Shared values, cultural diversity and education :
What to learn and how ?

EUROtrain, Bitte alle einsteigen!

All the Austrian schools

The EUROtrain project has deals with the European identity. The arrival of the Euro does not concern exclusively the political and economic miliieu; it also affects the school in its daily activities, in relation with the important subject of the passing of time and the connection with the past. The EUROtrain allows children to get familiarized with their neighbors, with Europe, and with themselves. The schilling will soon be out of the national identity, the Euro will replace it and children must be prepared.

Since 1999, Austrian schools prepare different kinds of artistic projects concerning the following topics: change, the history of the schilling, the schilling as a national symbol, the relation of other European countries with their currency unit or another subject of their choice linked to the passage to the Euro. Every school sends its EUROtrain project, which is then added as another wagon. By the end of 2000, the EUROtrain was presented during a great Euro celebration for the country, and at the same time as it was also presented in all the concerned schools. The EURO project is a creative experience that allows the use of the following kinds of arts: literature, graphic arts, dance, music, new technologies (video, photography, computer-assisted art, computer games, etc.)

The passage to an only currency for the eleven Union's States at the beginning of 2002 is on of the one of the most fascinating projects that Europe has ever known in the last decades. The idea came when the creators realized how much the children wanted to possess the passage of the Schilling to the Euro, the changing of prices, its relation with silver, its value and also what that implied for the other European countries as a factor of unity. It is not just a logical problem, but an emotional one. A problem that cannot just be solved mathematically, but that should engage all the children's senses, just as much as those of an adult. It is necessary to establish a collaboration between the brain's right hemisphere of understanding with its left one and the project has acquired the form of knowledge + art, history and mathematics + music, theater, drawing, fashion, graphic art, etc.

Osterreichischer Kultur-Service (Dr. Michael Wimmer)
Stiftgasse 6
1070 Wien
www.oks.at
oks@oks.ac.at

All the Austrian schools
Ministry of Education of Austria

Summer 1999 - December 2000

By the project team itself, by the end of 2000.