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Description
The project aims at strengthening pupils’ civic competences. In most schools, pupils do not have the opportunity to
explore citizenship and the role of the citizen in the lived reality. Through this project, teachers from 10 schools will
gain competences to use the proven methods of Philosophy for Children or Active Citizens to introduce democratic
principles into the classroom, encourage pupils to explore and solve problems, and empower them to act. Moreover,
pupils’ will strengthen their self and political efficacy through own projects; support materials for other schools will be
created.
Summary of project results
We consider the participation of 7 secondary schools, including vocational secondary schools, in the Active Citizens program to be a great success of the project. As part of this program, students of participating schools had the opportunity to try the tools of democracy in practice, in real life. In an interesting and experiential way, the AC program drew them into local events and directly into solving local problems. According to the evaluation report, it was this active possibility of involvement that brought them a fundamental experience and guidance on how they can influence the events in their surroundings, how they can get involved and how they can contribute to solving why participation is necessary and important for the development and maintenance of democracy. As part of the individual community events, it was possible to involve various groups of citizens and thus the events contributed to the cohesion of the residents of the given locality. We also consider the training of teachers in the Philosophy for Children method to be a significant impact, when we focused on training more teachers and principals from the given school, so that knowledge and skills of the Philosophy for Children method could be spread more easily directly in the given localities, in the teaching corps. The evaluation showed that P4C develops the ability of teachers to manage the teaching dialogue even in situations where teachers only introduce elements of Philosophy for Children into the lessons. P4C methods develop the ability of teachers to manage the educational dialogue, as well as strengthen the ability of students to engage in it. It is precisely the increasing level of pupils'' involvement in dialogue, mutual commenting, opinion formation and its justification within the research community in the classroom that can be understood as absolutely essential for the development of pupils'' civic competences. Quality training for teachers and their methodological support therefore has a great potential to impact the benefit of the method directly on their students.