Artikel von H. Jülicher-Böker, Fotos von S. Roberts
Mit großem Engagement nahmen am 13. Februar etwa 50 Schülerinnen und Schüler der Englisch-Leistungskurse von Frau Roberts und Frau Huhn an einem auf Englisch durchgeführten EU-Kompaktkurs teil. Vier junge Trainer (Studenten) der Schwarzkopf-Stiftung Junges Europa vermittelten ihnen dabei auf abwechslungsreiche Art und Weise in der Fremdsprache Kenntnisse über die Institutionen und Zuständigkeiten der EU. Darüber hinaus erarbeiteten die Schülerinnen und Schüler eigenständig in Kleingruppen, welche Motive und Konflikte den europäischen Einigungsprozess prägen.
Im Jahr 2017 wurden diese EU-Kompaktkurse insgesamt 430 Mal in 14 verschiedenen Ländern mit 8500 Jugendlichen durchgeführt (vgl. https://schwarzkopf-stiftung.de/seminar/eu-kompakt-kurse/).
Im Folgenden blickt Justus Fleisch (Englisch LK, Q1) auf die Veranstaltung zurück – in English, of course:
On 13th February 2018, Mrs. Roberts‘ English LK participated in a five hours long crash course about the European Union. The course was held in English by two young members of the Schwarzkopf foundation that organized this event. To start with, we talked about first spontaneous ideas that we connect with the EU. The most important associations were travelling without borders, a big cultural diversity and paying with the same currency. After that, we wanted to know what the majority of our course thought about the greatest achievements of the EU. We opened up four corners that represented four different achievements: democracy, open borders, cultural diversity and maintaining peace. The biggest part of our course considered peace as the most important achievement of the EU. However, we were also interested in the other way around: „What bothers you most about the EU?“ The majority considered a missing solidarity between the different members as the greatest problem.
After a short break, we spilt up into two different workshops. One workshop gave attention to the history of the EU, the other one to the way how laws are issued and the how the European Union is generally structured. After the workshops were finished, the members of the different workshops presented their results to the others. The ‚history group‘ talked about important milestones like the Schengen Agreement and the foundation of the Eurozone, but also about modern challenges such as Brexit or the refugee crisis.
Towards the end of the crash course, we had the chance to talk about the questions we had concerning the EU such as: „Why was the EU founded“ ,“Did the EU do mistakes“ or „Why does Britain want to leave the EU“.
All in all, the event was great to refresh our knowledge about the EU and to share one´s opinion over this political topic. In addition, it was very helpful for our next topic in our advanced course – Brexit.
