The main aim of the project “THE EU LEARNING CYCLE: teachers, students… citizens!” is the improving of school teachers’ ability of explaining EU at school, involving their students and then empower their sense of belonging to EU Citizenship.
The project will also be the natural evolution of the three previous projects, which involved almost 750 teachers (from Emilia Romagna Region the first year and from all the Italian Regions the second and third year). But this new project will last 2 years, allowing a major deepening of knowledges by participants, a wealthier exchange of experiences and a better evaluation of skills achieved by participants at the end of the project.
The training phase will be organized into a two days Seminar training course, that it will take place three times, one in Bertinoro, one in Bologna and one in Reggio Emilia with the collaboration of local Europe Direct Centres. At each Seminar will attend 50 different teachers, selected through a national open call, in partnership with scholastic regional offices of the Ministry of Education (more than 250 teachers applied only for Bertinoro in 2015). The multiplier effect of the project will be huge, adding the teachers and students reached during the previous projects (that continue to be involved through the project’s Community. During these courses the Professors of the University of Bologna (member of the Scientific Committee of the Europe Direct Forlì, granted in 2014 as JM Centre of Excellence) and from European and International University network will give to school teachers the scientific basis of the European integration.
It will be also a place in which the teachers of the school can know each other, exchange experiences and information.
Also the teachers not selected for the Seminar phase could watch all the videos (uploaded in the platform edited by ED Forlì) going hand in hand with the attending teachers.
The participants to the courses will meet again in February 2019 in order to exchange their experiences: how they have brought in their classrooms the skills achieved during the seminars. The workshop will give us also the opportunity to evaluate the results of the seminars.
The training will continue “at home” through a 4 Months virtual class in which the e-learning will be the “tool to know”. This training course will be open to all the teachers who sent their application to the Seminars phase and to the teachers attending the previous projects (the estimation is around 1000 people). During this period the EU will be presented through thematic in-depth analysis. E-learning course will give us other contents to implement the website and the network of teachers interested in EU issues and to empower the e-book.
The European issues will enter into school also through meetings held by Master Students and organised to explain the history of European integration and how the EU works, but they will also deal with specific topics. Getting young people, as future active citizens, well aware on the EU, is of crucial importance and the role of education system is central in promoting their sense of European citizenship and belonging.
At the final conference the different experiences (also the workshop’s results) will be showed and discussed among the participants to improve the teaching of EU issues at school and to exchange good practices and ideas. The Conference will be open and citizens will be invited.
Unfortunately teaching EU at school must interface with the lack of initial and in-service training related to teaching about the EU (despite in 2015 The Education Department MIUR, Representation of the European Commission in Italy and EP in Italy signed an agreement for a pilot project: Progetto pilota L'Europa nelle scuole) and the wave of Euro - sceptical approach of national government to find an escape to the current economic and migration crisis. This is confirmed by all the teachers who applied for the previous courses. They revealed their sense of abandon in their paths to make their students aware their EU Citizenship, revealed also their desire to train themselves, clear from the high number of application received during 2015 project even though the course didn’t give credit course. This desire was revealed not only by History or Geography teachers, but also by Maths, Science and IT teachers from all kind of school (almost the 65% of the 2015-2016 Project’s participants taught scientific-technical subjects or foreign languages).