Project name: Czech Norway Bridge to Democracy through real participation
AGREEMENT NO.: EHP-CZ-ICP-4-029
The project budget: 3 174 734 CZK (129 581 EUR)
The total budget is financed from the EEA Funds 2014 – 2021 Education program.
Through the EEA Funds, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway contribute to reducing economic and social differences
in the European Economic Area (EEA) and to strengthening cooperation with fifteen European states.
The Project will be implemented from 01/08/2022 to 31/01/2024
Project objectives:
The goal of the project is to support and develop innovative democratic schools in the Czech Republic and Norway, thus increasing the number of young people who will experience democratic principles directly in the daily running of the school from the 1st grade and who are aware of their active role in society and in their life, therefore can solve conflicts and think critically.
The aim of the project is to support and develop innovative democratic schools in the Czech Republic and Norway, and thus increase the number of young people who experience democratic principles in the daily running of the school from the 1st grade and who are aware of their active role in society and their lives, can resolve conflicts and think critically. The CoLibri Elementary School may be a small democratic school, but with extensive community-led school experience. Donum Felix Primary and Secondary School is one of the largest and oldest democratic schools in the Czech Republic. Both CoLibri and Donum Felix belong to the group of founders of the Association of Free Democratic Schools, which brings together 15 schools from all over the Czech Republic, that share the same educational concept. Nyskolen Elementary School in Oslo is a state-sponsored private school focused primarily on democratic education. Since 2004, it has been researching how to apply direct democracy to children and young people, for which it has created its own curriculum. CoLibri, Donum Felix and Nyskolen will share together the experience of running and managing a democratic school and examples of good practice in applying democratic principles in school assemblies, conflict resolution, and also student projects. There will be 2 mutual learning workshops. A curriculum for teachers How to teach in democratic schools will be created, which will be presented and disseminated at 3 workshops not only for teachers of democratic schools. It will serve both existing and new democratic schools, which are supported by the participating institutions. Another output of the project will be an innovated curriculum for pupils and students dedicated to democracy, created according to the 33 curriculum already used in Nyskolen. The Norwegian curriculum will be translated and updated in the light of the experience of all the schools involved and considering the local democratic system. The target group of the project consists of the existing and new teachers of democratic schools, in the role of intermediaries of the output of the curriculum of democratic education and sharing of experience, and as final beneficiaries of the output of the curriculum for teachers. Other final beneficiaries of the project are pupils of democratic schools of applicants and other schools involved in the Association of democratic schools and new startup schools. The project will create its own website. The result of the project will be strengthened cooperation between the participating schools leading to further contacts and joint activities, such as mutual internships cooperation between the participating schools leading to further contacts and joint activities, such as student exchange stays
Activities and outputs of the project:
04-11/11/2022 the 1st Peer-learning activity was realised in the Czech Republic (9 participants – 3 CoLibri, 3 Donum Felix, 3 Nyskolen/ one-week stay)
05-06/2023 the 2nd Peer-learning activity took place in Oslo (12 participants – 3 CoLibri, 3 Donum Felix, 6 Nyskolen/ weekly stay).
During these visits, CoLibri, Donum Felix and Nyskolen shared experiences from the democratic processes during teaching and management of a democratic school. There was an exchange of examples of good practice, the application of democratic principles at school assemblies, when resolving conflicts and within student projects.
PROJECT Description:
Why:
The project is aiming at the needs of not only functioning but also starting democratic schools in the Czech and that is at both, the management as well as pedagogical level. In order to cover the problem in a holistic manner, the activities of the project are reflecting gaps in democratic education in CZ at both of these levels. The fact, that the major support in the development of the democratic school in CZ is facilitated via a Norwegian democratic school is a unique aspect of this project and brings innovation to the whole process. This brand-new relationship is inspiring as well as completely original in the synergy of cultures, perspectives and teaching methods and thus has a huge potential to bring fresh air to the process of dealing with challenges in the innovative educational movement this project is part of.
Project objectives and outputs
Our civilization faces great environmental, social and political challenges. Currently, the mindset of all citizens globally is undergoing a lot of changes not only because of COVID, but also due to their awakened attention to everything that is going around them and changed interpretation about what does it mean to be an active citizen and emphasize importance of ability to think and act critically and to find relevant information. People are starting to be more involved in the process of awareness that they are just a small but active part of one big thing called Earth and if they want to be successful, they need to start to think differently, they need to change their approach towards themselves, towards the other people as well as towards the Earth. Communication and the inability of conflict resolution are usually the main obstacles to proceed further. Therefore, our aim is to change the view of people of the basic perception of conflict resolution and communication. And there is no better place to start with such a change of mindset than children and young people. Our aim is to build and develop their personal abilities in democracy, citizenship, equal treatment, respect for each other, and help human rights to be rooted in personal experience in daily school life. As we consider these virtues important for the healthy modern growth of society.
This project has been designed to support this process of democratic and innovative education development. The most relevant topic addressed here is the creation of a supporting functional system (methodology, curriculum created and tested via bilateral collaboration) for democratic and innovative education in order to promote the development of young people and their teachers in their democratic competences and abilities to make independent decisions and think critically in their everyday life.
The main objectives of the projects are to:
- Create curricula for teachers who teach in democratic schools or who want to start to apply democratic principles in other schools
- Enrich the education of students with democratic principles which would lead to their responsibility for own life and also for their local community
- Share know-how between partners especially about:
- How to live democratic rules in everyday life of the school
- Running school meetings and mediations / conflict resolution committees
- Use of different approaches to management and democratic decision-making building on sociocracy and holocracy which somehow deepen democracy.
- Democratic curricula for young people and their teachers
- Student projects – ideas, how to lead the students for independent thinking and solving problems within the project they chose.
- Develop long lasting cooperation among partners
The main outputs are:
- Curricula for teachers in democratic schools
- Curricula for young people about democracy
- Realization of 2 peer learning workshops
- Realization of 3 workshops for teachers
Impact of the project
The first major impact of the project will be an increase of capacity in the area of democratic teaching experienced by the targeted group of teachers. Curricula will be developed in the form of syllabus for teachers in democratic schools with studying and training materials and will be delivered to the target teachers within the planned workshops. There will be also resources for follow up mentoring and support. Impact will be evaluated together with the 3 workshops for teachers.
The second major impact will be the increase of capacity acquired by the targeted group of teachers in form of specific curricula for youth about democracy. It will be developed in the form of course sylabus for teachers and materials for students. We will provide target teachers questionnaire at the beginning of the project and after the training in order to evaluate their needs and impact of the training. At the same time, we will develop set of model exercises for students who will undergo these courses so that the teachers can evaluate impact of the course using these exercises.
Realization of 2 peer learning workshops – the quality of the workshop will be apparent from the quality of the output of this partial activity, which is the elaboration of curricula for democratic school teachers that will serve further in the project as the tool to increase capacity in the area of democratic teaching for the targeted group of teachers? Also, as a result, the experience of this activity will promote and strengthen the institutional cooperation of the stakeholders involved.
Realization of 3 workshops for teachers – shall impact the quality of management of democratic schools as well as the application of good practice in the real-time of functioning of the democratic schools. The targeted group of teachers will be provided with questionnaires on the workshop, one set right after the workshop and another at the end of the project in order to provide enough time for evaluation of the quality of given information put into practice and assessment of their needs and how they were addressed by the workshop.
The outputs of the project will bring the recipients and its partners to their higher goals placed in the visions of democratic education – the internalization of democratic principles in the next generation, thanks to that more young people will realize their active role in society and will be able to perceive the needs of other parts of the whole. Further, more young people will actively participate in civic life, contributing to the development and stability of cooperating democratic schools.
We will ensure that the project’s results will remain available through the project website so that the others will be able to use them and we will ensure the website will be available and updated at least for 5 years after the project termination. Also, we will ask all participants of our workshops to further share outputs of the project. For further dissemination in the Czech Republic, beside the Association of Free Democratic Schools, the network of innovative schools operating under the Institute for Innovative Education will also be contacted.
Concerning the cooperation with the partner school in Norway, we were very glad to find an inspirative school with a similar educational concept and we look forward for continual cooperation. We will explore possibility to organize exchange stays of students and teachers and way of implementing some common knowledge sharing event(s) also in future. Possibly this project could lead also to establishment of a network of schools interested in democratic education in Norway and there 14 would be an opportunity for cooperation between the network of the schools in Norway and existing Association of Free democratic Schools in the Czech Republic. This cooperation could evolve under the shield of the European network of democratic schools EUDEC.
