What Are You Sinking About? - Magazine

“WHAT ARE YOU SINKING ABOUT” – TRAINING COURSE - KA1 BUSTENI, ROMANIA, 21 -30 june 2022

Organizer : ODEN NEHOIU, ROMANIA

Partner countries: SP,PT,IT,EE,CZ,GR,PL,TR,LT,HR,LV,BG,RO 2 participants/organization

Venue : Busteni, Romania

Description of project :

"WHAT ARE YOU SINKING ABOUT" is a training course that will take place in Romania between 21 30 june 2022 with 28 participants and 4 experts.

The aim of the project is to provide to youth workers new methods and tools to develop critical thinking

Objectives:

1. Increasing youth workers competences to understand and apply critical thinking in daily work

2. developing competences for youth workers in creating and managing activities that involve critical thinking(media literacy, debate, political correctness, fake news)

3. expand European cooperation between youth structures in frame of new Erasmus + programme for 2021 2027

The methodology is based on nonformal education methods including presentations, world café, theater, world school debate etc The project activities will be preparation, introduction, geting to know eachother, workshops in plenary and teams, outdoor activities, intercultural evenings, visits, reflection and evaluation according to agenda. Final products expected: A collection of tools and methods to be applied in daily work to develop critical thinking.

ALL PARTICIPANTS WILL GET YOUTHPASS CERTIFICATES.

World coffee - Critical thinking

The subjects discussed at the tables were the causes, the solutions and stakeholders and the effects of lacking of critical thinking in the case of young people from small communities. Excellent discussions moderated by Marta, Dani and Ilektra.

Causes for the lack of critical thinking in small communities

We started the discussion by naming all the characteristics of a critical thinker. After we agreed on those traits, we started analyzing them one by one and discussed if any of those are maybe a bit more difficult to have/achieve in the small communities. We detected some possible problems.

We agreed that causes can be intrinsical and also external. Some causes could be the lack of opportunities in the community in which the person lives, as well as the lack of perspectives and/or experience which can result in the close mindedness of the person.

Also, unconsciousness and not being aware of the personal close mindedness or that lack of experience could be a problem itself. Furthermore, family and peer pressure during upbringing can be problematic, because if in early childhood the kid is made fun of while expressing something different or if they are strict, a child can feel fear to do so when it is older. Another possible obstacle can be poor communication skills and deficient media literacy. We also tackled the possible situation of living in a homogenous society (not being exposed to other cultures), that could be an important factor. Also, we agreed that this huge amount of information that surrounds us in everyday life can cause confusion and be overwhelming. It could also lead to apathy or the lack of motivation. When it comes to subjective or personal reasons we mentioned possible over reliance on feelings or emotions, instead of analytical thinking.

EFFECTS OF LACK OF CRITICAL THINKING IN SMALL COMMUNITIES

The lack of critical thinking in small communities has a wide range of effects in the quality of life in the community, the traits of people and the interaction with other people. First of all, a critical point is bad decision making which is closely connected to the other effects. So, if you are not critical enough to make good decisions that affects the results of the elections leading in long term to lack of development since corrupted and politians without motivation to improve the community were chosen.

Another important effect is the vulnerability to exploitation. In the political sphere, sharing propagranda as well is a serious problem. These are directly linked to the quality of democracy. Regarding the traits of people, since they lack the ability to analyze facts and form a judgement, they are really closed minded people with lack of empathy. Thus, they are unable to reflect on their opinions, take into consideration different ideas and be adjustable to new data. They are also unable to have a good perception of reality, develop an idea or reach an agreement. Regarding the interaction with others, since they lack empathy and they fail to see why connecting with others is important, they have low communication skills and they tend to be disconnected from the rest of the communities. For the same reasons, they are prone to feel dissociated from the outer world leading to mental illnesses. The close-mindedness and the lack of critical thinking can also result in discrimination to social risk groups or minorities, and subsequently less opportunities for everyone. Violence is another potential effect. To sum up, as it became clear, lack of critical thinking affects immensely each aspect of human existence especially in small communities where everyone has a direct dependence on the other. llektra Simonetatou Christiadou

Solutions And Responsibles for increase of critical thinking in small communities

Report from Moderators

Daniel Trifonov (BG) What Are You Sinking About? Romania, Busteni 21

General (common) solutions by the teams:

A lot of them were going for Non Formal Education. The Erasmus experience is atypical and enjoyable, so they were thinking how they can implement it to the rural areas, small countryside and communities at all.

A lot of ideas about a new way of studying an d improving the educational system. Blaming the government wasn’t new at all, but when you see the students fighting for something they can’t change, at first, they got very frustrated, confused, but after that they start to think new ideas that would work.

Every team planned something little about improving communication between the small communities and raising social-cultural awareness (making social networks, as they called it). When they were doing it, they were thinking about doing it for the young and the elderly at the same time, so I heard pretty good ideas. Main goals for the solutions were summer camps, Information desks to be put in with the needs of the people in the small countries. Integrating old people in technology needed for critical thinking and sharing experience with the youngsters, because they couldn’t get that much news, like we do, with social medias and phones in general. Theater and cinemas, discussion (debate clubs) and small exchanges between adults/children from countryside and those from the small towns (rural areas), NGO responsible for these activities.

In conclusion, we decided that the live libraries between adults and children were the best solutions for the lack of critical thinking in small communities! The thing is that adults should listen to youngers/… too, because in our life we are always studying and improving ourselves.

And the other good idea is an intergenerational project – old and young living together orphans with elderly And of course with solutions problems are involved too, so the problems were:

The government, that was pushing the post communist countries, people were scared to change, disconnection between people, don’t search the problem in the individuals (the problems it’s not individual’s fault) and our bad educational system.

I can say that I really enjoyed being the moderator, and the topic was nice, thanks again for this opportunity

Don’t FILL your students…. FEEL them!

Role play – Theater

The role play workshop was a theater show in which 7 mixed teams were given some scenarios concerning cyberbullying. They played and offered solutions of avoiding the dramatic endings of the initial scenarios. The scenes included bullying in schools, no support from parents, and peer pressure.

6 thinking hats method

”6 Thinking Hats” method is applied to the subject of increasing the critical thinking of youngsters in small communities.

-Green HatAt this table, the principal ideas were:

• Investing more money to prevent fake news

• Improving basic financial education

• Prepare teachers for learning students about critical thinking

• A modern evaliation for students

• Make more connections to reality

• Implementing new tehniques in teaching kids media literacy

• Debate simulation between people

• International exchanges for high-school students and promote youth mobility programmes to increase cultural awareness

-Grey HatPrincipal ideas:

• Facts can be interpreted in different ways

• Some actual wars and conflicts started just because of fake news

• Fake news is often empty, containing little supporting evidence through the article

• Some social networks as Facebook are closing pages that spares fake news

• On Twitter people share false content 4 million to 6 million times per month

• FAKE NEWS is false information presented as news. First used in the 1890s

• Eldery people are most likely to get fooled by fake news

• Trust to the local news: - Finland- 62%

• Germany-50%

• Greece-23%

Hat-

Hat-

Hat-

-Black Hat-

• Fake news can create confusion and panic in the society

• Fake news can create the conflicts, split families and society bullying

• Fake news are preventing us from dealing with real problems

• Fake news can affect the economy

• Fake news can make people more naive

• Fake news can manipulate emotions

• Fake news prevent people from forming their opinions

• It creates stress in the society

• The people who will oppose the idea of the fake news are the people who want to see things by themselves, who do not believe so easily

CRAAP Method

The C.R.A.A.P. method of analysis was presented to the participants, and then, in small groups, they had to make fake news starting from the given photos. After presenting the news, they should analyse one group to another the news using the C.R.A.A.P. diagram.

BITCOIN

US is going to switch from dollars to Bitcoins?

US dollar dropped 16% in 2 days. Bitcoin reach 39 000$ in this short period so 30% of Americans sell dollars. As said Elon Mask during presentation of Space X. This is only a beginning of new era of trading. He suggested government to accept bitcoins as official currency.

Maybe US will be third country that accept bitcoin as official currency after Central African Republic before. Who knows.

5G BREAKING NEWS FROM BBC!!!!!

Doctor Ferrer, who is a doctor in Oxford University proved that 5G improves People's critical sinking. After 10 years of researching, where he tested 5G effects on Millions of volunteers around the world. This morning he was in CNN and shared this information with all citizens to increase the longevity and the quality of people's lives.

OZN

We have bad news! Yesterday, a mother from Alabama just called us really scared and angry in the same time telling us that the gouvernment is lying to us. She told was that she was Yesterday evening outside, with her kid, looking At her while she was playing, when she saw some weird flying objects on the sky.

She ran into her house with her kid, and then she sent us a picture with the U.F.O s because she didn t wanted the gouvernment to lie to us anymore, because we should know the truth!!! The gouvernement is lying to us, stopping us from protecting our families. PLEASE, don t let the gouvernment lie to us, WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW THE TRUTH!

JOHNNY DEEP

The real reason behind the injury of Johnny Depp Hollywood Reporter, by Winston Cho June 24th

After the video photage of the restaurant "La belle verte" in San Francisco, California, were released, the situation with Depp Heard took all the attention one more time. It might seemed that the chaos was done, but only then the

chaos was just starting. Heard broke Johnny's knee with a Romanian bat. Apparently, the witnesses claim she lost a control after they left the restaurant and in the next moment Johnny was lying on the floor screaming. Another morning, another drama. We can only wait for the big star to recover and lightens this mystery for the world.

BILL GATES

American billionaire Bill Gates strikes again!

It was recently discovered that the creator of Microsoft secretly used the money he earned from the Covid-19 vaccines to buy weapons from Turkey and send them to Ukraine. A data leak showed that he wants to protects his laboratories on the territory of Ukraine.

GLOBAL WARMING:

Breaking news! Global warming doesn’t exist! Asia’s seasonal rains feed rivers and takes all over the continent! Glacier do not melt at the time given by scientists. World’s Climate Changes In Cycles. There are ice ages and hot ones, there is no global warming, we just live in the hot part of the cycle. It is matter of time, when another ice age will come.

LAND ART

The participants manifested the will to spend some time in nature, so, in the forest nearby, the land art activity with the topic of cri tical thinking took place. The results were some amazing stories and masterpieces.

So, we have the branch of jealousy where a wife believes her husband cheats on her without judging the information. The point is to trust yourself and using your critical thinking to form a judgment.

Our piece represents two possible ways to reach our destination, in this context it means cognition. Way on the left has beautiful gate that are prepared for you, they are inviting you to pass trough them hey, everybody else does! and the road is ready for you. It is easy, come and believe it.

On the other side, there is the road that needs to be discovered, the way that not a lot of people decide to take, because it is full of obstacles and it may seem to difficult but it is going to be yours. Remember, the choice is yours. Requestion, criticise, refuse what is given,

search more, dig deeper, think critically, try to see other possibilities, try to find other perspectives. Go for it!

Our amazing piece of contemporany art wants to show the path to get to the crown of wisdom using the critical thinking. On the way there will be obstacles, represented by branches, then the 6 strairs representing the 6 critical questions . And if you are going through all of these you get the crown of wisdom, represented here by a crown of flowers.

There was one country Crititallandia. It was devided by two parts-South and North. Only one brother could take a Throne so they devided it into two parts. One day the son from North and doughter from South met in a forest and fell in love from the first sight.

They could not speak to each other because of the language barrier so they invented talking by a Stones. The heart sign was a place they supposed to meet. Language and critical thinking grow together and nurture each others development.

There is a big difference between a tree and a human. Everyday, a tree becomes stronger and stronger by getting older and gaining the experience, but a human becomes weak. The tree represents the life, the resistance, because he just resists through winter, thunderstorms without any problems, it has to adapt, but the person needs to think about all the things that are happening in her life. The balloon represents the human's Braun which is absorbing the good things from the life(tree), for example the resistance, the adapting skill, the Inspiration for thinking corectly. Also, we made a filter(the thing from the left) so the person should use critical thinking to decide how he will use the things he lernt. This is also a filter for fake news and other desinformation.

Our masterpiece idea came from the mushrooms in the forest. We decided to make a shelter for them, so they could be protected. But from what (critical thinking...)?Just like every masterpiece, our piece of art has been developed during the process. Answering the question, from what we are protecting the mushrooms, we found out that mushrooms can be

protected from the vegans. So we did the inscription on the ground «STOP eating me, Vegan!» From the perspective of mushrooms vegans are evil, who kills them day to day. So what is it about critical thinking and fake news in here?

Even a mushroom can promote a fake news, think critical and choose what you believe in.

Debate

The Rope debate was a strong activity where the opinion of the participants about some statements put them two ”regions” agree/disagree. They exchanged arguments and many good ideas were issued. The beauty of the rope debate is that everyone has the chance to express their ideas, while also listening and trying to understand other’s aswell. In order to express your opinion, you have to ask for the microphone.

Motions for rope debate :

Positive discrimination of the minorities is justified. This topic was easily approached by the participants. Most of them were very sure of the ir answer from the very first beginning, agreeing with the affirmations, but after some strong arguments, there were some that switched places.

Access on social networks (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc.) should be done based on a valid ID document. This topic had one of the most dynamic discussion where participants changed their oppinions quite a lot. So, they’ve talked about false accounts, the people’s rights and the possibility to feel the freedom, without any borders. The last problem about this remained the harassers that are still on the Internet even if the protection data has been incresed the last years.

Surveying cameras from public places are an authorities' abuse. This topic was something full of ideas and opinions. Most of the participants agreed that this can be an authorities’ abuse, because it violates their privacy and sometimes people that implement them use them for research without permission. It was a topic that made people think a lot about the potential real situations in which having surveying cameras were helpful in order to find people that were commiting crimes.

The practice to accommodate participants in youth projects according to the gender should end.

This specific topic had some participants very active and showing some good arguments. The conclusion was that everyone’s gender should be respected and this aspect shouldn’t be something to judge on when it comes about anyone, because, in the end, we’re all equal.

The next activity related to the debate had teams of 3 participants that prepared arguments to show in front of the judges about the motions mentioned before, in the World Schools Debate Format. The rules were presented, including how to build a case and how to build arguments. Then, the participants were split into teams and they drew motions to debate and sides pros and cons.

After that, in small teams, they started preparations for the matches for the next day. The matches were very serious and fun at the same time, and it shown that the participants prepared very well for it, with speeches and all their attitudes. The judges were also very serious and happy about it.

Intercultural

The countries presenting were the following : Italy, Croatia, Poland, Turkey, Bulgaria, Estonia, Greece, Czech Republic, Latvia, Spania, Cyprus, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania. A lot of countries means a lot of goodies and new cultural things to learn. Participants were delighted with a lot of sweets, food, and home made recipes from other countries, and were taught how to make some very interesting and hard traditional dances.

Everyone had a lot of fun and tasted some of the best traditional foods from other countries, and the beautiful tradition of intercultural evenings ended with the very well known Romanian’s grill night and a lot of joy around.

The videos

Confessions

Team: Agnes, Ali, Ainhoa,

Corrupted Politicians

Yana, Niki

Team: Ivan, Ahmet, Andra, Raquel, Dani, Marta

Division

Team: Annela, Hamza, Ilektra, Ana, Polina

E+ Romania Inclusion and political correctness

Team: Petr, Ayberk, Sara, Olga, Zuzana, Tereza

Therapist

Team:

Chopa, Bety, Velga, Marta

Testimonials

The project opened my eyes to many things and simply my life. I met wonderful people with whom I talked all day and night and I learned a lot from them. This project helped me develop my interests and passions. I am grateful that I could take part in it. Taking part in the project was the best decision I could have made. I met amazing people who had so much to tell us that days are not enough. The project met my expectations, it was even better than I expected Marta (PL)

The project for me was a lot about sisterhood. I have had the most amazing experience with women during this project, I have met so many that inspired me and encouraged me. We shares our stories and lives and i realized that no matter where i will travel there will always be a women i can rely on and find a friend in them. – Zuzana (CZ)

What are you sinking about was my first project and I have to say I am pleasantly surprised. Thanks to the leaders and all the amazing people I have met there I can’t wait to go to another project. I have many memories and I think I have learnt a lot. So I am just grateful for this opportunity that I got � – Betty (CZ)

About that magazine thing: Great things about the "What are you sinking about?" training course in Busteni, Romania: 1. Tutors - amazing people using professional and interactive teaching methods. Not only did the information flow, but they also created a friendly learning environment, where the whole group can build a relationship and learn from one another. You can tell that they're doing their job with true passion. 2. Hiking and tourism there is an opportunity to visit popular castles in Busteni, Brasov and Sinaya. We visited a beautiful waterfall and took a walk through the forest and met its rich flora, and especially fauna. Also there is a hiking path towards the cross on top of the hill, that is visible from Busteni and it is full of breathtaking views. 3. Romanian and world culture - beautiful and interesting Romanian architecture, traditional food

and language. Also intercultural evenings are the best opportunity to visit 5-6 countries at the same time, try new food and learn their dances (we were all bad dancers, but had a good laugh) 4. Meet and bond with people from all of Europe (and the world) - aside from experiencing new culture, the pleasant environment made it easy for everyone to make friends, and not just contacts, but to actually bond with the others. 5. Events and activities debates, movie making, acting and games. A varied and interesting program where anyone can join and try new things. A trip full of action, open mindedness and positive energy, I can totally recommend this experience for anyone who is willing to learn and travel. – Yana (BG)

It was a very informative and fun course mixed with getting to know fantastic people and new tools to use in my professional life. It certainly helped that the trainers were very accommodating and tried their best to face our needs. I highly recommend this training institution . The training is focused, very well on participants + the content meets the needs of the members. The trainers

Tolea, Bogdan and Fabi were very well prepared and very helpful. I would recommend their courses to everyone. It's great opportunity to increase your everyday knowledge. Do not hesitate to participate. The Language is not a problem. Dani (BG)

Project "What are you sinking about?" was one of my favorite international experiences. We had a great dynamic as a group, people felt motivated to do their tasks, and it was really visible and feelable! Both, trainers and participants, enjoyed the whole process. At some point, our creativity, skills, interests, and knowledge melted and got mixed, which created an enjoyable, productive and fun environment. My expectations were met. I am thankful to everyone involved in the organization of this project, and happy I got to meet so many inspiring people. Friendships were born, knowledge was shared and upgraded, we got some new skills, our connections to other people and their countries grew stronger. Last but not least, Busteni is incredibly beautiful, and we were amazed by the environment each time we had a chance to see something new. Being in the mountains was a special experience. I wish we all had more projects like this! Well done! – Marta (HR)

City Bound

Crazy Onion

Eco Friends

‘This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.’