Comenius 1-1: School Project

"Freedom and Limits - Conditions and contradictions for young people in Europe"

Hosting School

Kurt-Tucholsky-Gymnasium (KTG)

ham

Hamburgo2007

Hamburgo

News

Know something about IES Jorge Manrique History in our centennial // Aprende algo sobre la historia de nuestro instituto en nla celebración del centenario de la primera piedra.

You can download our new tones for your mobile. / Puedes bajar nuevos tonos o melodías para tu móvil lejos de los archiconocidos. Busca el enlace.

Learn some of the limericks made by clas-mates / Aprende algún "limerick" (poesía breve y jocosa) hecha por compañeros.

Have a look at the statistics compairing the use of the NEW MEDIA in our three countries / Echa una ojeada a las estadísticas comparando el uso de los nuevos medios entre la juventud de nuestros 3 países.

Calendar

Deadlines:

The questionnaire results (Deadline): Results should be passed on to the partners by November 30.

Background studies are done individually in the countries and with the subjects who want to take part (social science, literature, biology, etc.)

The results of the polarity profile must be passed on to partners latest February 28
The three best short stories must be passed on by March 26.

Conference in Palencia: 18-20th of April, 2007

Conference in Hamburg: Autumn 2007

Conference in Sliven: April, 2008

Links:

Hamburg Conference
November 14th - 16th, 2007

A.- The Hamburg school system

This chapter is based on the introduction by KTG headmaster Ulrich Becker.
In correspondence with the constitutional rights, Germany has 16 different school systems in its 16 "Bundesländer".
In Hamburg children start school at the age of 6 in ‘Grundschule’ (primary school), where they stay from the 1st to the 4th grade. Then they are divided and sent to school forms of different levels. Their parents are to choose between the following school forms:
- "Hauptschule", the lowest qualification (5th-9th grade)
- "Realschule" (secondary modern) - 5th to10th grade (chosen by 20%).
- "Gymnasium" (grammar school) - 5th-12th grade with the license to study at university (chosen by 50%) - about 20% have to leave this form during the years and to go to one on the lower levels.
- "Gesamtschule" (comprehensive school) - 5th to 13th grade (chosen by 30%). You can get all qualifications of the three forms mentioned above, but only 20% of these students manage a university qualification "abitur".
Problem: parents have to choose when the children are 10 and that is very early and parents sometimes make the wrong decisions. That means that on one hand over the years a lot of pupils are downgraded to a lower school form, but on the other hand it might also turn out that a child could manage a higher level and has not been placed on the appropriate level when possible.
10% of all pupils leave without any certificate.

A special offer since 1970: "Aufbaugymnasium" like KTG to repair some of the mistakes in the system and give children of the secondary modern the chance to get a grammar school qualification. If pupils fulfill the condition of good marks in the main subjects they can change to this special form of grammar schools after the 6th grade or after finishing secondary modern (about 10 schools).
 "Aufbaugymnasium" is a good solution for especially migrant children. It is a hot political issue for the coming election. A two column system is proposed to save the grammar school. "Stadtteilsschule" (quarter school integrating all other school forms) will be offered as an alternative. It will be hard to enter the gymnasium and easy to leave it.
The participants went on a guided tour to see Kurt-Tucholsky-Gymnasium (KTG).

B.- Practical matters

Harry: accounting has become less bureaucratic. We just have to prove the number of mobilities, there will be no further financial report. Money is distributed by the national Comenius agencies, and some schools get higher grants. This time Spain gets 8,000 €, Denmark 10,000 € and Germany (coordinating school) 16,000 €. Sharing is recommended between participating schools. The Spaniards have not received the money yet, but it has been promised. This is not acceptable. The participants wish to register a complaint.
Palencia does not need the joint activities report, but only has to account to the national agency.
Spain drew our attention to the Cervantes on-line Spanish course with their best recommendation: curso_espanol@educa.joyl.es
Hamburg: the future is insecure. KTG may become an "Oberstufencentrum" (i.e.  a school running only 11th-12th grade), but it may also become a "Stadtteils-schule" (i.e. a quarter school running up from the 5th grade with opportunity to all kinds of qualifications). Natural science may be down-graded. KTG-teachers take it with Zen stoicism.
Tørring: the Danish school reform has introduced many cross curricular projects, which makes it more complicated than before to take part in special projects like Comenius.
Next meeting in Tørring: Saturday 3rd to Wednesday 7th May, 08.

C.- Evaluation of Illness/wellness

Palencia followed the chosen recommendations meticulously and thus started out by discussing ‘what is health’, then made posters, a power point show about eating disorders and piercing. Philosophy, music and natural science teachers + six classes (13 to 16-year-olds) were involved. In music classes the 13-year-olds studied music therapy and tinnitus (‘Di adios al ruido’ and ‘Save your Voice’). We saw some of the posters about ‘good things to eat’, anorexia/bulimia, body shaping, eating strategies and the history of alimentation. The problem is to combine English teaching with a linguistically challenging subject.
The Spanish had worked in groups of 4 pupils and expounded the ideas and genesis of their posters, how e.g. what is known in Germany and Denmark. Interestingly body-building is called "culturismo" in Spanish.
KTG: Hr. Wilfried Vollmer had his three English classes (60-65 pupils) involved in the illness/wellness project for two weeks. The classes studied the holistic aspect of our theme. Pupils worked on individualistic subjects, e.g. a topic called my parents don’t know about a balanced diet. He was relieved not to have brought posters as they were very similar to the Spanish ones. The themes have been rewarding, it was good for him to look them over the shoulders, the pupils became aware of their own life style. It was a confrontation for them and their families, whose habits were not always too conducive to good health. It could be very challenging.
Katrin Bayer had 4-5 groups in a class of 26 (12th grade). They spent three weeks on the project. The students liked it.  A group working on beauty operations had done a good job with references on e.g. the prices of breast operations (you should note that reductions are cheaper) A survey on bulimia was interesting as it showed that students thought they were overweight although they statistically were average. However, sources were not given, but apart from this the result did not live quite up to the teacher’s expectations. One group on doping was criticized for having found information on the internet and taking what was available instead of asking questions and then find out.
Kurt-Tucholsky has had problems fitting the project into the curriculum. Nevertheless, about one hundred pupils participated in Germany.
Tørring Gymnasium participated with three classes. One went straight to assignments, had a vote and chose body decoration (piercing and tattoos) for a two week study. They divided into groups: the history of it, health risks, a survey on pupils' attitudes and produced posters.
In another class they started out by reading passages of Bridget Jones’ The Age of Reason and her health projects. Later they produced posters on smoking, eating habits etc.
The pupils in their final year made one of their cross curricular projects under the title of illness/wellness. They wrote reports 5-6 pages long in different combinations of subjects. Inger gave examples in which Spanish was involved: "Frida Kahlo, art and pain" (arts/Spanish), "Abortion in Denmark and Spain" (social science/Spanish), "Establishing a Danish fitness centre in Spain" (economics/ Spanish), etc.
The Danish pupils, Camilla and Niels-Christian presented their posters. Some information on Queen Victoria’s responsibility for the special ‘Prince Albert piercing’ came as a surprise to some, and was doubted by others. The teacher of the project criticized himself for not having insisted on information about sources. However, sources are not part of the genre expectations for posters. The pupils said that all information was double-checked.
It was decided that each school picks (five) posters for local exhibitions (the loaded Germans will take care of copying the coveted ones). It is up to the individual schools to arrange contests on the best ones. Criteria could be such as: aesthetics, eye-catcher in a graphic way, informative, authenticity, originality, innovative, motivation, reflection, balance.

D.- Planning the next theme: Family and Generations

The future program will focus on family (generations). Teachers and pupils worked separately on this issue and came up with the following ideas.
Teachers:
Background (family tree, geographical mobility).
Structure (cultural clash, single families, adoption, nuclear/patchwork families split families).
Ideas/attitudes/ (reality) harmony/conflict: religion/culture, time to be home, the opposite sex (problems mentioned in the media: flat rate parties; the future: parental guiding), the job situation (is the main concern), peer pressure.
Family policies in your country (kindergartens, child care).
Different attitudes: chewing gum, time of getting/leaving home, respect for age, the ideal family, marriage (for life), what would be a conflict in your family, family policy in your country etc.
Students’ results:
Ssocial and historical inheritance, divorce, adoption, culture, immigration, single parents, hierarchy in the family
To narrow down the many ideas the following four topics were agreed upon:
1. Family background
2. Family structure
3. Ideas about family
4. Family policies
We split up into four groups with two assignments with participants from each school
1. How to flesh it out in the curriculum (activities and methods)?
2. What should be the participants’ product?
Group 1. Family background
The following subjects were considered appropriate:
Spain: geography (2nd grade), philosophy, anthropology, genetics (family trees), Spanish literature and identity, music
Denmark: sociology, a survey of geographical mobility, Ap (linguistics)
Germany: geography, social studies, literature
Products: surveys and maps, posters (power point): the biography of a single family member (picture, diet), the time line, overall taking the leads from the keywords mentioned above (marriage, job, working conditions, (size of) family, how history interfered with the life of family member, statistics on the family mobility, write an essay about one of your family members.
Questionnaire:
1. What is the longest period of time you/your parents/grandparents have lived in the same area?
How many kilometers away have you/your parents/grandparents lived from where you/they live now?
What would be conducive or an impediment to geographical and social mobility?
2. Do you know your own dialect, do you speak it?
3. How nostalgic do you feel about your home town/area? Family tree with a map
Group 2. Family structure
Let the pupils discuss their own family relations. Homework: investigate your background. How were the families in the old days? How do the (grand-) parents consider family life? Account for the changes. Report on differences and reasons. Power point or net products. No posters.
Group 3. Ideas about family
Most important to the least important: religion/culture/work vs. love, leaving home/the age to leave home/peer pressure/ideal family (size of family, consumer goods)
We want them to make drawings about reality (problems) and the ideal family “in the sky”. Expound, discuss and compare. Collages from magazines/newspapers about their own ideal “family tree”.
Group 4. Family policies
It was hard to find a clear focus, but here it is: family with children. Research based on internet studies. Write to politicians (will they answer?). What do the political parties do to support the families? Who takes care of the children? What are the laws and consequences of taking maternal leave? Will you lose your job? What are the ideologies of different parties on the family and their role in society? Where is the focus in the public debate?

We agreed on the following final result:
At the next conference in Tørring (3rd to 7th May, 08) we will make a three column presentation of the products of each school

 

Germany

Spain

Denmark

Task 1

 

 

 

Task 2

 

 

 

Task 3

 

 

 

Task 4

 

 

 

 

Task 1. A map that shows geographical mobility for (at least) two generations back with explanations and conclusion.
Task 2. Graphic representation of statistics on family structure (Palencia makes a questionnaire, see annex 1).
Task 3. A cartoon drawing or collage of your ideal family and reality. The dreams and wishes on cloud 9 and reality around you.
Task 4. An account of selected topics with political facts concerning children (e.g. kindergartens, maternity leave). (See questions above)
Deadline: All the results must be brought in three copies for the next meeting, when the three columns will be assembled for display at the three schools.

E.- Comenius News

We agreed that one more issue of Comenius News should come out in the spring term. Contents: presentation of Jorge Manrique (Sotero), reports from the Hamburg conference (students), examples from theme work, etc.

F.- Cultural program

Apart from our busy program as regards evaluating and planning the Comenius activities there was also time for a cultural program. For those of us who have already taken part in several conferences in Hamburg it was amazing how our hosts managed to find places we have not visited before.

On Wednesday we visited the fairly new BallinStadt museum, named after the owner of the biggest shipping company in the 19th century. Because of its harbour Hamburg has always been busy dealing with foreign countries and thus it cannot surprise that the city also played an active part in the big emigration waves, mainly to America in the first part of the 20th century. This was the main focus of the museum, which was modern, interactive and very informative. The museum is located on the grounds of the former emigrants' halls, where thousands of poor, mainly East European emigrants were accommodated. It gave an interesting perspective on conditions and other aspects of immigration to Europe in present times.

The next day we had a tour of the town hall, done by speaker of the former red/green Hamburg government, Mr. Reiner Scheppelmann. The splendor of the town hall is amazing, but as Harry keeps reminding us: it is a fake, since the neo-baroque facade doesn't correspond with the time it was built: 1897. Disregarding Harry's comments the Hamburgers certainly have splendid facilities for receiving all kinds of important (and less important) people: kings, pop stars, politicians, students, etc.
This visit was followed by a relaxed boat tour on the Alster. Hamburg is gifted with wonderful green areas right in the heart of the city and the Alster is such a peaceful place in the middle of busy traffic. (By the way the Alster is bigger than the whole state of Monaco.) Rich people acknowledged these qualities long time ago, which is the reason why the Alster shores as well as many of the adjacent channels are surrounded by fashionable residences. Moreover there was an interesting and unexpected connection to the museum we visited the day before: One of the most expensive hotels in Hamburg, the "Atlantic" was built by the Ballin Company for rich people who wanted to immigrate to America to offer them a residence while they had to manage the formal matters. What a difference to Ballinstadt.

Also Friday we were on the waters, this time on the Elbe doing the trip from Landungsbrücken to Blankenese, where Nanny lives. We climbed the local "mountain" Süllberg (74,4 m) passing cozy old fishermen's cottages as well as big modern houses. The restaurant on the top of Süllberg has terraces, which give a wonderful view of the river. Nanny very much recommended a visit here in summer time. But even on a cold November day like this one, everyone could get the impression of the magic of the river and the surrounding landscape. After taking leave of the students the teachers went to visit Nanny in her fantastic Blankenese house, where our hosts had prepared a real gourmet meal for us.

Apart from all the interesting sights we also went to very typical restaurants:
Kartoffel Keller, specialized on potato dishes, Hagenah, at a fish wholesale centre, thus specialized in fish dishes, Hamburger Segelclub, which Michael knows quite well being a member. Here we had typical German green cabbage with a variety of pig meat. Finally we had our last meal in Ägäis Taverne, a small Greek restaurant that belongs to the parents of Theano, another member of the Comenius family.

Finn, Harry and Inger