The Project - WOW, Words Over Walls, The Value of Experience
‘Words Over Walls. The Value of Experience’, WOW, is an intergenerational project aimed to promote attitudes of tolerance and understanding towards migrants and migratory processes through the participation of senior citizens as informants in the school activities.
The first stage of this two-year project includes the collaboration with external institutions (e.g., Afundación, Ellinkulma, Félag eldri borgara í Reykjavík og nágrenni) for the selection of the elderly collaborators, all of them persons who in the past lived migratory experiences. These former migrants will work collaboratively with the students in sessions specifically organized in school hours. The elders' account of their past migratory experiences is expected to serve as a resource for motivating the students' research on their own families' past.
On a second stage, a collaborative writing experience will be organized and implemented among the students from the partner schools. With the use of wikis and digital platforms, pairs of students, one from each country, will write fictional stories based on the migratory experiences of the elders. These fictional stories will be started online, using digital platforms, and followed up face-to-face druing the exchanges.
Towards the end of the project, a booklet gathering both collaborative writings and real experiences will be edited and published by the schools with the help of stakeholders. This booklet, which will also be digitally available on the net, will serve as tangible deliverable for dissemination.
Transnational meetings will especially include collaborative writing workshops for students, exchange of good practice and teacher seminars on migrant inclusion, the educational value of life stories and intergenerational education. Organizers expect a significant raise in visible attitudes of tolerance and understanding, a decrease of conflictive situations inside schools, an improvement in the active learning of foreign languages and a new boost in the European dimension of education in the partner schools. Another aim will be the sustainability of the experience -or of substantial parts of it-, and its replication in other educational institutions.
72 students aged 13-18 (24 from each country) will directly take part in every stage of the project. A much greater number will partially benefit from some of its activities (e.g., the elderly informants’ presence at schools). Participation of students with special needs will be especifically programmed.
The partner schools have experience in intergenerational education, collaborative writing techniques, usage of digital platforms, stakeholder collaboration and European programmes. Elderly people foundations, university departments, municipalities and other social services at a local and regional level have assured their participation in this project as external supporters.
The schools
The first stage of this two-year project includes the collaboration with external institutions (e.g., Afundación, Ellinkulma, Félag eldri borgara í Reykjavík og nágrenni) for the selection of the elderly collaborators, all of them persons who in the past lived migratory experiences. These former migrants will work collaboratively with the students in sessions specifically organized in school hours. The elders' account of their past migratory experiences is expected to serve as a resource for motivating the students' research on their own families' past.
On a second stage, a collaborative writing experience will be organized and implemented among the students from the partner schools. With the use of wikis and digital platforms, pairs of students, one from each country, will write fictional stories based on the migratory experiences of the elders. These fictional stories will be started online, using digital platforms, and followed up face-to-face druing the exchanges.
Towards the end of the project, a booklet gathering both collaborative writings and real experiences will be edited and published by the schools with the help of stakeholders. This booklet, which will also be digitally available on the net, will serve as tangible deliverable for dissemination.
Transnational meetings will especially include collaborative writing workshops for students, exchange of good practice and teacher seminars on migrant inclusion, the educational value of life stories and intergenerational education. Organizers expect a significant raise in visible attitudes of tolerance and understanding, a decrease of conflictive situations inside schools, an improvement in the active learning of foreign languages and a new boost in the European dimension of education in the partner schools. Another aim will be the sustainability of the experience -or of substantial parts of it-, and its replication in other educational institutions.
72 students aged 13-18 (24 from each country) will directly take part in every stage of the project. A much greater number will partially benefit from some of its activities (e.g., the elderly informants’ presence at schools). Participation of students with special needs will be especifically programmed.
The partner schools have experience in intergenerational education, collaborative writing techniques, usage of digital platforms, stakeholder collaboration and European programmes. Elderly people foundations, university departments, municipalities and other social services at a local and regional level have assured their participation in this project as external supporters.
The schools
|
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
|