interview
Interview for Radio “Fokus” with Stanislava Petrova – “Vasil Levski” school project coordinator and pedagogical adviser in Secondary school “Vasil Levski” – Dolni chiflik
E: Mrs. Petrova, the school in Dolni
chiflik is working on a very interesting project from Erasmus+ programme. Would
you tell us more about the activities?
St. Petrova: The project is named “Becoming a
multicultural European”. It happens on programme “Erasmus+” – Lifelong
learning. It started on 1st October 2016, and duration is 2 years. The steps of
implementation of the project were laborious.
All started in 2013, when me, together with a
group of students decided to work in platform eTwinning of a project named “Be
multicultural!” There we had partnerships with many other schools from Europe;
we shared a lot of information in TwinSpace (shared space of the project).
Students had chances to share opinions, to present their vision in
presentations, drawings, texts, essays, ect. As we realized that working
teachers on the project and high school students are deeply interested in that,
we decided to convert this virtual cooperation into real one.
The eye contact appeared to be very useful in
the process of work and so we laid the first steps to change the eTwinning into
another project “Sharing_Compearing=Caring”. There teachers and students had
chances to share once more. So in August 2016 the coordinator of the present
project announced that “Erasmus+” project was approved by the German National
Agency and it will be implemented.
Students from Secondary school “Vasil Levski”
took part in a transnational meeting in Hagen, Germany within “Becoming a
multicultural European”. Actually in this project three schools from three
countries take part – Germany, Romania and Bulgaria. The main arm is the work
with students who meet and communicate and share ideas together, The meeting
took place between 20th – 25th on November 2016. There
students showed that they could break stereotypes. It`s known that each nation
has its stereotypes; this project allows us to change them, especially negative
ones.
During our first meeting in Hagen, four
teachers and three students from Bulgaria took part in the event. Our
representatives managed to acquaint with German Educational System, to
distinguish the differences and propinquity of Bulgarian and German standards
in Education. Our students had opportunities to visit lessons and to observe
what happens in a German school. They also communicated with students from the
other countries involved in the project. There were also lectures, trainings,
other activities, a lot of ideas of planning project activities were shared.
That is the third project of this programme
“Lifelong learning” for our school. I said the third because between 2012-2014
we worked on “MaMBo” project, programme “Comenius”. Then in 2016 we
successfully completed a project of ecological topic named “Save the earth – to
be here tomorrow!”. I think that the school team – presented by school
management, teachers, parents definitely became aware how useful these projects
are. Their activities reflect positively on the whole school life and emphasize
the importance of whole life learning, which is the motto of Erasmus+.
It is planned publishing of ebook of history
and migration among Bulgaria, Romania and Germany. Also each school-partner of
the project – is supposed to create a strategy for managing of diversity
considering, specificity of each educational system of the countries. A
multireligions dialogue will be provided – possibility for visits of churches,
mosques, synagogues – the three main religions. Students must be acquainted
with the basis of each religion. The aim is to compare the religions and to
realize the similarities and differences between them. The project is very
interesting for us, the theachers too, as a professional experience and
methodological perspective. Our children come back full of emotions by what
they saw and their participation.
