Juan Carlos

Council of Europe - 2005 European Year of Citizenship through Education

http://www.coe.int/T/E/Com/Files/Themes/ECD/

European Year of Citizenship through Education marks the culmination of eight years' work by the Council of Europe to define concepts, policies and strategies for applying good practices in the area of education for democratic citizenship (EDC).

The Council of Europe is launching the European Year for Citizenship through Education in order to encourage the practical implementation of pledges by political decision-makers who undertook to adapt the Recommendation to their states' education systems.

I think that one of the objectives or our project should be to organise a good commented collection of web sites to teach Citizenship. It should be multilingual in, at least, partners' mother tongues.

I am adding up some links in English:

Council of Europe - Education for Democratic Citizenship

http://www.coe.int/T/E/Cultural_Co-operati...ducation/E.D.C/

The Council of Europe’s EDC project was set up in February 1997 with the aim to find out which values and skills individuals require in order to become participating citizens, how they can acquire these skills and how they can learn to pass them on to others.

The project was officially launched in October 1997 by the Heads of States and Governments of the Council's of Europe Member States at their Second Summit in Strasbourg held on 10-11 October 1997.

Since then, the Council of Europe has provided a forum of discussion between EDC experts and practitioners from all over Europe, who defined concepts, developed strategies and collected good practices on EDC.

On the basis of their findings and recommendations the Council of Europe has set policy standards in the field of EDC and advocated their implementation by member States

Maybe we can start thinking about a certain extent of specialization in some of those five dimensions. I am mainly interested in Democratic principles and Multicultural dimension. The concept of European citizenship introduced by the Maastricht Treaty is other topic I am quite interested in working on. Specially, in those times when the idea of Euroepan integration is in crisis.

I intend to carry out these sort of video interviews with several elderly women (among them my 84 years old mother) and try to record their memories of some key moments in her life.

One of the earliest memories of my mother is all her family attending to Pablo Iglesias' (founder of Spanish Socialist Party) funeral procession. I am interested in asking them not only on historical events (civil war, Franco's dictatorship) and the way they affected women's life, but also on women's daily life and its evolution over the last century.

It sounds nice this Burlington Hotel.

I have just handed in my application form. I keep my fingers crossed.

John, we need to know price of the hotel and which is the best way and the price to get from London airports to Worthing.

John,

We need an approximate price of the hotel to fill out the application.

Although the coordinator institution should solve the last details of the application form, we have to discuss and find agreements on this topics during the preparatory visit:

Budget (overview of expenditure and income, staff costs..., travels and subsistence, equipment we want to buy...Sub-contracting, consultancy and other external services, other costs as web domain, forum..)

Description of the project: typology, objectives, outputs, evaluation, dissemination, planning of activities

Detailed workplan

Fortunately, John and I are participating now in EHELP Comenius 2.1 project and we can be inspired by the successful application form we sent to Brussels last year.

In my view, we must send our application in time so that we can start the project in 2006-2007. After two more years, we will give a course for European teachers in the summer of 2009

La historia de las mujeres en España durante el siglo XX

(Women's history in Spain over the 20th century)

We have set up a web site that, apart from providing historical content on the subject, tries to display different sort of activities that can be useful to teach history on the internet. We are particularly enthusiastic about bringing the archive on the website (newspapers and other sort of primary sources) and using video as a way to motivate our students.

Presentation on our work

Women's history in Spain over the 20th century

The website La historia de las mujeres en España durante el siglo XX

(Women's history in Spain over the 20th century)

http://www.historiasiglo20.org/sufragespana/index.html

and

http://perso.wanadoo.es/principios/sufragismo_v1.html

Althoug I know it is not the best time to talk about the European Commission proposals, the EC organised an experts group to reflect on teaching citizenship in 1997 and they concluded that there were five dimensions in the teaching of a new European citizenship :

Democratic principles

Social rights

Gender equality

Multicultural dimension

Environment dimension, sort of environmentalist citizenship.

So it can be a good idea to include it.

I would vote the same than Terry. Bearing in mind the last referenda results in France and in Holland, I vote for the botton one.

Although "global citizenship" is the final objective I, and in my view every progressive person, aspire to achieve, it is still in the utopian world.

Probably, a more realistic aim is to try to develop an inclusive citizenship in Europe.

I know that after the French Non and the very probable Dutch Nee to the European constitution, we are not living in the most inclusive and pro European atmosphere, but, anyway, I want to highlight an excellent research done by the British Council that I consider to be very interesting for our future project.

The European Civic Citizenship and Inclusion Index is a research project to compare performance on social policies in different EU member states. This group will publish an annual report, or 'index' on social policy and practice in Europe.

The research is focused on immigrants and try to research on this topics:

How easy is it for newcomers to enter the job market?

How quickly do newcomers gain income parity with the rest of the population?

How are migrants represented in political parties?

How far do immigrants change the cultural identity of a country?

Can newcomers become full citizens, even if they were not born in their new country?

What kind of work-permit regimes are in place in EU member states?

I have just taken part in a Council of Europe's seminar on "Migration Flows in the 21st century". I am more and more conviced that this is the key topic in the future European societies (Fears related to immigration are one of the main reasons to explain the French Non).

I believe that this concept of Civic Citizenship can be a main topic in our project.

Here you can find the published report. A huge (189 pages) but very interesting report.

the concept of “lifelong learning” was going to be very important in approved Comenius projects in the future

Good idea. We have to include it in our application. Citizenship is a very adequate topic for this "lifelong learning"

I think that it is quite difficult to add up new things to John's proposal.

Anyway, these are my ideas:

Citizenship as a subject is not taught in all our countries. For instance, in Spain the current government claimed that the subject will be included in the next new curriculum. But, so far we have no Citizenship or Civics subject. In that case, I could focus on the projects and the controversy on this future subject.

I think that it could be very interesting to add up to the project a short overview on the historical process of achieving political rights in our countries and our current political system (institutions, parties, main problems)

I absolutely agree on inviting associate members. It is being quite successful in our E-HELP project and I believe that they will give an important added value to our project. Regarding to associate members, I consider that bringing into the project colleagues from Eastern Europe (in or our the EU) will be very interesting. This is the case of Marina Sergeeva Evaldovna and it could be the case of other teachers from other countries.

In this sense, we have to focus on Europe but we need to compare and relate what is going in our continent with what is going in the US, Canada, Australia or New Zealand. Is there any sort of European exceptionalism? Is there a different sort of citizenship and political culture? Probably in the case of our British colleagues this question is not so relevant, but I am very often discussing this topic in Spain with friends and students.

Setting up a web site will be one of the main goals of the project. We will include a commented collection of on line resources related to our topic and we can set up some resources to be used by teachers when teaching Citizenship in Europe. A forum will be very useful as well. This forum is a good example of what can be achieved.

English will be the vehicular language, but we should produce resources in our own languages. An important point, that we forgot to solve in EHELP project, is translations. For the non native English-speaking people, specially if you are not an English teacher, it is really hard and time-consuming to write in English

Evidently, third year should be focused on arranging details for the course that will be given to European teachers at the end of the project.

So far we all have posted very interesting ideas about our project.

I think that we can summarize some of the objectives we have already in another thread of this topic.

The objectives might be:

Setting up a course for European teachers on teaching Citizenship in Europe, taking into account historical background, European Citizenship, globalisation and immigration...

The course will be based on a web site with will include different educational resources:

Good examples of teaching citizenship (curriculum, lessons, web sites) all around Europe (probably in this case Nordic Countries have a long tradition in teaching Civics)

Historical background (Fight for the vote, women's suffrage, immigrant and minorities rights...)

Overview of actual European political systems and citizens' rights (State-nations, Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU...)

Promotion of youth's political involvement and awareness of the need of developping an European citizenship.

European citizenship in the Western world. Does Europe stand for different political and moral values? Is there any difference between Europe and United States as far as the notion of citizenship is concerned?

Citizenship in a globalised world...

Probably these objectives are too detailed for a preparatory visit, we can summarize and simplify them.

We need some agenda, John, can you send us a proposal to include in our application?

Dates: The preparatory visit will take place in September 2005 and we will apply for a three years project from September 2006 to September 2009. After this date we will give the course (or courses) for European teachers.

We need some data of the institution which is going to host the preparatory visit and data from every partner.

Here are my data:

Participant: Juan Carlos Ocaña

Institution: IES Parque de Lisboa

Country: SPAIN

Town: Alcorcón

The sooner we hand in the application, the better for getting the funding. So, please, every partner should send his/heir data.

In my view, Citizenship is one of the most controversial issues in early 21st century.

We can define citizenship as a legal and political status which allows the citizen to acquire some rights (civil, political, social...) as an individual and some duties (taxes, military service, loyalty...) in relation to a political community, as well as the ability of intervening in the collective life of a state.

This concept of citizenship dates back to the late 18th century and is characterised by the pre-eminence of the state-nation as the political community that comprises the individuals. Citizenship is tantamount to nationality.

Two major transformations are placing in question the role of the contemporary State-nation and the concept of citizenship that it embraces:

Firstly, globalisation, that is to say, the fact that the central and strategic economic activities are integrated on a world scale through electronic webs of capitals, goods, and information exchange. A key element of this globalisation is the development of the Internet and the information society. The States-nation are less and less able to cope with the challenges of globalisation.

Secondly, the existence of more multicultural societies that break up the theoretical homogeneity of States-nation. Regional or national diversity (Spain, Belgium, United Kingdom, Russia) and multiculturalism and multiethnicity brought about by growing immigration are key aspects of the new European society.

Which are the topics related to Citizenship that I am interested in?

Historical background (fight for right of vote and other political rights)

The way the political systems work in our countries (political parties, institutions…)

Setting up didactic activities that deal with the most controversial topics in our societies (immigration, racism, nationalism, gender issues…) and promote our students’ participation as citizens in their own communities

I think that this project can bring together people from Russia to Spain, from Norway to Greece. It is a privileged situation to have a real pan-European scope on the topic of citizenship.

A project’s web site (lessons, resources, activities…) will be the main outcome and the most important tool to be used in our citizenship course.

English is the vehicular language of the project. However, I think we should produce materials is our own languages as well.

After looking into the Spanish application form (I assume the form will be the same in all countries)

We need to know in advance:

First name, name, name of the institution, country... of all participants

More data of the host institution (e-mail... John, the best would be that you check it out on the British Socrates Agency web site)

We need to agree on:

Objectives, topics, activities of the project.

Dates (beginning, end... Normally it will be from September 2006 to September 2009)

The name of the partner institutions

Activities during the visit (sort of agenda)

I am writing about very practical topics (Comenius project, funding...), I will post later about the Citizenship course.

We want to start a Comenius 2.1 project, more concretely (there are several ways):

European cooperation projects for the training of school education staff

Projects which create, test, and deliver training courses for educational staff

By analysing the needs of teachers, pooling expertise and studying good practice in different European countries, a partnership could design a training course and create the necessary teacher training materials (accompanied, where appropriate, by materials for pupils). The resulting course would then be delivered over several years by the partner organisations, both during and after the end of the project supported by Comenius 2.

http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/progra...menius2_en.html

The best way to begin this sort of projects is organising a preparatory visit. One of the partners hosts the meeting (John in our case) and the others have to apply for funding at their national agencies

http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/progra...cttypes_en.html

Normally, at least in Spain, you have to apply for about two months before the meeting will take place. The application form can be obtained on our National Agency's web site.

This the Spanish one http://aplicaciones.mec.es/programas-europ...4_vpcentral.doc

We need to know different data about all the partners. Ihave been trying to enclose mine but I didn't achieve it.

We need a coordinator institution who manages budget, deadlines...

Well, I think it is enough of practical information.

The only weekend I can attend the meeting is the first one, from 1st to 4th September.

It is sure that I cannot attend the meeting on 8-11th and 16-18th.

I will try to post asap about the best dates for me.

My name is Juan Carlos Ocaña and I am History and Geography Head of Department in a Secondary School in Alcorcón-Madrid. I am Ph.D. in Modern History at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Last years my work has been focused on:

Using the internet for teaching Modern History. As a consequence I have set up my own web site Historiasiglo20 - El sitio web de la historia del siglo XX

Developong international collaborative projects, mainly in the framework of the European Union (Comenius Projects, Counsil of Europe Seminars, Virtual School, Spring Day in Europe). In 2005 I have participated in a Fulbright American Studies Institute in Amherst, Massachusetts and in Studies Tour in Japan, organised by the Japanese Foundation.

Developing didactical strategies for teaching history in a bilingual context (teaching history in English in a Spanish-speaking context)

Further information on http://www.historiasiglo20.org/CV-en.pdf

Sorry for not participating so far. I have been out in Germany in a European Council Seminar on Migration Flows and Schools.

John's ideas are very useful to get attention on the media. However, we should not forget our written objectives, for those purposes we got the funding.

Until next meeting in Toulouse we should focus on women's history and try to do the best.

My idea of the final course we are going to give in Toulouse in 2007-2008 is a series of lessons, lectures, workshops... that deal with the different possibilities and potentials that teaching history with ICT offer to European teachers.

I'd suggest striving to achieve the very cutting edge pedagogy and practice that will be of practical use to history teachers as suggested in the E-Help seminars.

Andrew is right here. We have, first of all, to collect the best practice and organise it and show it. The most important is that we have to create new resources that exemplify all the possibilities that teachers can utilise at school.

We also urgently need to make a decision about our web presence - mutiple sites linked together simply won't do. Unfortunately I seem to have been talking to myself over this latter point recently.

I would therefore like to see a clear commitment to agreed topic areas covering a range of age groups, National Curriculums and syllabi sooner rather than later. (...)

why not materials for younger students and their teachers too? The bulk of most history teachers teaching is surely with the younger age groups? There are some very interesting possibilities given the countries we represent.

Andy hightlights three important topics:

First of all, we all don't have to work on just the same topic or topics. From my experience, it is evident that a project is successful when every (or most of) member is working on a topic that he/she likes. We simply should organise in a coherent way different resources on a few topics.

I myself will start teaching in English next year As Head of Department I have volunteered to teach (firt time in my life) to the youngest students, 12 years old. Geography and History are taught in the same course, history lessons span from Prehistory to Roman Empire, highlighting every event related to Iberia.

I am planning to set up a course on line on that topics trying to introduce most of the different activities that can be used now on the internet. I think that it should be my (and Ramón Burgaleta's) contribution to E-HELP.

This way we will cover a different topic and a different age that most of you. If I have time enough, I will like to contribute on any Cold War topic.

I agree with Andy that we need to set up a project web site asap. However, the debate on it languished. Why don't start with a simple thing? A not very complicated web site that could be used as a common ground which leads to our web sites? I admit that I have no clear ideas on this. We need time to debate it in Toulouse.

Just to remember you that I elaborated a simple web page. A Flash presentation by Ramón Burgaleta and a collection of links on Spanish Aviation history. Maybe we can use it for EHELP.

Ramón Burgaleta, Economics teacher at my school, and I have created a sort of association in which he is the technical expert.

The presentation was elaborated with Captivate, a software that I think we should absolutely acquire.

Ramón Burgaleta and I give a presentation on EHELP project at Juan Carlos I University in Alcorcón. Teachers from high schools in soutwest Madrid took part in a three days conference where the most interesting educational projects were presented to the attendants.

Here you can find a the Flash presentation we used (in Spanish)

Hereyou can read the whole text of the presentation (in Spanish).

Vicente López-Brea Fernández and the CAP of Alcorcón organised the conference.