruit) and Italy (wine, olive oil, olives).
   1. A SWOT-analysis was carried out to monitor the quality of the partnership:
      • Strengths: profound cooperation, mutual understanding, growing knowledge about school systems and traditions
      • Weaknesses: reporting and dissemination, encouraging mobilities, lack of feedback
      • Opportunities: new ideas, open-mindedness, encouraging curiosity among staff and pupils; diversity is the enrichment of our project
      • Threats: introduction of new colleagues, inform and motivate them; language skills of some participants are too weak; fight prejudices and criticism related to replacements, absence from school

      Final conclusion

      We visited each other at our homes and got to know local people’s customs instead of an ordinary visit in an ordinary tourist way. We improved our language and social skills, especially understanding between the lines. The participants now show higher stress resistance since one has had to adapt to all kinds of different situations. We even have a better view of our own capacities as a teacher and show more respect to fellow teachers with other strengths and skills. The participation in this Comenius project has initiated a discussion about setting standards for the educational level at our school.
      
      We have never seen so many cultures together in peace and welcome the new friendships among the headmasters, teachers and pupils. Already after one year of cooperation we realised some changes regarding everyday life at school thanks to the close contact with other religions and customs witnessed at the organising schools, e.g. the smoking ban on school premises, rooms being renovated to host visitors. When we compare our schools we think our pupils should achieve more: Belgian pupils have a lot of practical knowledge. We are also amazed by the discipline and ability of learning. We are now trying to change pupils’ habits by introducing them to healthy food. Teachers have worked with ICT in a different way and pupils have meanwhile established a strong e-mail contact between themselves. Finally discussions about the Italian educational system have been initiated.
      
      Although the conclusion about the cultural differences was in a certain way predictable, it is still remarkable to feel and assess the mutual understanding and respect for each other. The importance of learning foreign languages, both for teachers and students has been a clear result and an eye opener for us.

      Looking ahead

      Looking back on the achieved goals we can proudly state that pupils and staff in all three schools have gained more genuine interest in other countries and cultures. Also our knowledge about each other’s school life and educational systems has improved as well as the general mutual tolerance.
      
      During the last visit in Vieste a group of four Belgian teachers set up a framework for future interdisciplinary cooperation. As we will keep our contacts alive, it is our intention to organize teacher exchanges in order to discover new teaching methods.
      
      Integrating our future partnership into the everyday school curriculum, implementing several subjects is another objective.
      
      Our two-year international cooperation has sown the seeds of a better school climate. We are well aware of the fact that it takes quite some time before the majority of noses point in the same direction but we will do more than our best to visualize a strong European dimension.