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Posted: Thursday 21 October 2010

Hutchesons' Comenius Project: Year Two

'Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow' = 'Gestern-Heute-Morgen'

Yesterday - Today - Tomorrow

Susan Breckenridge, Head of Art, reports on a recent visit which formed the next phase of the two-year Comenius project with partner schools Hans Sachs Gymnasium, Nürnberg and The I Lyceum Ogolnokszalcace, Radomsko.

Tree planting Our hugely successsful visit to Poland in April resulted in a 'Comenius' forest of 18,000 seedlings being planted as well as visits to the surrounding city of Krakow followed by two days in Zakopane. Using Innovation and Creativity in Environmental Design as their theme, staff and pupils of the Lyceum have continued to create imaginative responses to the challenges of improving their immediate environment by designing their own garden in the school playground, running a photography competition and working collaboratively with the local Forestry Commission of Gidle to develop a Comenius bike path devised by their pupils - an educational as well as recreational way of experiencing the local environment!

Comenius Nurnberg 6 The challenge for our week in Nurnberg was to consider the surrounding environment of the city; many of the Polish and Scottish pupils had not previously visited Germany. 'Yesterday-Today-Tomorrow' proved a fruitful catchphrase for looking at Nurnberg in a historical, contemporary and futuristic context.

Our visit included educational visits as well as workshops and discussions relating to the city:

Pupils from Hans Sachs presented images of the urban transformation the city had undergone as well as the impact that 'city trees' and guerrilla gardening were having on the current cityscape.
Staff and pupils took a sightseeing tour and saw a film about the history of Nurnberg at The Fembohaus Noricama
A visit to the Dokuzentrum and the Reichsparteitagsgelande
A plenary discussion in English using colour-coded tags to help visualise thoughts and words relating to 'Gestern-Heute-Morgen'
A tour of the Weststadt area of the city, which included the former AEG factory and the Quelle Industrial Area. This resulted in a design project where pupils worked collaboratively to create their vision for the future and how this former industrial zone could be used to provide better recreational and creative opportunities for the general pubic, as well as young people in Nurnberg. (We aim to compile a booklet to be compiled documenting the project in more detail.)

Comenius Nurnberg 5 Throughout the week, Hutchie pupils used film as a medium to create a narrative impression of the city and its history. The pupils intend to condense a week's footage into a short 10-minute film which documents the shared experiences, in other words, a cooperative work which pulls people for different countries to communicate and gain a better insight into working with other young people in Europe.

The Comenius Partnership has given pupils the opportunity to work out with the formal curriculum and experience historical, geographical, artistic and most importantly cultural differences and the challenges of working in an environment which relies of cooperation, motivation and friendship. Staying with host families has been by far the most rewarding aspect for the pupils and our pupils have been struck by the generosity and openness of their German and Polish hosts:

The family have welcomed us back to stay any time . I think staying in a German home was a very good idea as we got a clearer, more direct idea of a different culture. (Georgina, 14)

I really liked the fact that by being with the others nearly all day changed us from being strangers into good friends. (Massimo, 17)

It gave us a chance to get to know our hosts and understand German home life. (Ranald, 17)

It's now time to reflect on our experiences and start the preparation for the final stage of the project which takes place in June in Glasgow 2011

Tags: Comenius, Community, Ethos