"No man is an island, entire
of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thy own were.
Any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind;
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee."
John Donne 1572 - 1631
The inspiration for this project is based upon the assumption that we as human beings require interaction with others in order to grow in a spiritual way. The underpinning philosophy is that in order to become spiritually developed we need to interact with others.
So the John Donne quote which was originally written nearly 450 years ago may still hold some truth for young people living in Western Europe in the 21st century.
The aim of this project is to give some of these young people the opportunity to talk with their peers in different parts of Europe about the issues which affect them all in one way or another. The problems involved with such communication are clearly large and complex but not necessarily insurmountable.
In this project the main language of communication will be English. As we are in the 21st century and information communication technology is increasing at a rate which is faster than most of us can cope with it has been decided to use this technology to our advantage. So put in its most simple form our aim must be to allow our students to use e-mail or video conferencing to discuss major issues which appear to affect us all to some extent. The schools participating in this project are:
Since our school has a department for bilingual education we were seeking to cooperate with foreign schools. We contacted a lot of schools abroad and came in touch with Poole grammar school in England. They were very happy that we wanted to participate in the Island project. We had a lot of ideas as to what we wanted to do with internationalisation. The first step of course was to get to know all the foreign teachers involved. This turned out to be a great experience. After the first meeting in Poole we already started with an email project for our students. We were also planning to find a country to exchange students with. In our team of teachers we tried to find colleagues who were willing to participate in this project. This turned out to be quite difficult. Everybody liked the idea of cooperating with other countries, but the amount of time it took was a problem for some. But due to a lot of enthusiastic colleagues we were able to accomplish a lot: students-exchange, email project, letter-exchange, an art project and the discussion forum of the Island project.
Website: http://www.btinternet.com/~pgs.rp/Island.htm
Our goal in this project was to let students experience the school culture in another European country and to meet a lot of fellow students. To plan an exchange is a lot of work. The most important thing we learned from organising an exchange is communication. It turned out that there were a few misconceptions on the first Monday we started. We thought they would organise the research groups and vice versa. This led to some chaotic start of the week which would have been unnecessary if we would have made better appointments about this. For the teachers involved it was a very stressful moment. It is vital that the outcome of the project is the same for both countries. The first class that went to Eskilstuna to the St. Eskils gymnasium were our 4th year students. We stayed at a youth hostel and had a programme of a week. During this week Swedish and Dutch students worked together in research groups. The end result was a comparison between the Dutch and the Swedes. The overall theme was Urban cities. Within this theme the subjects were on a society based level, namely: drug policy, abortion, care of destitutes, prostitution etc. In the evenings and afternoons there was time for sports activities and socialising. The conclusion was that our students learned a lot and experienced the Swedish way of life. A lot of students kept in touch through email and some of them even planned to go back to Sweden to visit their new friend again.
In the summer of 2005 the Swedish students paid a return visit. We were able to host them in Dutch families so that they could experience the Dutch way of life. Hosting the students took a lot of preparation, informing and asking the parents. We organised a special parents evening and explained the extra value of hosting foreign students. Most parents were willing to cooperate and eventually we were able to host all the Swedish students and teachers. We organised several lectures on euthanasia and a lecture from a police officer about our legal system. Especially the movie that accompanied the lecture about euthanasia was felt deeply. In this movie a man who was terminally ill decided to end his life. The legal and medical issues were explained in this video.
On a lighter note we went on a bicycle tour to see parts of the surroundings. It turned out that this experience was a typically Dutch experience as it was raining. We also organised a barbecue and on Friday night we had organized a party.
All in all it was great fun for all the students. The organisation took us several weeks but it was definitely worth while! We hope and plan to continue this exchange in the future.
Email projects and letter-exchange
We started emailing in our first classes of bilingual education. The students were given a format as to what they could write about themselves, their hobbies, their family, their background, etc. This email exchange took place over a period of six months with a secondary school in Poland and a Montessori secondary school in Sweden. We found it interesting to see how children of all different cultural backgrounds have things in common.
Since this project was a success we decided to continue this project with different schools. We also tried the “old fashion” letter-exchange with Poland. We noticed that the students found it very interesting to actually receive a letter with foreign stamps on it! So a lack of computers is no reason not to communicate with each other.
Two art teachers at our school had an idea for an art project with the Brody Gimnazium es Szakkozepiskola in Ajka, Hungary. The plan was that students in Hungary collected pictures of themselves accompanied by a personal letter. Our students were going to make paintings out of the photos and descriptions of the Hungarian students. They sent this by mail to Hungary. Our students did the reverse: they collected photos and wrote a letter to send to Hungary. They thought it was quite difficult to make a portrait of a student they didn’t know at all. On the other hand they thought it was great to see how someone could make a portrait of them. Some students also included their email addresses in their letters and some of them are still in touch with each other. The plan for the future is to continue this project with different classes.
After the different topics we discussed during our Island Project meetings we decided it would be a good idea to introduce this to our 14-15 year olds, who are in the 3rd grade of bilingual education. Over a period of 3 weeks we discussed the topics with our students in a class situation. In class we elicited the key words on the particular topic we introduced and based on their beliefs and associations we preceded with class discussions and debates. The students did quite a lot of homework for this as they had to find articles on the given topic in different newspapers. After forming their own personal opinion about the discussed subject, they wrote their views on these different matters. It was interesting to hear how the opinions in the class varied from one another as to the culture they have been brought up in and the political beliefs their parents have since this, without any doubt rubs off on the students. Especially the topics on asylum seekers and the Israel-Palestine conflict raised a lot of emotions and sometimes misunderstanding among the students. All our students have done a very good job in formulating their arguments before putting them on the forum. They enjoyed this way of working and we are sure that it enabled the students to listen carefully to each other and to respect the different cultures and religions to which they are exposed. So all in all the forum was definitely worth our while and we can state with certainty that our aims have been achieved. For the result of this discussion forum have a look on the website: