Ahtisaari Day 2011 in our school

Not a long time ago, a received an invitation from Environment Online - ENO, calling schools to celebrate globally the first Ahtisaari Day in ENO, on the 16th of November 2011. The aim is to increase knowledge how to avoid and solve conflicts at schools and in the community as well as on the international level. It is essential to take responsibility and work together to avoid quarrels and to find a solution that all the counterparts agree. We need to work for peace in our daily lives.

We answered "Present!" to their call, and we embarked on a wonderful set of actions. It was November, 16th, a sunny but cold day when we gathered in the Conference room in my school. We watched the video where Mr. Martti Ahtissari expressed his views about the importance of peace. You can watch it here.

Then, we read out the speech we received, we discussed about reconciliation and went on to the funniest activity of the whole day: together we planted the Reconciliation Tree of our school, and we unveiled the memorial under it.

eTwinning Official Mentor

Many teachers from Europe are used to working on eTwinning projects.

eTwinning = The Community for Schools in Europe, an easy tool to establish contacts and work on international projects.

I attended this program in 2008 and I've worked on many projects, some of them being rewarded with the National and European Quality Label. The advantages are great, both for me as a teacher, and especially for my students.

This autumn I became an Official eTwinning Mentor and I am happy to share this information with you. If you are a newcomer or you do not know how to start an eTwinning project; if you have some ideas in mind but missing a solid plan, as an eTwinning Mentor, I could be what you need to get involved, design your project, learn how to use the tools, manage your activities and carry out a project with you!

I Love English

This year I have another idea for my students. I must admit, there are some students in my school capable of performance, but somehow could lose their interest as the classes are designed for a lower level. For those capable students I created an English Club.

The idea is very simple: they pass a test here, they forward me the result, then they fill in an application form and they become members of the club. The first steps I took include the website of the club. You can have a look here.

European Day of Languages 2011

In our school we have a kind of tradition at the beginning of every school year - 26th September, i.e the European Day of Languages. We try to celebrate it in many different ways, but this time it was special, as The Council of Europe marked its 10th anniversary.

In the morning, as soon as the sun was up, 10 volunteers from grade 12 A (whose head teacher I am) greeted all their teachers and colleagues in different languages. They also handed them some flyers telling them about the significance of this day. I was there, with and among them, and I was very surprised to see all the people entering our school (on a Monday morning!) with a large smile on their face.

Then, we inaugurated an informative panel about this day, containing different nice expressions and their translation. It was a nice way to start a new week at school. You can convince yourself having a look at these pictures.

The Legend of the 1,000 Cranes

As you may already know, my students and some brave teachers in my school took part in the international campaign "Paper Cranes for Japan". We posted many pictures, we wrote our story, but now, we made our video.



UPDATE: In October, our video was awarded 3rd Prize in the National Contest "Successful Living in a Multicultural Environment". The competition was organized by Ratiu Center for Democracy, and took place in Turda, Romania, on October, 22nd, 2011.

The sad story of a plastic bag

In 2010 my students and I made a short video regarding pollution - the plastic bags. The video entered a national competition and it was awarded a Special Mention. Now, thanks to a Learning Lab event, "Learning the language of your neighbour", delivered by Adam Stepinski, I found out about a great tool. It's called Universal Subtitles and it enabled me to add subtitle to this video.

Here is the final result:

Comenius Week 2011

From 2-9 May 2011, schools were invited to celebrate European school collaboration through Comenius week activities. Comenius National Agencies, eTwinning National Support Services also participated,

As our school took part in  a Comenius project from 2006 to 2009 and we all could see the advantages, we decided to celebrate Comenius week in our school. Not all our students and teachers knew exactly what Comenius means, so we organized a communication session about this program. It included a short biography of John Amos Comenius, then a presentation of the Comenius program, as well as about our Comenius program "Life near a river in Europe" and the future one, "From Ideal to Real Freedoms. Tracks to Reach Them".

At the end students were invited to create a poster having as theme what Comenius means to them. They received flyers with information about Comenius.

Update:
I entered a competition having as theme The Collaboration week within Comenius. I'm delighted to announce I am a prize winner.

Paper Cranes for Japan

The tragedy in Japan is no longer new to us. Unfortunately, it happened. Fortunately, we are here and we can help.

Couple of days ago, just browsing around, I found out about a great project: Paper cranes for Japan. I couldn't sleep at night. I was thinking over and over how I could motivate my students to give a helping hand. My country is not a very rich one and people's mentality is rather to be given than to give. Then a good idea came.

I put 5 questions on a piece of paper and I told my students I have a short questionnaire for them: 5 questions with Yes / No  answers. They are:
1. Have you heard about the tragedy in Japan?
2. Did it affect you in any way?
3. Do you think they need help?
4. Are you willing to help?
5. Do you know how to help?

Then I asked them to count how many "Yes" they have and if they had at least 3. Then, I asked them if they answered "Yes" at question no. 4 and no. 5. If they'd like to help - I gave them the solution. This was the starting point for the main presentation of the project. I am sure that I was able to motivate them and arise their interest.

We started folding our paper cranes last week. We are still doing it. There are more than 200 students willing to help and we already have about 400 cranes. Next Wednesday our cranes will fly to the USA. I am so pleased we can help and my students are willing to help too - they can finally understand what the final aim of volunteering is.

I will come back soon with news and pictures. In the meantime, just spread the word and start folding cranes for Japan.

 

Update: We managed to fold 1,500 paper cranes and on April, 13 we mailed them to Students Rebuild. We are more than happy that we could give a helping hand to all those people in need.