Abstract:

The council of Europe promotes a new conception on history teaching reflected in the recommendations issued and the launching of training programmes, underlining the necessity of teaching local history, the introduction of different forms of history teaching (television, educational projects, visits to museums, cultural tourism), the support of the collaboration between teachers and historians, the stimulation of interdisciplinary approaches and actions containing other disciplines beside history (literature, religion, social sciences).
The project proposes the development of interdisciplinary research and actions: didactics-history-theology-art, the stimulation of the collaboration among pre-university teachers, researchers and university teachers to develop new means of valuing the local heritage in history and religion teaching without overcharging pupils’ timetable. We will focus on pupils’ spare time, extracurricular activities, emphasizing the neglected non-formal and informal education in Romania. The ministry of education and research started to encourage by the legislative framework, with regard to the curriculum, the elaboration of materials and manuals that value local historical evolutions. The project is part of this strategy of elaborating guides, materials and manuals that serve not only the needs of history and religion didactics, but also of adult education. Transylvania is one of the major provinces of contemporary Romania and, starting with the dawn of the middle ages a thousand years ago, the Romanians were joined here by several other peoples which would later influence to varying degrees the history of this land. Since the middle ages, Transylvania has had a population structure dominated by three main nations (Romanians, Hungarians, and Germans) and six major denominations, accompanied by other nations and denominations which, taken together, never accounted for more than 2 or 3% of the population. The project aims at Transylvania with its many ethno-religious minorities and the biggest need of intercultural education, but the elaborated models can also be applied outside the Carpathians. We want to raise recipients’ awareness: teachers, pupils and adults regarding artistic testimonies inspired by the confessions in the area; history and religion teachers must be aware of the words’ limits and become open to the forms of artistic expression, while the church as art might become a first meeting place with the prayer.

Keywords:

Romania, Transylvania, Cultural Heritage, Didactics, History, Religion, Intercultural Education.