Learning and Discovering the European Culture

Johvi Gymnasium is taking part in the international project "Our Cultural Roots and its Traces Today". Five schools from Norway, Finland, Belgium and Estonia participate in the project which is financed by the Comenius 1 Program. The project's idea is by learning and discovering the European culture to form early the courage of communication among the pupils, to help to find friends from the other countries and to enlarge outlook of the knowledge about the Europe.

The project activities have been written down in school curriculum. It makes teaching more interesting for the kids. The mentioned above activities were spread into different subjects such as geography, history, traditions, music, languages, crafts, art, literature, regional identity, etc. The partner schools are introducing their own region and school by presenting pictures, drawings and videos; making the dictionaries for familiarizing their own language and acquainting with other languages. Children do the research about new and old handicraft, what is typical for their country and specially for that region and then making the examples of it and teaching it to other countries, preparing joint exhibitions. Also music is a part of this project - pupils make the CD "Top 25" of the songs of those countries or learning the old and new popular songs of the different countries. Children are getting to know the Europe better and better.

Enlarging the view of children especially on European co-operation is very important for their future. The aim is to get the pupils out of their village or town life and let them meet the European and international ideas. Internationality becomes more important in our society. The project gives the opportunity to confront children with this from very young age. Not only the children's views will be enlarged but also their commitment and good feeling will be strengthen. By making learning concrete their curiosity and their hunger for learning were risen. It stimulated their creativity and their motivation for learning. The Comenius project turned out to be important both for the teachers and for the pupils.