Cultural Vehicles in Education - assisting the needs of vulnerable social groups

Pilot workshops

Grodzki Theatre Association

Educational Module

Name of didactic block - European culture

I A description of the activities undertaken during the unit, including comments on the reactions of the group/individual participants

1. A discussion on art and artists. An elderly participant brought an album of Van Gogh paintings, which everyone looked at, and another participant talked about Van Gogh's live. The group compared realistic and abstract art and exchange their views on modern art, including some controversial works.
2. The main theme - Roma people and culture. The participants receive some sheets with information on Roma people and are asked to read it carefully. A discussion on Roma origin and language.
3. The educator hands out maps of Asia and Europe and a gives task to perform: to draw a route of Roma journey to Poland. He encourages everyone to use the information from the text they have read and explains how to use geographical maps. He talks about the scale and how to establish real distances, for example, how to compare the length of travel of Roma people to the length of Poland.
4. Roma fairytales. The instructor hands out a text of a Gypsy fairy tale and asks the participants to read it quietly. The second reading is aloud - everyone reads it out one after the other. The educator emphasizes the importance of voice modulation and stressing out relevant words.
5. An analysis of the fairytale - the whole group discusses the story and compares it to well-known fairytales by Andersen and Brothers Grimm. They look for similarities and differences, for example a snake is a positive character in the Roma story, unlike in Danish, German or Polish fairytales.
6. A change of scene - a theatrical exercise. The educator proposes to the group to experience traveling in Gypsy wagons. They arrange chairs in a such a way as to create a train of wagons. After everyone has taken their seats, the traveling begins: the participants talk about what they can see on the road and what landscape they pass by. The whole group is involved in making up episodes of their journey and many interesting ideas are generated, for example: "suddenly a child runs into the road and his mother is running after him", "I can see a meadow, where we can make our camp". The story naturally wind down when the participants decide to stop their wagons. They "make a camp fire" and sing some traditional songs sitting around it.
7. Gypsy fairy tales - continuation. Everyone goes back to their seats and together they make up a Gypsy story using key words from Roma culture like: "violin", "freedom", "eagle"
8. The educator tells another Roma fairytale - a story about the birth of music (how a violin substituted a swoosh of a forest)
9. Summing up - the group facilitated by the instructor revises the knowledge obtained during the workshop: where the Roma people came from, when they arrived in Europe, what is their cultural heritage (music, dance, fairytales, freedom as their greatest love)

II Was the aim of the unit achieved (the implementation of practical skills and the pedagogical aim)?

The participants gained a variety of competences and knowledge:
- information connected with Roma people and culture
- the ability to read out and interpret a text
- the ability to create a logical structure of a story
- shaping an attitude of openness towards other cultures
- analyzing and verifying stereotypes

Remarks of participants: "I enjoy the theatrical workshops very much, but I also try to make use of educational meetings, although my memory is not so good. I take all the materials home and keep studying them."
"Thanks to the workshops we tidy things up in our heads"

III Other remarks (for example on the interaction between artistic and educational elements)

The elements of education and art were well balanced and complemented each other, which made the meeting very dynamic and involving. The first part was strictly educational - the participants had to study a text, analyze it and use the information contained there in practice (drawing the route of Roma journey, discussion). A significant element of the first block was an exchange of information between participants. Some of them had some knowledge on Roma people and they shared it with others, verifying and extending what they knew. The idea of the educator - a didactic move to hide a "trap" in the text (one page of it was photocopied twice) worked out very well. Those who were reading the story carefully realized that there was a mistake in the pages and the instructor used this opportunity to emphasize the importance of being an alert and attentive reader. Another good idea was to rearrange the space of the workshops and move to the Gypsy train of wagons. The educational aims were disguised in a theatrical form. In a new scenery it became easier and more interesting to spin a tale.

The workshops had a clear and logical structure:
- introduction - an informal discussion with an element of group integration
- the main theme realized through educational and artistic methods
- summing up the information by the whole group
The leading topic (history and culture of Roma people) was set in a wider context according to the assumptions of the CVE project:
- intercultural issues
- tolerance and openness towards "others"
- multidiscipline knowledge: elements of history, geography, literary criticism, creativity
- referring to the partner CVE group from Ostrava formed by Roma people