1. Diagnosis Activity

At this initial stage of the project, it is very important to collect information on site, on how the subjects, “Citizenship” (in Portugal) and “Social Empathy & Responsibility” (in Greece) are being delivered in schools. We also intend to listen to teachers and students experiences regarding the challenges they faced in the educational system, in the 21st Century. 

Frequently, in both Portugal and Greece, citizenship or citizenship related contents are not a scheduled subject on their own but a cross-work project with actual scheduled subjects, like math, languages, sciences, etc. 

We want to answer the following questions: 

• What do children know about citizenship, democratic participation, civic engagement, cultural differences, etc.? 
• What importance do teachers perceive in working these concepts with the students and what do they think of the way it’s being put in practice?
• Which methodologies are being used to work the subject? 
• How do students and teachers perceive the importance of emotional education? 
• Which challenges and experiences do teachers face when facilitating the curricula to classes of 24 to 28 students? What changes would they like to see? 
• Which challenges and experiences do students face regarding school and the learning experience as a whole? What changes would they like to see? 

This diagnosis will be put in place by listening to the teachers (through questionnaire) and the students (through dynamical exercises). In these dynamics, we will observe the students’ attitudes, answers and level of participation to certain questions and hypothetical scenarios.

The diagnosis session has the ideal duration of 90 minutes and is composed by the following moments: 

1. Brief presentation 
2. Ice-breaking exercise 
3. Exercise about Citizenship, Human Rights and Inclusion 
4. Discussion forum regarding school life and suggestions for improvement
5. Closing moment

Target group of the activity: 3rd to 6th grade students and their Citizenship teachers

 

2. Co-creation of the workshops with teachers

This activity is a crucial moment where teachers are actively involved in the design of learning sessions based on more dynamic and student-participated methodologies, where students become the leaders of their learning process. 

It is essential to emphasize the importance of active listening, engagement and cooperation that should be established between the project facilitators and the teachers. 

The co-design process should follow these steps:

1. Provide the teachers with the three major themes to be approached and ask them to choose the sub-themes they wish to address, taking into account the class’ profile; 
2. Present teachers with some participative learning techniques info to unveil the range of possibilities and inspire them to work together to design the activity; 
3. Develop a small guide for performing the workshop, including the theme, the values that are being promoted, the description of the activity, related news, facts sheet, glossary, etc. to support the teacher and the facilitator to deliver the workshop. 

Target group of the activity: Citizenship teachers

 

3. Workshops

Each participating class will benefit from three workshops, corresponding to three major themes:

• Emotional education
• Civic engagement and democratic participation
• Human rights, diversity and inclusion

The workshops will be based on role-playing exercises, debates and games, where children have to: 1) deconstruct prejudiced thinking; 2) put themselves in the other one’s shoes; 3) reflect on the problem; 4) build solutions as a group. This is the systematic structure of all workshops, in order to lead the children to listen to one another, validate different ways of thinking, reflect on the complexity of situations and cooperate to find common solutions.

One of the main references for the workshops is “Compass – Manual for Human Rights Education with Young People”, by the Council of Europe. 

We also intend to use the “forum-theatre” technique. 

What is forum-theatre?

It is a political-theatrical method derived from the “Theatre of the Oppressed”, created in the 70’s by the Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal, initially in Brazil, during the military dictatorship, and later in Europe, when Boal came for his exile.

The Theatre of the Oppressed was created based on the book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” (1974), by the also Brazilian educator and theorist Paulo Freire.

This technique restores the individual’s capability of, simultaneously, being a critical observer and actively creating reality. It’s a transforming type of theatre that doesn’t present a closed ending but instead challenges the audience with a dilemma that they must discuss and, above all, transform. The spectator becomes the “spect-actor” and is invited to come on stage and act on behalf of solutions to the presented problem. This technique is currently used in hundreds of countries on social, political and educational work.

Target group of the activity: 3rd to 6th grade students and their Citizenship teachers

 

4. Mobility Portugal/Greece

The goal of this activity is to share experiences and knowledge, and observe the project’s field implementation by each partner.

For this activity, 2 professionals from each country will visit the other partner during the implementation of the project. In this way they will be able to observe the practices and methodologies and how they are being implemented in the workshops. It will also be an opportunity to strengthen the collaboration between both countries. We wish to develop the sense of European belonging and its values of unity and diversity. 

Target group of the activity: professionals and facilitators 

 

5. Good Practices, sharing & collaborative networks building

How will we do this during the project implementation?

• Papers and news related to education, human rights, democratic participation, etc.  will be disseminated through the partners’ social media.

How will we do this at the end of the project?

• A “Good practices in Education for Citizenship” paper will be written, regarding the project and its results and disseminated through the partners’ social media, European platforms on education and youth and sent to governmental and non-governmental organizations in the fields of education, human rights, democratic participation, research, policy making, etc.;
• Based on the performed workshops, a toolkit will be created with practical tools for educators to use in any educational context. It will be available for free on the project’s website and on European platforms of education and youth;
• A final project conference will be held where the results will be disseminated and stakeholders will have the opportunity to launch collaborative networks between them.

Target group of the activity: teachers, other professionals in the education field and general public.