Teacher's guide Off the Wall

Off the Wall was part of the Creative Europe Project Atlantikwall Europe. Led by theatre maker Pascal Buyse, they translated their ideas and experiences into an artistic performance. Filmmakers Toyah Van der Poten and Yel Ratajczak documented the process. The starting point of the project was the world of the young people and how they deal with borders and boundaries. In the documentary, you see the young people brainstorming about how it feels to always be on the move. Flight and displacement are also a theme. Never before have so many people seemed to be away from home, out of necessity or free will. How does it feel to be always on the move? By means of artistic workshops, stories, testimonies and a theatre performance, the youngsters dived into the history of the Second World War and made the bridge with current affairs.

Getting started

This teacher's guide contains information about the Atlantikwall and various assignments that you can do with your class before or during a visit to an Atlantikwall site or Atlantikwall Raversyde (Ostend, BE). These assignments do not only fit within the theme of World War II, but are - just like Off the Wall - linked to current events. The teacher's guide is modular: you can choose which assignments best suit your class. We always indicate whether the assignments are suitable for students of the first, second or third grade of secondary school. They connect to the (old) cross-curricular final attainment levels (e.g. context 3 Socio-relational development, context 4 Environment and sustainable development, context 5 Political-legal society, context 6 Socio-economic societies and context 7 Sociocultural society). For the first degree, there is a clear link with a number of the new sixteen key competences: socio-relational competences, citizenship, historical awareness and cultural awareness. When the assignments are linked to the documentary, we refer to the corresponding fragment. This way, you can choose whether you watch the entire documentary (37 minutes) with your students, or just a few well-chosen parts. We wish you and your students an inspiring visit to the past and an exciting investigation into the present and future.