TOTALITARIAN PAST AND DEMOCRATIC PRESENT IN EUROPE: LESSONS FOR OUR FUTURE

"The last decades in Greece, as well as in other European countries, there is a great rise of populism, radicalism and ideologies contrary to democratic values. This tendency appears specially among teenagers, who often feel themselves close to populist and radical political ideas, something that can lead them even to early school leaving, because they consider school just a mechanism which gives them nothing but theoretical values. Taking into consideration this problem, we decided that school must try to persuade them that democratic values are the only ones that can assure social and personal development, in contrast to totalitarian regimes, whose existence in the past caused nothing but political and social chaos. This can be done only through a cooperation with schools from other European countries who lived in the past under totalitarian regimes.Therefore, the main objectives of the project are the following:a) to help students discover basic knowledge about totalitarianism (causes, impact on individual and public life, propaganda methods, resistance against them) b) to develop social, civic and intercultural competences by making teachers and students think about our present as far as totalitarianism is concernedc) to help participants realize that as European citizens we all have faced and are still facing common problems and that we are threatened by common dangers – so the effort to struggle against them must be common tood) to help students realize the pedagogical value of school and re-estimate its role for their livese) to encourage students to learn through innovative methods, so that they can be motivated and inspired to love school.The participating schools, which belong to different type of secondary education, are 5:-1st Experimental Lyceum, Thessaloniki, Greece-Istituto Tecnico ""Giulio Cesare Falco"", Capua, Italy-Zespol Szkol Ogolnoksztalcacych nr 5, Wroclaw, Poland-Colegiul National CANTEMIR-VODA, Bucharest, Romania-IES Newton-Salas, Villanueva de la Torre, SpainAll of these schools have showed in the past and still show special interest for democratic education by organizing and participating in relevant activities. They have also all participated in the past in different European Programs, but for some of them it will be their first time to participate in an Erasmus+ KA2 project.The activities of the project contain workshops which will help students acquire basic skills, relevant to the final results of the project (making a documentary film, interviewing, making a survey) or to democratic education (taking part in democratic debate, recognizing fake news). The project will also contain LTT activities, during which students will acquire basic knowledge about the history and the present of totalitarian regimes in their country and in other European countries, by presenting their own works and discussing the works of students of other countries and participating in visits to places of historical interest, museums etc.The work to be done and presented in these activities will be based on modern, active and innovative learning methods, such as problem-solving, creative thinking, collaborating. Each school will prepare its work on a certain topic for each meeting and will present it during this meeting. All this material will gradually form the various types of the final products. Each school will be responsible for at least one final product, which will be based on this material gathered after every LTT activity. Each LTT activity will be evaluated, so that there will be a feedback for the next one.The main results are the following: -a web page-a documentary film-an Android mobile application-a CD containing the presentations-an e-book-25 posters-Short theatrical plays-a “museum of totalitarianism”-kahoot games.The main impact of the project to students will be the following: -to acquire basic knowledge about the phenomenon of totalitarianism-to learn to protect themselves from modern totalitarian ideologies, radicalism and extremism-to promote their social responsibility and awareness-to realize the common past and present of European nations-to acquire basic social skillsThe main impact of the project to teachers will be the following: -to collaborate with teachers from other European countries and exchange ideas -to enhance the European idea in their lessons-to learn to use innovative tools inside and outside classroom The main impact of the project to school/local community will be the following:-to promote democratic values and defense against radicalism and populism among their students-to enrich their knowledge about totalitarianism in Europe-to be encouraged to show social political awareness, as far as the re-appearance of totalitarian ideologies in our society is concerned-to realize the international and, more specific, European dimension of this political phenomenon."