Address: Cesta talcev 12, 1230 Domžale

Country: Slovenia

 School website

Project: Speak up!

 

Working language during the project:

  • Slovenian,
  • English
     

Themes of the Council of Europe project “FREE to SPEAK, SAFE to LEARN - Democratic Schools for All” covered:

  • Tackling discrimination
     

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

  • Valuing democracy, justice, fairness, equality and the rule of law
    This competence is the core of the project. At the beginning, we will clarify the concepts around discrimination, and make it visible in the school through a webpage, noticeboards and information panels. We will refer to them in every phase of the project.
  • Empathy
    Through different stories on discrimination, the pupils will develop the skill of empathy.
     

Target group age range:

  • 15 - 19

Level of education:

  • Upper secondary education

Short description of the project:

The secondary school Domžale is the only upper secondary school in the city of Domžale (13,000 inhabitants), consisting of a gymnasium (grammar) and vocational school, educating approx. 600 pupils by 60 teachers.

The project team consists of a team leader Sofija Baškarad, MSc, Teacher of Philosophy, and three members – Primož Škofic, MSc, headmaster; Marko Majce, MSc, German teacher; Nina Jelić, Sociology teacher. All of them have previous experience of the CoE project on Digital citizenship and three Erasmus+ projects, run over the last few years, and which always includes Citizenship Education, at least to some extent.

Project Speak up! deals with the discrimination perceived by our pupils.

At the beginning, we would like to give them a platform, where they can report (anonymously) about their experience with discrimination. Simultaneously, a survey will be conducted, among pupils and teachers, to establish the level of knowledge and experience of discrimination.

The stories, collected from pupils, will serve as a background for the discussion on the topic. Additionally, we will expand the stories with stories from other sources. We will try to start a debate in every class in the school – every class will have one lesson with a youth worker or a project team member about discrimination. In addition, we will try to educate our colleagues about this matter. One teacher conference will be dedicated to the topic “How to deal with the discrimination in the classroom and what a teacher can do about”. We will try to include a speaker from outside with a wide experience in the field.

At the end of the project, we will connect the classes with a videoconference. We will try to find some speakers among our pupils to share their thoughts with their schoolmates in a form of a virtual panel discussion. We will run a survey again to establish if the attitudes were changed in the course of the project.
 

Aims/objectives

We would like to raise the awareness of various forms of discrimination (gender, nationality, age, religion) among our pupils and teachers. We hope to uncover some cases of discrimination in our school to start a varied discussion, and therefore build the confidence of pupils experiencing discrimination. At the same time, we will make potential perpetrators of discrimination more aware of their acts.
 

Expected results/outcomes

One of the outcomes is an information campaign in the school. One specific place in the school webpage will be dedicated to different stories on discrimination. One lesson per class will be dedicated to the topic. One virtual panel discussion will be conducted among the classes. A survey on discrimination at the beginning and at the end of the specific school year will be carried out.
 

Changes

We expect to change the school culture in a more sensible and empathetic way, and we hope the pupils will leave our school with a higher level of self-confidence and awareness about discrimination.
 

Challenges you faced

We expect some of our colleagues to reject the project and that pupils could react negatively to the introduction of this topic in some classes.
 

Time-frame of the project:

Within 10 months.
 

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

  • Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture