Project meeting in Moreni, Romania
This year Rīgas vakara ģimnāzija is taking part in the international project Lifelong learning programme COMENIUS Multilateral school partnerships ”Let’s First Understand Our National Heritage in order to Define and Build Our European Identity”.
The students and teachers of Rīgas vakara ģimnāzija take part in the project together with the partners from Romania, Spain, Turkey, Greece, Norway, Estonia and Poland. One of the main study aims for every teacher is to make the study process interesting and exciting, and this project enables us to get acquainted with the culture, history, beliefs and traditions of the partner countries in an informal atmosphere, as well as to practice and develop our English skills.
During the period of 14th-19th October two teachers of Rīgas vakara ģimnāzija – J.Jevdokimova, the teacher of psychology, and A.Sidorova, the teacher of social sciences and English, – went to Moreni, Romania, with the aim to improve communication bounds between the partner schools and get acquainted with the culture, traditions and country of Romania. We arrived in Bucharest in the evening on Monday and went to the hotel in Targoviste, where we had dinner together with our partners.
On Tuesday, the first working day, first, we went to Moreni city council, where we met the city major and discussed different issues connected with culture and education. Second, we went to the Liceul Teoretic ,,I.L.Caragiale”, where we were welcome in the Romanian traditional way with bread, salt and flowers. The Romanian students proposed an interesting game in which every student made a presentation of each country referring to its geography, culture and civilization and in the end the partners had to guess the name of the country. Next, the representatives of every partner school presented a power point presentation about the geography, culture, education and interesting tourism places of their countries. The teachers of Latvia, Romania, Spain, Turkey, Greece, Norway, Estonia and Poland shared their experience about the aspects regarding the organization and successful management of the project group, the proper unfolding of the project activities. There were settled the responsibilities of the Students’ Wisdom Committee and The Transnational Students’ Wisdom Committee.
On Wednesday we went on a documentation trip to Bucharest, the capital of Romania, where we had a guided tour of the Palace of Parliament (People’s Palace) which represented a facet of the Romanian history in the Communist regime. The day was warm and sunny, and we had a great experience at The Village Museum and at The Romanian Peasant’s Museum, where we saw old Romanian houses and country farms. We also saw exhibitions of the Romanian handicraft at a Romanian traditional fair in Bucharest. During the trip
we had a workshop in which we discussed the common and different points between folk traditions and customs, culture, architecture and folk craft of Romania and partner countries.
On Thursday we had another documentation trip to Brasov, where we visited the Museum of Ethnography and Bran Castle, which was home for the legendary Vlad Dracula in the 15th century. We wanted to establish the difference between myth, legend and reality and we saw, moment at which the Romanians explained who Vlad the Impaler really was. The day was rather dark, cloudy and cold and the weather reflected the mythological atmosphere of the castle. Our guide said that she was a great-great-granddaughter of Vlad Dracula and invited us to visit the castle at night, of course, if we were not afraid of her.
On returning to Moreni, we had a working session in which we had group work and talked about reality and myths in Romanian culture and the culture of the partner countries, comparing common and different points in the legends and ethnography in our cultures.
On Friday we had working sessions and established the way in which the Project Evaluation Team for each partner is chosen and also there were settled the members’ responsibilities. We discussed the upcoming mobilities to Turkey, Norway and Spain and the activities we have to unfold before going to mobilities, as well as communication management and solutions for unexpected problems. The project partners evaluated the project meeting in Romania as a positive experience and hoped that our upcoming meetings would also be pleasant and productive.
The time of the mobility passed so quickly, and it seemed to us we had just arrived to Romania and we already had to return home. The mobility was interesting, full of new experience and knowledge.
The next project mobility is coming – on 25th-30th November two teachers and three students of Rīgas vakara ģimnāzija are visiting Turkey, where they are going to present the beliefs and traditions when human beings are born, get married, have children or die, as well as get acquainted with the traditions of the partner countries. Let’s wish them an interesting and full of impressions trip!
Anna Sidorova
Rīgas vakara ģimnāzija