Further training for teachers on political-cross-cultural competences

Comenius project: tools for teachers - Meike Jens - University of Hannover

How to deal with heterogeneous classes?
What do concepts like 'culture' and 'integration' imply?   What are suitable exercises for pupils which deal with migration, flight and discrimination?
The rise in global migration is one of the phenomena of our times.  Within the EU, the number of foreign-born residents is over 64 million, accounting for almost one-third of all migrants. This also poses challanges to educators who have a crucial role in helping citizens and especially young people to understand the complexity of  issues related to migration and also equip them with skills to fight discrimination and create societies that benefit from migration.
The international MIRACLE consortium "Migrants and Refugees - A Challenge for Learning in European Schools" has therefore designed a  training course for elementary school teachers working in a multicultural class environment.
The course, entitled  "Civic-Cross-Cultural-Competences - A Practical Approach", is the result of an intensive collaboration between 9 organisations from 6  European countries supported by the European Commission's Lifelong Learning Programme.
The first run through of the course was held in Berlin, between October 16 and 21 with 16 participants from Iceland, Scotland,  Northern Ireland, Hungary, Italy, Cyprus, Austria and Switzerland along with an international team of facilitators.
Learning and teaching material centred on critical-intercultural learning, human flight and migration was introduced and participants  had the chance to exchange pedagogical ideas, teaching practises and intercultural opinions.  
All material can be downloaded on the project's homepage in English, Italian, German, Slovenian and Hungarian: http://www.miracle-comenius.org/
Due to a good balance of lectures, simulation games and practical methods for the classroom and group discussions ensured that participants could look at the issue from diverse angles and exchange positive experience as well as challenges. Feedback from some of the participants can be seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PgCxM-np4FY
During school visits at two primary schools in Berlin with a large student population having a so called migratory background, the participants were provided with hands-on experience on how different challenges can be met (i.e. knowledge of languages, problems because of a social-economic background).
Should you be interested in collaborating with the MIRACLE project or would you like to discuss further opportunities, i.e. taking part in another edition of the above training course, kindly send an email to :
info(at)miracle-comenius.org