Tragedy and Hope - an Erasmus Plus project and more (Armenia, Poland)

Leipzig. After the spring week in Droyssig (Saxony-Anhalt, Germany), where the project "Tragedy and Hope" (Erasmus Plus), involving three schools respectively with 2 teachers and 10 pupils from Germany (Droyssig), France (Orleans) and Poland (Tarnów), and where the "tragedy" was presented mainly following the example of Armenia and the "hope" with the projects of Support International (Iraq, Lebanon and Uganda), the members of the project went to Armenia and Poland. Here is a summary presentation of the 2 events (mobility is the official word for event).

Armenia - from 18 to 22.9.18. 

This part of the project was financed by the "political education" office in Magdeburg. Since we had worked on Droyssig on Armenia, we wanted to experience the importance of Armenia for the understanding of the genocides of the 20th century (some articles by Yvette Meinhardt, which appeared during the trip to the MZ and which we documented in the group "Tragödie und Hoffnung" on Facebook, reconstruct important aspects of this trip), in Armenia itself. Here I would like to underline only 2 aspects, in a very synthetic way. 

With the meeting with the German consul in Armenia, Matthias Kiesler, we were able to discuss the importance of the project in Armenia itself and experiment with new trends in Armenia, after the peaceful revolution under the leadership of Nikol Paschinjan. Since then in Armenia, even freedom on the Internet has become much greater, as I read in an article by Alexander Fanta (2.11.18: Freedom of the Net Report 2018: China as a negative model for the world). 

With my conference on educational risk in the Faculty of Philosophy, we also cultivated direct contacts with a popular initiative that invited me to speak on the subject. The conference can also be heard on YouTube in German and Armenian. Here is a link to my preparatory paper: https://graziotto.blogspot.com/2018/09/das-wagnis-der-erziehung-vom-staunen.html

Here is a link to the presentation on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X31Do7bhrU4&t=5s (German and Armenian)

Here is a link for the Italian translation of the preparatory paper of my conference: https://graziotto.blogspot.com/2018/09/il-rischio-educativo-dallo-stupore-alla.html

Poland - 14.10 to 20.10.18

The theme "tragedy" was dealt with by the reflective visit of the concentration and extermination camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau. The guide was held in English. One detail made the students and teachers particularly thoughtful: there is a distance of less than half a mile between the crematorium and the villa of the camp manager (with swimming pool). How to reconcile the normal life of a family with the tragedy of the camp? 

The theme "hope" has been divided into 2 moments: Krakow or the beauty of a city in contrast to the ugliness of the camp. In Krakow we also met the figure of John Paul II, who constantly reminds us: we must look at Poland in the tradition of European history. Perhaps without his work, even the fall of the wall in Europe would not have been possible, or at least not so quickly. 

Galician culture (which we met in a village and town in the Northern Carpathians, south of Tarnów) as the bearer of a hope that comes to us from the past. Before the tragedy of the 12 years of Hitler's rule, Orthodox, Catholics and Jews lived together. The diversity of cultures and respect for the identity of others have been a constant of centuries of common life - as also described by the Polish writer Stanislaw de Vincenz. 

While Droyssig presented an art exhibition on "Tragedy and Hope" in different places (Eisenberg, Stadtroda, Gera, Droyssig...), which broadcasts the project beyond the school wall, a common song, which will also be published on YouTube (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VS8UTYReFHs), allowed our project to leave the school border in Poland.  

During the Polish week we also managed to integrate 2 girls from our Gemeinschaftsschule. From the beginning it was one of our ideas (from the German project coordinators) to involve both the high school of Droyssig and the community school (Gemeinschaftsschule), but 2 girls from this last branch of Droyssig had no longer pursued their interest (one girl had left our school and the other did not want to participate without her friend). For the Polish week we managed to bring with us 2 new girls, whom I met in our linguistic and cultural project of Malta in the last school year). It was not always possible from the beginning, but during the week there was a real unity in the whole international group and the two girls from the community school were part of this unity. The German group was also increasingly perceived as a single entity. 

In my opinion, this pedagogical aspect is also very important for a credible approach to the subject. 

Among the 6 teachers there was also a very active and peaceful participation: Europe can be built only or rather, in a special way, through the meeting between people. It is not just a dream, it is a work in progress! 

Translated by www.DeepL.com/Translator (revised a little bit by the author, but englisch isn't his mother's language)