What do you think - what do we think? Overcome Borders, develop european community!

"The European Union needs an active and vibrant European public sphere.Only through a common public sphere citizens will see themselves ascitizens of the EU; a common public sphere can help people to lookbeyond their own national horizons. A European identity would contributeto the democratic legitimacy of the EU. After all, a strong Europe needscitizens who also have a European identity. How can we arrive such apublic sphere? Five schools from Germany, Finland, Poland, Hungary, and Italy have setout to do so. About 100 upper school students* and about 20 teachersfrom these countries went through a joint exchange programme, at the endof which impulses for the establishment of a European public sphere weregenerated.The project had three interlinked levels of action. They ensured that inthe end the students were able to enter into a discourse withdecision-makers as responsible Europeans. Our steps: 1. create a European public sphere ourselves: through eTwinning andother formats, we provide lessons in which we understand how issues ofEuropean relevance are discussed in our partner countries. We startedtalking about digital formats for this purpose. The focus was on digitalliteracy and the adoption of perspectives.2. In a first week of exchange, during which each school sent andreceived delegations in each partner country, we developed our ""nationalnarratives"". Historical, economic, and social backgrounds that influencethe partner countries' perspective on European issues were examinedin workshops. The adoption of perspectives, professional andlanguage skills, and critical thinking were trained. With the results weprovided the basis for the establishment of a European public sphere,because mutual understanding and knowledge of the interests of thepartner countries are the basis for a strong Europe. At the end of thisweek stereotypes were broken down, prejudices were overcome and a deeperunderstanding of national self-understandings was developed. 3. In the second week of the exchange we worked out the conditions fora common European public sphere. To this end, we looked at the role ofthe public and the media in democratically constituted systems. We thendeveloped ideas and prepared impulse papers and lectures for theestablishment of a European public sphere. Moreover, we came intocontact with content creators from radio, television, and newspapers andlearned first-hand about the conditions under which the media work andhow they report on the EU. The focus of this exchange was on technical,linguistic, and methodological competences. In the end, the students wentfrom media consumers to media producers. 4. The highlight was a joint trip to Brussels. Here the results werepresented to European decision-makers in the legislative and executivebranches in a discourse. This way we wanted to promote the civilsociety involvement of our pupils and to bring concrete impulses to theEuropean level. As responsible citizens, the pupils were to take part inthe development of the European idea. However, the pupils were also able toexperience the ""engine room"" of the EU at first hand with Brussels andexperience the internationality lived in the EU as a diverse normality.With this project we promoted the European idea and set our own,concrete impulses. Our schools deepened the exchange, and the digitaland civil society skills of those involved were promoted in the longerterm. We conveyed our results to the regional public and thus alsostrengthened the European idea locally."