Program: Comenius | Contract No. 502145-LLP-1-2009-1-DE-COMENIUS-CMP
The main objective of the project is to develop an advanced training on the subject of political and intercultural competencies of elementary school teachers. The long term goal is to improve the in-class motivation of children with a migratory background by which their integration into the host society will be facilitated. In MIRACLE, this will be achieved by incorporating professional content from within the field of EU and national migration and asylum politics as well as the teachers’ reflections on their own attitudes into one coherent teaching approach. Moreover, by applying this methodology elementary school kids will be introduced to the concept of European Citizenship at an early stage.
MIRACLE is two-year Comenius multilateral project, part-funded by the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme. The long term aim of the project is to enable pupils with a migration background of realising a more successful school career and to increase their learning motivation via two main strategies:
- The development of teaching and learning material for pupils in which the portrayal of pupils with a migration background is not homogenized or limited to stereotypical images.
- A 5-day teacher training course will offer various modules on self-reflection, which will be partly based on the anti-bias approach, and contain a special focus on anti-discriminatory civic education. Anti-bias, unlike other approaches in the field of intercultural education, does not focus solely on the individual level of discrimination. It also takes into consideration the complex interrelation between the individual, institutional and ideological level, where discrimination is likely to occur. This will make it possible for each individual to engage in a self-reflecting process and enable teachers to become aware of their own possible and unconscious prejudices.
KEY ELEMENTS AND METHODOLOGY
Migration in schools is a topic which becomes more and more relevant in many countries. School is the place where children from different cultural as well as socio-economic backgrounds meet. However, teachers often face problems in their daily teaching that arise due to a diverse or heterogeneous class composition and at the same time lack the necessary methods and concepts to address these issues professionally. How can teachers be supported to deal with it? What practical approaches for everyday teaching situations could be helpful?
The MIRACLE project aims to address these issues by developing teaching methods and modules as well as learning materials which are based on the ‘diversity approach’.
Key elements of the MIRACLE project include:
- Teacher training modules for elementary school teachers. Contents of this teacher training will also include modules on different self-reflection approaches like Anti-Bias and Betzavta
- Learning material for elementary school children at varying levels
- A course manual and DVD (in German, English, Italian, Slovenian, and Hungarian)
- A five-day teacher training course offered via the Comenius-Database.
- An external evaluator will review the quality of the modules and teaching/learning material
The ‘MIRACLE’ project is being organised by a consortium of 9 partners and 2 associated partners from 6 European countries. The partners involved in the MIRACLE project have a clear understanding of indicators of discrimination in education and society through well established frameworks and a vast track record in addressing educational barriers.
Please visit this site regularly. We look forward to updating you on our progress and to provide you with more details on the 5-day teacher training course in Berlin, Germany.
