Highlighting European Values in the Educational Thought

ended

What are the values that we as Europeans hold in common? How can we highlight those values in educational practices by design – and not by coincidence (to paraphrase the EC President von der Leyen) in order to safekeep the complex and delicate knitting of our European society in the years to come? The project ‘Highlighting European Values in the Educational Thought’ or ‘HEVET’ sets out to reaffirm the connection between education and good democratic governance by empowering schoolteachers to become ‘EdUcators’ – teachers equipped with conceptual knowledge in ‘values-education’ and with the educational toolkit needed to convey ‘European values’ (in an age-appropriate manner) to elementary-school students encouraging curiosity in civic engagement. ‘HEVET’ establishes an eponymous J. Monnet Module on the basis of an existing compulsory course held at the 1st year of bachelor-level at the Teacher studies program at the Faculty of educational sciences (FES) of the Juraj Dobrila University of Pula (UNIPU). The ‘HEVET’ J. Monnet Module creates new educational content for students that otherwise do not come into contact with EU studies/topics via the following activities: 1) innovative teaching – delivered by interdisciplinary and international teaching staff that will combine traditional teaching with ‘blended learning’; 2) knowledge & skills transfer – networking with local/state-level actors engaged with EU policies/policymaking (EDIC, EC Representation), which will provide the necessary toolkit for ‘values-based’ education and encourage students’ civic engagement; 3) research dissemination & communication of project results – through a tailored combination of written (research monograph), live (roundtable debate) and online deliverables (webpage, social accounts). ‘HEVET’ brings multiple benefits to actors beyond the beneficiary-level, whose impact will be maintained after the project’s completion thanks to carefully planned sustainability steps.