Humanity European Road Meeting Exchange Schools

The HERMES project was created by the teacher coordinators of this school’s international actionplan, which involves increasing international openness for students from disadvantagedbackgrounds. The French project leader and the four German, Italian, Romanian, and Polishpartners would like to develop the issues of international and cultural openness, civic values, andregional cultural awareness.These schools and their respective local authorities will work together on three simple but essentialkeys to citizen development:• Develop interculturality within the school to teach young people to trust each other, to discover theirown cultures, and to understand what differentiates and what brings people together.Students will start by observing how their class, school, and hometowns work to discuss differencesand similarities according to the history and culture of each country. The activities will be conductedin each country with debriefings between the partners.• Develop a European civic education plan to enable young people to work with others in democraticand respectful ways.The students will work in cooperation with each partner while responsibly using digital tools andsocial networking sites. They will deal with the themes of their individual schools, the schools’missions and values, local institutions, and their roles in the area.• Discover the local cultural heritage of each of the five partners to build a group knowledge of all ofthe partner countries’ common values and a sense of European citizenship among the students.Students from each country will be in charge of exploring their own area to present it to their partners,organizing visits and then sharing their views.The mobilities and activities conducted both in and outside of the classroom should concern, for eachpartner, one class of 6 to 30 students. Students in these classes will be required to travel to one ofthe countries involved in the project. The project is designed to radiate throughout the school sincethe entire school will be present to welcome the partner countries, and participate in group field trips(to the town hall, for example).All the activities carried out for the project in each participating school will be planned with thepartners via the Twinspace created for this purpose. The mobility of each partner school will beprepared by the host country students in order to develop their autonomy and initiative.All the activities developed in the framework of the three main objectives will be transformed into aEuropean travel book created by the students. This notebook will allow students throughout theproject to record their impressions and their viewpoint of the countries that they visit. These travelbooks are intended to be exchanged between partners at the end of the trip.The expected results for this project are as follows:• Concerning schools: greater international openness in each school, increased use of digital toolsduring learning activities and a more developed, project-based approach to learning.• Concerning students: acquisition of greater autonomy, a European citizenship firmly anchored andnourished by international mobility and interculturality, and a better knowledge of one’s own region.The development of transversal skills related to the use of digital technology, to the practice of aforeign language, and to project-based learning.• Concerning the area: more involved parents, effective and lasting partnerships between localauthorities and schools so that everyone participates in the construction of a European citizenshipamong young people.The Academy of Caen has made the international opening of schools one of its priorities so that allyoung people in Normandy can experience international travel during their educational careers. Thisproject is in line with that goal.