Address: Shamatava street, N 16 , Khoni

Country: Georgia

 School website

Project: We Break stereotypes

Working language during the project:

• Georgian
• English
   

Themes of the Council of Europe project “Free to Speak, Safe to Learn - Democratic Schools for All” covered:

• Making children’s and students’ voices heard
• Dealing with propaganda, misinformation and fake news
• Improving well-being at school
   

Competences from the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (CDC) addressed and where / how they were integrated:

• Valuing human dignity and human rights
  While searching for information about stereotypes and working on this project, students become more respectful to human dignity and rights. The students wrote the script, created a video where they expressed their respect for human rights.
• Respect
  Participant students gave three lessons about references of democratic society. The aim of the lessons was to establish respectful and kind attitude to human rights. Participating students conducted an interactive lesson on what a democratic society means. Explained what constitutes the characteristics of a democratic society. They showed the signs that distinguish a democratic society.
• Empathy
  During the project students made videos about the negative effects of stereotypes on humans’ life. Working on these videos established empathy among students. The video clip showed boys playing on the sports field. It is believed that girls are not allowed to participate. But girls break stereotypes and do the job better.
   

Target group age range:

• 11 - 15
• 15 - 19
   

Level of education:

• Lower secondary education
• Upper secondary education

Short description of the project:

The short-term project “We break Stereotypes” was held at Khoni public school#3. 50 students of lower and upper secondary levels participated in this project. It was a very interesting, very meaningful project that helped the school to establish democratic values, establish a culture of cooperation and foster empathy. Students worked on the following themes: managing conflicts and stereotypes, human rights. Participants searched for information about stereotypes, stereotypical attitudes and human rights. They made presentations and presented them to their school community: students’ council, teachers. Georgian and English language teachers, the department of Social Sciences and Arts and headteachers were involved in this project.

At first, students found information about stereotypes, made presentations and gave three lessons called “we grow up in democratic society” to IV and VIII graders. After the lessons, students made a list of descriptors of a society free of stereotypes, why a person free from stereotypes is a key feature of a democratic society. Why is it necessary for a person to be free from stereotypes? Students made posters where they showed how can we defend ourselves from stereotypes.

Students searched for information about famous historical persons who were trapped by stereotypes., discussed how bullying is connected to stereotypes. They made Power Point presentations where they showed the connection between the historical persons who were trapped by stereotypes, and what roles these stereotypes played in their lives. Also, they compared these cases to their descriptors and concluded which of them were broken in a particular situation.

Participant students watched a short film called “stereotypes” made by students from Gori Public school#8. After watching the film, they discussed and highlighted the characteristics which indicate a society free of stereotypes. After the film, students made a framework for how a democratic society should fight stereotypes.

The student groups who were involved in this project wrote screenplays and shot three short videos about stereotypes and a society free of stereotypes. A special jury which included teachers, students, self-government and school trusteeship council named the winner.

At the final meeting, participants presented posters and videos developed as part of this project to the school community. The school administration decided to post students works on the internet.
 

Aims/objectives

• To improve school democratic culture and make recommendations for breaking stereotypes.
• To draw up a framework for breaking stereotypes and to produce videos on stereotypes.
   

Expected results/outcomes

• Students cooperation at lower and upper secondary levels.
• Collaboration between school departments, student councils and the school
   

Changes

• To improve the school’s democratic culture and make recommendations for breaking stereotypes.
• To make a framework for breaking stereotypes and to produce videos against stereotypes.
   

Challenges you faced

• Developing objective criteria to identify the best paper.
• Students’ lack of technological skills.
   

Time-frame of the project:

One month
 

Council of Europe materials on citizenship and human rights education used while preparing or implementing your practice:

• Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture
• Living Democracy - manuals for teachers
• All Different – All Equal
• Compass
• We CAN!