This activity finally took place from February 23 to 27, 2020 following the postponement of the initial arrangement for October 2019 due to the military crisis in the area. For the same reason, some of the partner schools were unable to physically attend the meeting but sent in their presentations and contributed to the common products afterwards. There were about 20 local participants, 4 from Italy, 4 from Greece while the German school was represented by two teachers.
The focus of the meeting was on Folklore, i.e. customs, rituals, popular beliefs and myths as well as on traditional Entertainment and Cuisine as aspects of sustainable Culture. The aim was to share typical tokens of the above from own cultural backgrounds with our peers and appreciate the unique as well as the shared cultural heritage across the partner countries.
Before the meeting all the involved students had uploaded their presentations on our common Google Drive Folder. On the first day the physically present participants made their presentations on all three aspects and kept notes on the similarities between the culture being presented and theirs. The work of the Spanish and Czech schools was presented by the attending participants.
The second day started with the peer – teaching of Turkish as a foreign language. We read aloud in chorus, sang in Turkish and played games with flashcards and pantomime. In the afternoon we participated in a traditional EBRU Art workshop and then were shown around the city sights by the local participants.
On the third day we visited the House of Virgin Mary, Ephesus, a model village depicting traditional life and a real village with wine facilities.
The fourth day started with students cooking together at the local Vocational school. Each team prepared a traditional full menu to share at the common table. In the afternoon they played street games from their countries in the school yard. Next, all the participants staged a typical Turkish wedding which ended with traditional dances from each country.
On the last day teachers and students evaluated the meeting separately and we paid a visit to the City of Izmir and the Regional Directorate of Education for the dissemination of our project.
Each of the partner school teams disseminated the results of this activity at local level by sharing the presentations of all countries and organising whole class project work in order to contribute to the common products, i.e. jointly created presentations of the common Entertainment, Folklore and Cuisine elements across our cultures.
The participating students reported that creating and making their presentations as well as attending to and reflecting on the presentations of the other teams was very useful in boosting our students’ critical thinking, creativity, foreign language competence and deepening their appreciation of their own cultural heritage and their awareness of the common European heritage concerning Folklore, Entertainment and Cuisine.
Everyone was fascinated by the Turkish peer-teaching activity and we picked up some Turkish to use outside school later on. Some students even stated that they discovered common word roots in Turkish and their language.
The sightseeing activities in and outside Izmir offered us multiple benefits; we were amazed to see how much of the classical culture we share across Europe. The visit to the model village helped students better understand what sustainability is about and its contribution to our connection with our ancestors and our peers from other European countries sharing the same traditions. Visiting the traditional wine village everyone realised how sustainable tourism can help preserve local culture while boosting its economy as well. A really memorable activity was painting together at the traditional Ebru Art workshop.
Cooking, eating, painting, playing, acting and dancing together were experiential activities that contributed to the deepening of our students’ awareness of our shared Folklore, Entertainment and Cuisine elements included in their Slides presentations.