The concrete objectives of this partnership are the improvement of the quality of primary education in two regions, through the exchange of mutual experience, and the adoption of the best practices in the field of local art education and task - based learning. For this, during the project, we will develop educational practice proposals for lesson plans that explore the relationship between art, education and community. Also, a glossary will be produced and spread out to the educational community, designed in a way to facilitate primary school students to overcome the linguistic, cultural and terminology obstacles they might face. Local - based art education encourages students and teachers to attend meaningful experiences, real-life settings, and connections with everyday life, in order to gain the benefits of local based educational practices. Viewing art as an integral part of the community life, this project focuses on the local artists of Florina (Greece) and Dobele (Latvia), which reveal the social reconstruction practices. In this way, students, with a different cultural background, will find equal opportunities to educate and incorporate themselves as part of the local society.

Objectives for students:

Students are expected to:

• Broaden their self awareness about art;
• Familiarise with the local artists;
• Develop skills of interpretation and extension concerning a work of art;
• Overcome the diffused cultural stereotypes;
• Be aware of their social cognition, cohesion and consciousness concerning social desirability;
• Enhance their adaptability to behavioural modification;
• Practice the creative use of the materials;  
• Enrich their vocabulary regarding art terms;
• Cultivate their response to visual experiences;
• Prepare themselves for social mobility through assimilation of common culture values;
• Develop their critical thinking using the paintings as a resource;
• Deepen their knowledge about their own cultural background;
• Perceive the multidimensional aspect of the cultural good;
• Be inspired of and enhance their creativity;
• Enjoy the experience of art.

Objectives for teachers:

Teachers need to:

• Learn how to deal with a European project;
• Be more experienced in order to join in another European project in the future;
• Apply new methods in order to motivate students and enhance their culture;
• Develop supportive relationships between the social organizations;
• Take educational benefits from the interaction of the two cooperating regions;
• Become self-sufficient through the use of innovative methods in art teaching;
• Get to know and evaluate methods of promoting aesthetic education in schools;
• Perform extended searches and studies about visual and performing arts;
• Promote students’ cultural cognition;
• Revitalize the relationship between schools and community through art;
• Become culturally aware;
• Apply instructional innovations in carrying out a teaching scenario concerning art;
• Promote the openness of the school community to the local society;
• Appreciate the value of art in everyday school life.

Regarding the applicants and other partner organisations:

The project aims to:
Develop local art education;
Qualify skilfull future citizens;
Raise the level of education in our regions through bilateral projects;
Enhance European citizenship training;
Encourage all partners to realize the need of common educational goals;
Deepen and expand the experiences of European partnerships between schools and teachers;
Exchange instructional innovations and practices in education;
Raise the profile of local visual arts at the region schools;
Revitalize the relationships between the local organizations;
Open up educational local authorities to other similar organizations abroad;
Promote an interregional cooperation between the areas of Florina and Dobele.

Subjects or problems to address:

Some of the main problems to deal with are:

• The absence of a wide reference to the local art within the national curriculum in the primary education;
• The students cannot apprehend the national, global and international dimension of art history, unless they have already understood its local aspect;
• Teachers and students have to understand the social, communicative and symbolic role of art, in order to achieve the goals of contemporary educational purposes, preserve and promote the local, national and global artistic heritage;
• The interest of students should be displaced from the artist and the aesthetic perception to a communicative level, enabling a discussion which underlines the various problems, and it is not limited to the horizon of personal preference and personal experience;
• The choice of eligible activities graded to the needs of students’ different ages;
• The efficient involvement of the students and teachers from both regions into the project;
• The use of appropriate materials and artistic techniques so as to motivate students to participate in the project;
• The way in which students will participate in the project should be managed in order to improve the quality of educational work in schools’ region;
• The identification and treatment of the factors that impede the realization of the aims of the project;

Approach

The approaches that we will follow in order to achieve our project’s objectives are:

• Cooperation among partners;
• Participation of every individual involved in the project in every organized activity;
• Attendance in educational events, seminars and workshops;
• Communication of the staff involved on a regular basis;
• Implementation of the educational material into the school and the museum, in a pilot mode;
• Evaluation of all the work done;
• Dissemination of the project’s activities to every school community region;
• Monitoring the results of the project in order to be accessible and used in the future.