SUMMARY

  • The project “Creativity knows no borders” is going to be implemented by a partnership consisting of ten secondary schools from ten different European countries – Poland, Italy, Finland, Portugal, Slovakia, Lithuania, Romania, Turkey, Belgium and Spain. Most of the partners are state general education schools, one is a private school and two are technical schools. The project is student-centered, both in terms of our aims and in the students’ involvement in almost all project activities at all stages – from preparation to evaluation and dissemination of its results. It is an answer to the need to shape young people in a comprehensive way - to develop them as individuals, but also members of local communities and nations, citizens of their own countries and united Europe. The partnership is going to use the great potential inherent in the arts and culture, and also in international cooperation, in this aspect. We are planning to deal with various forms of art such as dance, songs, poetry, theatre, film, photography and visual arts, and use them to trigger and develop artistic and cultural activity of students to help them enrich their personalities and make their lives more fulfilling. By using non-academic activities of artistic creation we want to attract students achieving worse results at school or students who are marginalised at school and local community, and give them a chance to feel important, building their initiative and self-confidence. Moreover, working together with representatives of other nations and cultures, speaking different languages, we intend to raise awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity of Europe, increase language skills and motivation to learn foreign languages. By distance cooperation and the need to use modern equipment and ICT in many activities at home, we want to increase their skills to use them. We are planning to create the following joint end products: the logo of the project, the anthem of the project, a joint theatre play, a joint poetry book, a film showing students of all partner schools dancing folk or modern dances, a film and a photo album presenting their localities in their own eyes, a photo album showing the favourite products of the students’ own artistic creation, a set of audio-descriptions of famous paintings of all cooperating nations for the blind and a set of lesson plans for lessons conducted in museums, art galleries, theatres, cinemas or other cultural institutions. To achieve this, we intend to use various kinds of activities, such as workshops, group work, competitions, exhibitions, collaboration with other institutions like other schools in our localities, culture centres, music schools, cinemas, amateur theatres, choirs, dance groups, music bands, children homes, old people homes and others. To ensure active involvement of the students in the activities, we are going to use enquiry-based learning approach, hands-on method and place-based education. The activities are aimed not only to create the end products, but most of all to form attitudes of initiative, entrepreneurship and leadership, to teach teamwork skills and ability to perform well in new situations and to cooperate with people of different backgrounds. Conducting lessons in museums, art galleries and other cultural institutions, as well as using existing resources of culture and the arts in different ways, we want to form a sense of national identity. Getting to know the culture and the arts of other nations we intend to build awareness of similarities and differences among nations, to fight stereotypes, to form attitudes of tolerance, openness and respect of the right of others to be different. In a way, the project is also community-centered. By collaboration with various local institutions and informal groups of people doing things together we hope to enhance the local social capital in our city and make it a better place to live. In general, we expect the project to be an extremely stimulating and developing experience for the students that will change their attitudes and perception of the world, influence their life choices, give them the drive to pursue their aims and help them to become active and conscious members of their local communities and nations, and truly European citizens. Also, we believe that the teachers, richer with the experience and knowledge shared with the partners, gained in workshops abroad and while doing the project together, will pass them on to next generations of students, allowing the project results to live in future generations. Finally, the school as an institution, maintaining some curricula changes, new extracurricular activities, as well as newly gained contacts and forms of cooperation with external institutions, will be able to offer a chance for comprehensive development to new students and keep its position of modern, open, European school.