CS-21 project from Ghent to Madrid, two years later
‘Teacher, we’re going out with the Spanish students, see you later at the hotel.’ That’s how the first day of the CS-21 project training week in Madrid ended. And we have to say, it couldn’t have ended better! After just one day, our students had made new friends and were chatting away in a mixture of English, Spanish and Italian.
After almost two years of hiatus, the Creative Skills 21 – Improving teaching and learning of 21st century skills for the creative industry project has resumed. The project sees students and teachers from eight European countries working together for two weeks to design and implement a creative project aimed at developing some of what are defined as 21st century skills. In this case, for the first of the two weeks, Communication and Cooperation were chosen, and both the students and the participating teachers had several opportunities for reflection and development.
During the week, they had the opportunity to participate in workshops on Design Thinking and Storytelling and put what they had learned into practice in group work. Teachers also attended another seminar on developing communication skills through cooperative learning.
At the same time, they took part in conferences on the theme of inequality, divided into three areas: economic, educational and gender. This was, in fact, the theme on which the groups had to work to design their projects to be carried out during the second week, which will be held in February in St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Two girls and two boys from the CFP Canossa in Magenta participated on behalf of ENAC, accompanied by their graphics teacher. It was a very intense week for them, as they found themselves competing with students who were often older than them and had much more advanced language skills. Nevertheless, none of them ever backed down and, on the contrary, they all gave their best, despite the fatigue and difficulties, improving their language skills day by day, but above all gaining self-confidence and developing a great deal of resilience.
As mentioned, the project will continue with a second week in Switzerland for the implementation of the projects and then with two more weeks involving students and teachers from the SFP in Verona, travelling to Finland and Portugal.