Foreword

This is a story about an example of how we, in the different European school contexts, through music can help each other to examine and develop knowledge about values through music which we find interesting and important in our work in education and democratic society as a whole. The essay is told in three sections, starting with an autobiographical introduction, inspired by The Beatles and Simone de Beauvoir. The second part is a slightly revised text used in the manual of the project SILVER (Sounds Identifying Learners’ Values  in Europe 2008-2010), aiming at getting closer to questions about who we are and how come we have become what we have become. In the final part, glimpses of an ongoing work reflecting issues on European Identity are presented. 

   In the SILVER project two lines were combined. During this two-year project, a new didactical approach was tested and researched both in a local setting and during an intensive three-week lasting student mobility. The basis of the approach is discussing given values inside the classroom based on music chosen by the pupils themselves. The title of the essay refers to the song by The Beatles and was quite often sung and listened to in different versions by participants of the SILVER project and this way, the song became a mascot for the approach developed and tested in the project.