ROMANIA

„Sf. Ioan Iacob” high-school has an old historical background since its early beginnings. We are really interested in improving the quality of our educational programmes and this project is a great opportunity for all of us. Our students will learn to cooperate and work with students from the other countries by practicing their English skills and, why not, other languages. The European dimension through the language education is one of the main aspects of our institution. The intercultural dialogue is the most important in such an area. The school is not very big, there are 25 teachers and almost 200 high school students, some of them are studying in order to become Orthodox priests and the others are studying English intensively. They come from various social backgrounds, 62% of them from rural areas around our town. Their families have a low income, mostly because our region is a disadvantaged one, there is practically almost no industry in our town and most of the parents had to look for a job abroad, leaving their children in the care of the other parent or in the care of some relatives or neighbours.
We especially focus on: Culture can give people a connection to certain social values, beliefs, religions and customs. It allows them to identify with others of similar mindsets and backgrounds. Cultural heritage can provide an automatic sense of unity and belonging within a group and allows us to better understand previous generations and the history of where we come from.
Our county is full of history, monuments, old churches from Middle Age: Monastery Voroneț, Monastery Neamt, part of cultural heritage, inscribed in UNESCO list. In our county were born some of the most import figures in terms of literature, painting, history and Music. Students will be involved all throughout the decision-taking steps, divided into groups, will run the part of the project addressed to them. We have a "folk dances club" and a studio for dance training at our school. Many students of our school are keen on attending this club. We focus on in this club: ”Doina”- a solemn chant that is improvised at spontaneous, ”Men’s group colindat” – ritual each year before Christmas, ”Lad’s dance in Romania”- men’s folk dance practised in community life on festive occasions. The idea is to treat students as equal partners and to be silently guided by their teacher so that they can become more confident and learn new things without feeling the pressure implied by study and research. As the students are studying humanistic disciplines, this project will be a great help for them to improve their knowledge and also a great opportunity to experiment different cultures and traditions.