Students of Savremena Gimnazija and Harry Potter battling stereotypes and prejudice

Another Very interesting international project was successfully carried out in Savremena Gimnazija.

The eTwinning project Quidditch of Stereotypes and Prejudices was designed to introduce children to the notion of stereotypes and prejudices, and raise their awareness of these phenomena’s existence on the example of the popular literary hero, Harry Potter. The final result of the project was a campaign aimed at battling stereotypes and prejudices, and designed by international and local teams of students. 

Three more schools of different profiles and from different countries – secondary medical school from Croatia (Varaždin), secondary technical school from Turkey (Izmir), and another secondary technical school from Poland (Lubliniec) participated in the project together with Savremena Gimnazija. The project lasted for five weeks and was carried out in April and May.   

Unusual project tasks inspired students to create interesting works 

Serbia and Savremena Gimnazija were represented by Year 2 students in the project: Barbara Stojanović, Teodora Bjelajac, Ema Veličkovski, Iva Petković, Kosta Arsenović, Sofija Matić, Kristina Antanasković and Iva Vukotić. Project coordinators were Ivan Davidović, school counsellor, and Aleksandra Rakić, school psychologist. Teachers who participated in the project were: Marija Đorđević, Psychology teacher, Marija Pilčević Tomašević, Serbian Language and Literature teacher, Jovana Popović, English teacher, Vidak Pejović, History teacher, and Saša Ivakić, Computer Science teacher.

Four online meetings of students and teachers from all four countries, as well as two workshops in each school held by teachers and expert associates were realised. The topics of online workshops concerned the analysis of the characteristics of one of the four houses of Hogwarts, Slytherin – ambition, cunning, resourcefulness, leadership and self-preservation, as well as the introduction to stereotypes and prejudices. 

In the first international online meeting, the students presented their countries and schools (Serbia,  Poland, Croatia, Turkey). In the online draw, each school was assigned a temporary identity – a Hogwarts house. Each school then analysed the characteristics of the house assigned to them and compared them with the characteristics of their own school. You can find very interesting works for each school, i.e. Hogwarts house here (Serbia – Slytherin, Poland – Gryffindor, Croatia – Ravenclaw, Turkey – Hufflepuff). The final task required students to design a campaign aimed at raising awareness and potentially weakening stereotypes and prejudices.  An international group comprising our students, and students from Croatia designed a campaign proposal. However, due to the summer holidays and final exams in Poland and Turkey, students found it easier to realise the final task as part of national teams (Turkey, Poland).

Savremena students happy with their participation in the project 

The evaluation of project activities shows that 80% of participants would definitely (maximum 5 points on a 5-point scale) recommend others to participate in this project. The students most enjoyed the activities that involved presenting their school as one of the Hogwarts houses. More than 80% of the students believe that they obtained new and valuable information about stereotypes and prejudices during project activities. 

We would like to congratulate Savremena students who showed extraordinary openness and effort, and represented our school and our country in the best possible light. We would also like to make a special mention of Barbara Stojanović and Teodora Bjelajac, who demonstrated outstanding teamwork skills designing the campaign with their peers from Croatia.  

The project was a wonderful experience that allowed Savremena students to get to know each other better, and students and teachers of Savremena Gimnazija to meet their colleagues and peers from other countries. This way, we contributed to overcoming stereotypes and prejudices we may have had about each other. We are looking forward to a new opportunity for collaboration with our new international partners!  

You can see what the participation in this interesting project looked like below.

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I am extremely pleased and proud to be the parent of a Savremena student. During my first encounter with the school management, when I asked about my child’s potential enrolment, I saw how much love, enthusiasm and professionalism you put in your work. I was impressed by your approach, ideas and methods. I couldn’t believe something like this existed in our country! It doesn’t take long to realise that this is a school you would recommend to everyone. Creativity, modern technology, top-quality education, and most of all, the humaneness that can be seen throughout the school, make it truly different and worthy of its name – Savremena Gimnazija. With such an approach, the success of this school and, consequently, our children’s success, is unavoidable. Congratulations! Jelena Đorđević, Andrija’s mum
Contemporary in any sense of the word, our school offers functional knowledge and quality preparation for tertiary education in Serbia and abroad. Implementing modern and creative teaching in the classroom, where the teachers’ pedagogy and students’ performance are aligned with the highest academic standards for the high-school finals, our school develops linguistic, mathematical, scientific, artistic, cultural, technical and ICT competence, which is a prerequisite for further education and professional development. Teaching is supported by the interactive whiteboards and educational software, whereas practice exercises research and critical thinking.