The Comenius Project "Democratic Values and Linguistic Diversity" has just had Mobility 4 in Sofia, Bulgaria. You can see information about this mobility clicking on this link

You can find a lot of information on the Videoconference which was held on March 20th among the participating countries in the project "Democratic Values and Linguistic Diversity" if you click on this link: 
You are invited to continue our discussion on the topics discussed:

Videoconference 20-03-2014

Topics

1. Democratic Values Questionnaire Results (Poland)

2. School Regulations: a democratic instrument or a control toolkit

Procedure

1.     The coordinator from Spain opens the event - 3 min - opens the event, announces the structure and the topics

2.  Poland presents the results of the Democratic Values Questionnaire sharing with the participants the important observations and conclusions – 12-15 min

3.  Each school team presents their views and practices describing school regulations and the way democratic values live/should live in school communities. - 3 min for each team - 25 min total

4.    Then we open the floor to students and teachers sharing what they think about the guiding questions for both topics. 1.5 min per participant - ab. 20 min for this part.

5.    Team work on cases: Teams work on real life cases for 12-15 min. The teams are supposed to look into the case and decide as a team how to solve a problem using democratic strategies in a school environment.

6.    Each team presents their solution in 1.5 min – 12-15 min total

7.    Summary and closing from Bulgaria - 2 min

The whole event rounds up to between an hour and a half and two hours but according to us, it is more lively and allows students to speak their views spontaneously and not just present prepared information.

Videoconference 20-03-2014

 School Regulations: A democratic instrument or a control toolkit

A. Guiding Questions:

1. Who creates the school regulations in our school?

2. Who takes part in writing them and announcing them?

3. What is its purpose? Do we need it? Why/why not?

4. Who takes more space-the Rights or the responsibilities, the rewards or the sanctions?

5. Which is the greatest Challenge: a)to create it, b) to follow it, c) to control it

6. What Tools does democracy give us to improve school life in connection to school regulations?

7. How would the ideal school regulations look like? Be imaginative…

8) Do we need improvement and how can we all profit from it?

B. As a result of the discussion we will also be looping for the answers of the following questions:

1. What is life like in a well-functioning democratic school community?

2. School regulations- contributor to democracy?

3. Is there space for creativity and artistic expression?

C. The discussion is based on a conversational model aiming at:

1. analyzing and understanding in depth

2. extracting the valuable in all points in view

3. creating a constructive Communications

4. coming up with applicable solutions

Videoconference 20-03-2014

Cases Proposal

The teams are not supposed to prepare in advance, the challenge is to exchange opinion and come up with a short action plan 3-5 steps to solve the problem in a democratic way and propbly some preventive methods to avoid the same problems in the future if possible. The cases will be assigned to the teams immediately before the team work. /Item from the Procedure/

1.     You come to school in the morning and find that someone has painted graffiti on the school walls and some of the school sports equipment. It quickly becomes clear who is the graffiti student, the student is not hiding. What do you do with a student? How do you restore/clean the walls and the equipment of the school?

2.    A student often arrives late for the first lesson or after the long break. This breaks the concentration of the group and the teacher. Some of the students feel it is not fair to tolerate this behavior, others are tempted to follow the example. The teacher is also quite resentful of the situation. All this creates tension and energy leak in the classroom. What would you do to solve the problem?

3.    A student is often getting distracted with a mobile phone in class. When invited by the teacher to leave the phone aside and focus on the class task, the student neglects the teacher and goes on texting. The teacher wastes even more time dealing with the issue and the work of the group is disrupted. How would you cope with the situation in an efficient way?

4.    A student has become notorious for easily getting into conflict with everyone for no obvious reason. The student is always ready to pick a fight and even use violence. The others often scared and try to avoid contact. A few behave as if they like this demonstration of power and want be best friends with the aggressive student. How would you work with this problem?

When you think about each case, try to discuss it in perspective and find long-term effectiveness. Make sure your steps are directed not only to the person who creates the problem or demonstrates it, but also to the school community.

Enjoy your team work!

CASES 

CONTEST!   CONTEST!    CONTEST! 

PLEASE, PARTICIPATE!    PARTICIPATE!

AND

WIN A TRIP TO ITALY

Here you can find the Book Cover Contest Rules as well as some orientation to create covers.

We hope this is useful for all of those who are willing to participate in this contest.

As for Spain, the winner will be selected to travel to Italy in April 2014

THIS IS CHALLENGING! 

Cookbook Contest Cover Rules and Orientation for creating Covers

Democratic values in european union from comeniusiesja

Here you can find a presentation made by students of IES Josefina Aldecoa on the Democratic Values in the European Union and a comparison with this school.

Traditional Character from Spain: Don Quixote

You can see the first approach to the work which has been done on Don Quixote, especially by the Department of Spanish Language and Literature at IES Josefina Aldecoa (Spain) with their pupils.
Congratulations! and keep improving!

Democracy Questionnaire

Democracy Questionnaire

This survey concerns the importance of some democratic values for the functioning of a democratic country.  Students, Teachers and the Educational Community in the Comenius Project partner Schools  are asked to describe their attitude to democratic values. The questionnaire is anonymous. You are kindly asked for accurate answers.

The foundation of a liberal society is the belief that the values recognized by the units are different, sometimes contradictory. For society to work, it is necessary to reach a consensus on some of the values of freedom, equality and tolerance. However, this does not eliminate conflicts related values. Not all citizens have the same opinion about the individual values, the hierarchy of importance and implementation method in social life. Liberalism accepts the existence of a conflict between values and their disparity, which is why the emphasis on methods of alleviating and reducing potential conflicts and on the procedures to resolve them and reach a compromise.

Multimedia Phrasebook

To create a Multimedia Phrasebook in English and in each of the Partners languages is one of Comenius Project Products that we have to deal with.

Each School has to create 7 sentences of each of the proposed topics in the native language and in English. In order to organize this product, you are kindly requested to use the following chart under these headings:

1. Product
2. Phrase in your Mother Tongue
3. Recording 
4. Illustration
5. Phrase in English

Multimedia Phrasebook Chart

To be able to upload the recording of the phrase (both in your language and in English) we thought it would be a nice idea to record the students saying these phrases with a video camera or just audio. This makes it more interactive, and a great activity for the students to take part in. The topics are the following:

 For more information, please click here