Rooting ourselves: Being a part of Europe and European history

To feel at ease with oneself is a necessary prerequisite for emotional and mental well-being. Knowing one’s origins helps to understand oneself. What has shaped me? Which influences have created the person that I am today? These are questions people can ask. As a person, we are influenced by our closer environment, such as families, our friends, other close people we come into contact with. Both in a positive or negative way. But also our wider environment does have a large influence on us, on our lives, our well-being. This aspect is often enough ignored when talking about identity.

During the meeting in France, students travelled to Brussels in Belgium (which is ~40 minutes away). There they visited the House of European History and explored the roots and achievements of the European Union and how its creation has changed its citizens’ lives to the better.

Tracking my Europe
Unification européenne
Europa. Una voz.
Change over time
Europäische Einigung

Radio Podcast: Meeting in France

In the podcast, students present the Erasmus+-project in general (the different topics covered during the complete duration of the project) and the activities of the meeting in Lille.

They speak about their intercultural experiences of travelling to another country and being a guest in a host family – or of welcoming guests into their family. Also they discuss the similarities and differences between the different participating schools. This radio programme is available here.

Recording

Messages of Kindness

Be kind to your mind – and be kind to other people’s mind!

It is easy to help someone feel better – be it a stranger or a friend. All it takes is a smile or a kind word. However, too often we forget about this in our daily lives. Often enough, people also are at a loss of words and do not know what to say.

Students collected kind messages, compliments both in English and in their mother tongue. These were written onto slips of paper, which were then glued together to form the rings. Gradually, a long “Chain of Compliments” was created.

Students decided to use this chain in group pictures to send to their friends and families. Afterwards it was displayed in the project room – a library also used by other students and teachers. 

Warmth
Sticking together
Working hand in hand
Smile 🙂
Mooi
Wonderful
Gülüş
Feeling

Writing about identity

How do I write about my own identity?
Who am I anyway?
How can I express my feelings, my self?

When confronted with these questions, people quite naturally do not know how to answer. Still, when working on a “concentrated” / “distilled” text like short stories or poetry about one’s own identity,  it is possible to focus, rewrite, and come to a deeper understanding of oneself, one’s feeling, the “essence” of oneself.

The hardest part is always getting started. To ease the beginning, we used a number of auxiliary methods and writing exercises. Some results can be seen here.

What shapes us? It is not the place we come from. But the past we come from. The interests we come from. Students thus were asked to write about past and present experiences, interests, influences on themselves. 

Identity Poem
4 Identity Poems
I’m from…
We are from… (Identity Poem)

Be Kind To Your Mind!

The main focus of our work during the meeting in France was that of emotional and mental well-being. 

In different activities, students worked on the topic both practically and theoretically. In the following subpages a few of our methods, activities and results can be found.

Moreover, there’s an insight into other activities which took place.

  • Writing about identity: Poetry
  • Messages of Kindness: The importance of compliments
  • Learning through movies: The Perks of being a Wallflower
  • Beyond mental well-being: Mens sana in corpore sano
  • Documentation: Radio Podcast recorded during the meeting
  • Rooting ourselves: Being a part of Europe and European history
  • Being at ease with strangers / Becoming friends: Language animation as a starter for an international meeting

Exchange in a Box

Even if meeting in person in a “traditional” exchange is difficult due to restrictions (Covid-19), we are still staying in touch.

Letters, postcards, parcels are being sent all across Europe. Here are some pictures of parcels being sent and received.

A tube from France? And a wonderful poster for the schools’ Erasmus+ Corner.

Writing postcards, presenting local attractions and wildlife to all partner schools:

Chosing postcards
Writing postcards

A parcel from Spain: Chocolate and more – and a chance to contact partners via social media channels 🙂

An envelope from Turkey with lots of wonderful decoration. Thank you!

September 2021 – January 2022

Word clouds – Relationships

After watching the movie “The Cure” and during a time of “homeschooling”, students created word clouds on the topic of “Relationships”. Here are just some examples.

Sailing together through difficult times on a ship called friendship
Relationships
Feelings
Two people

January 2021

Friendship – An exploration of words and feelings

Everybody is talking about friends – but how would you define friendship?

Which elements are important for a good friendship? And what is better to avoid?

Which words and expressions can one use when talking about friendship?

A collection of posters created by students (in connection with watching a movie which is in our Erasmus+ – program).

What is friendship?
Emotions
Friendship
Good things about friends

October 2020