The eTwinning project “Focus on Europe” (2020-2021) has been an incredible journey rewarding the European participants with both planned and unexpected benefits of collaborative practices and pedagogical innovations such as project-based learning, intercultural dialogue - an ideal of European education, involving, in this case, different generations of interlocutors - and active democratic citizenship, able to respond to contemporary challenges and identify creative solutions to the most stringent real-world problems included in the common 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development Goals.
The project allowed the European teens to explore and suggest ways of building a better society, based not only on the experiences and expectations of the present generations of learners, but also inspired by the lessons learned from the past, from their grandparents whose life events and circumstances, values and vision of the future are definitely worth taking into consideration and put to good use.
The observation method, one of the qualitative research techniques used by most of the coordinating teachers to monitor and evaluate the participants' attitudes, skills and behaviours during the project implementation, showed that the project activities succeeded in establishing a strong sense of community, solidarity and belonging, in the minds and hearts of the project team members, united by a common history and motivated by similar hopes, dreams and aspirations.
By taking part in this eTwinning project, all the school communities adhered to a single democratic culture fostered by intercultural dialogue, active participation in discussions and debates where both the students’ young voices and their families’ more experienced ones (materialized into ideas, opinions, arguments, advice and suggestions) were not only heard, but also listened to with respect and consideration.
Indeed, this school-initiated democratic experience created ripple effects which helped raise awareness of the urgent need to focus on the importance of strengthening the educational, social, economic, environmental and historical bonds between our European nations so that the entire world can be changed for the better and the lives of millions of Europeans still affected by poverty, hunger, illness, inequality, injustice etc. improved by 2030.
By sharing information and knowledge and building stronger value systems, by taking advantage of the opportunities that the European education has to offer, by volunteering to protect the most vulnerable European citizens from unfair threats and challenges, the participants have started to lead the way towards a safer, more peaceful and prosperous future.
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