Polish teachers' reflections
Project „Christmas Truce” was a very valuable experience for us, the teachers and for our students as well. In Poland students know very little about World War One as in those days our country was under occupation of three neighbour countries: Austria, Germany and Russia. What students know is that after WW1 Poland became independent again after 123 years.
While working on „Christmas Truce” students knew a lot of history of WW1 – some of them made presentations and then presented them in front of the whole class. Students watched two films „War horse” and „Merry Christmas”, which let them know that period of European history in a very interesting way. Some of the students drew pictures after watching the films.
Christmas Truce 1914 itself was a historical event about which almost nobody at our school knew, exept the History teacher. Now most students of our SP 9 Dzierżoniów know about it.
A great experience for all of us was singing Christmas carols in foreign languages and knowing how to say Merry Christmas in so many European languages. The exhibitions we made were a exellent way to inform other students, teachers and parents about our cooperation and the results of it.
Project was a fantastic way to connect History and English as students realized that foreign language is a way of understanding the others, not a subject itself. The oldest students had some English lessons about history of World War One. For one of it, the headteacher was invited and she saw how students were talking in English about WW1 and how they understood real English making the listening task with part of „Merry Christmas” film.
Students appreciated the quizzes we made as they let them revise what they had learned earlier.
We can't forget about the video conference call which students liked very much. They could speak English, listen to the others speak English and sing Christmas carols in many languages what showed us that Christmas is a magic time which joins people of different nationalities and different countries.
Anna Szczepaniak, English teacher
Barbara Walczak, History teacher
SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland
English teachers' reflections
Taking part in this project was a real privilege. The children learned a lot about World War I, but also about respecting other cultures and working together as an international team. We were able to link this work with our remembrance of the start of World War I and all our children visited the Steeton village war memorial and laid wreaths there.
I strongly feel that the sharing of songs works well in international projects. For this project, where we were remembering the Christmas Truce of 1914, the sharing of the verses of Silent Night worked especially well. The video-conference call was a real highlight of the project. The schools who were not able to take part on the day still wanted to be a part of the call, and shared videos via the Twinspace so that these could be played during the call. The call was available to them afterwards so that they could share the call with their pupils. Our whole school, from Year 1 to Year 6, took part in the video call, sitting in the hall and watching the big screen for an hour, sharing in the very special event. We had practised the Christmas songs and Silent night verses well in advance of the call. I believe that the children will remember our 2014 remembrance of the Christmas Truce 1914 for a long time.
At Steeton School in England, I have strong support from my headteacher, John Cooper, and all my colleagues. In this way, we are able to provide the benefits of our eTwinning projects to a large number of our pupils. For this project, all 9 of our classes from Year 1 to Year 6 (ages 5-11) were involved: learning about World War I, visiting the War Memorial, designing a logo and voting in the competition, learning Silent Night in many languages in our singing assemblies, preparing our Christmas song: Away in a Manger and taking part in the video-conference call on 10 December.
It was a pleasure the manage the project – the team of teachers was very highly motivated and professional, always wanting to achieve exceptional learning outcomes for our pupils. This cross-curricular project covered history, literacy, film studies, geography, languages, music and use of IT. There was also great peer support for colleagues, through emails and from our teachers' planning video conference calls.
Diana Linford,
Teacher, Steeton Primary School and project Founder
CHRISTMAS TRUCE - REFLECTIONS
CIRILA KOSMAČA PIRAN PRIMARY SCHOOL, SLOVENIA
Being a UNESCO ASP-net school, education for peace is one of our primary goals. Christmas Truce Project was therefore a great opportunity for our pupils to learn about the events in European history and understand how difficult the path to peace is and how important it is to preserve it. In addition, our story about a Christmas ceasefire conveys an outstanding wealth because it transmits to younger generations how important the role of an individual in a particular system is, how each individual can change and shape the world and influence the events and relationships in a society. These facts give a priceless value to the project.
Before the start of the project, the planned content and activities were presented to the parents, who were also kept posted about the progress of the work. The project involved various teachers and their subject areas; they all greatly contributed to the realization of the goals. The project was actively monitored by the directing staff of our school. The highlight of the project was in singing Christmas carols that offered an insight into different cultures and thus brought them closer to our pupils. It was very interesting to them to listen to widely renown Holy Night in a number of languages. The song is a really great way to connect people and music actually created a bond.
The First World War played an important role in our environment because heavy battles took place in unforgiving mountainous areas of the western Slovenia. The Soča Frontline left behind a lot of unnecessary victims, thereby it etched an indelible bloody seal both in our as well as in common European history. We paid tribute to those losses at 100th anniversary of the war and voiced our hope that such events would never happen again. The future will be created by our children and we hope that through the Christmas Truce Project we produced a tiny contribution to the education for peace and to a fresh view of the world - for a better tomorrow.
One of the activities our school is particularly proud of is the exhibition of Christmas cards. We invited our partner schools, with which we work together on various projects, to participate and we are pleased that many schools responded to our invitation and enriched the exhibition with traditional Christmas cards. The exhibition revived a special international atmosphere. Thanks to the positive response, we decided that we will continue with organizing similar exhibitions.
Christmas Truce Project has come to an end, it gave us new knowledge and skills and integrated the children and teachers from different cultural areas. We learned from each other, helped each other and cooperated in the best possible way … The centennial story continues, Christmas truce re-unites people.
Mojka Mehora Lavrič
Reflections from the teachers in Ukraine:
Right from the beginning we were interested in the theme of the project “Christmas Truce 1914”. Because of the dire circumstances in the east of our country we considered the historical phenomenon of the Christmas Truce 1914 as something that can give hope and faith in a better future to our pupils. So the team of 15 enthusiastic teachers of our school decided to get involved in it. The Project integrated such subjects as Cross Curricular, History, Music and English. The project activities made it possible to engage students with different levels of English. In total 128 students were eager to participate. The project participants got acquainted with interesting historical facts about the Christmas Truce of 1914, learned how students in other countries commemorate the victims and shared information about the traditions of celebrating Christmas in different European countries. They also designed and exchanged Christmas cards. While participating in the Christmas Truce logo contest Ukrainian students expressed their hopes for peace in our country in their drawings. The most important event for the students was a video conference call on December 10th. They worked really hard learning carols and Christmas greetings in nine foreign languages. These particular activities had a great practical value for our students. The project also promoted the personal development of teachers in the field of ICT, while they worked in the new Twinspace. Personally I found mastering Vimeo a rewarding experience.
Tetiana Valko, Teacher, school 22, Ukraine
“Thanks to my colleague Tetiana Valko (Makhnevych) for enthusiasm, guidance and making us, Ukrainian teachers and students, the part of the project ‘Christmas Truce 1914’.
Participating in the project gave my students an opportunity to reveal their talents and imagination in drawing the logos and greeting cards and to demonstrate their singing skills too in performing carols. Also students got known about the historic fact of Christmas Truce 1914 and expressed their faith in peace in Ukraine and all over the world. It was a great opportunity for the students to share with the world how Ukrainians celebrate Christmas and how we are proud of our traditions. Besides, students got interested in traditions of celebrating Christmas in other foreign countries and even learned some carols in other languages.
In general a great amount of work was done to follow all the steps of the project ‘Christmas Truce 2014’. But the vivid drawings of Christmas Truce logos and greeting cards and sparkling faces of the students while performing Ukrainian carol in the concert have proved the fact that it was worth doing all these.”
Uliana Ivaniuk, teacher, school 22, Ukraine
"I am very pleased that I decided to participate in this project. Looking back over my last months, I have no doubt that my participation in the project was useful and interesting. Furthermore, I had luck to enrich my life with fun, happiness and wisdom. It was great to meet so many new people all around Europe and to work closely together with them! The thing that attracted me in the project was its exclusive team of young enthusiastic teachers as me. These people, my colleagues, became my friends and support. Sharing experiences, going out together and just working together was very pleasant for me. It is not a common thing when you can work within such atmosphere, with all those talented and smart individuals who share a lot in common even having completely different backgrounds. I chose this project because it is a unique organization with unparalleled goals in using cultural diplomacy in the fight for justice, peace and human rights. After my experience here, I just can wish all the best to the project coordinators and I hope they will continue talking, discussing and reflecting about Culture for a long time, and being a joining point for people from different countries and cultures from all over the world.
My participation has given me the chance to explore a variety of roles allowing me develop valuable skills, has been a great and inspiring experience, research implementation, the confidence and interpersonal skills. One of the most memorable highlights of my time in the project were interesting debates on different topics. I feel that this project actively encourages and supports its participants to develop their own initiatives, giving them access to its extensive range of contacts with rich history and culture. As for me, an international project is a must for every pupil. My pupils and I've learned a lot and got practical and enriching experience. We've learned how to: implement knowledge, conduct reports and research, prepare interviews, organize events in general, interact with personalities. It was here where we have gained valuable experience in communicating in English. Of course, the project is demanding and exciting only if you want it to be like that. I always believed that self-motivation is very important and wish you all the best for the future!"
Tetiana Ivaniuk, Teacher, school 22, Ukraine
Reflections from Germany:
The project was really well organised. The plans were very clear. It was possible to fit the project into our lessons. A big Thank You to everyone involved!
Anna Ost, Teacher, Nelson-Mandela-Schule, Dierdorf, Germany
Reflections from Estonia:
It was a great pleasure to work with this project. We had a schedule and every activity was well planned. Christmas Truce was an interesting topic for me as a teacher too. There are so many connections between different nations and people are people everywhere. The World had difficult times during WWI. It is important to remember.
Our Estonian students learned a lot. Now they know that British have red poppies for veterans and Estonians have liverleaves.
Video call was also an interesting event. We were very excited and our headmaster joined too. After that video call our school bought some new video cameras for video calls.
Estonian students liked quizzes, making and getting Christmas cards.
I hope that our World is peaceful place.
Marika Viks, Põltsamaa Ühisgümnaasium, Põltsamaa, Estonia