Dracula’s Myth: Using Folklore and Traditions in Education

Description

Folklore is often treated as something “extra”, as a part of cultural traditions only meant to be mentioned on special occasions, or a curiosity only linked to the past.

Actually, myths, legends, and local stories continue to shape the way communities remember history, build their identity, and pass on certain values.

For teachers, this means that folklore can represent an extremely powerful educational resource, especially when it is used with care, inclusivity, and critical thinking.

This course explores how legends, traditions, and historical narratives can be used to support cultural memory, strengthen community cohesion, and help learners better understand societal values and identities: all of that thanks to an original focus on Romanian history.

Using the Dracula myth as a well-known “entry-point”, participants will be guided in understanding how folklore can function as a teaching resource rather than simple cultural content, engaging students and supporting learning in subjects as history, geography and social studies.

They’ll have first-hand experience of how popular stories are created, adapted, and remembered, and how local heritage can become a bridge between cultural memory and classroom learning.

During the course, learning will take place through a careful mix of interactive input sessions, storytelling workshops, cultural visits, and collaborative design work.

Participants will visit historical sites connected to Romanian traditions and popular narratives, reflecting how symbols, rituals, and public memory influence societies and how they can be translated into concrete classroom strategies.

Guided visits to museums, cultural centres, and Bran Castle will help provide real-life contexts and inspiration for educational design.

Throughout the activities, they will have the chance to work on practical activities and lesson ideas, experimenting with different storytelling formats, inquiry-based tasks, and outdoor learning approaches.

By the end of the course, participants will leave with a clearer framework for using traditions not as just “folklore content”, but as a tool to support and promote cultural inclusion, critical reflection, and engaged learning.

Concept by Anita Sterea

Learning outcomes

The course will help participants to:

• Explain how myths, legends, and traditions contribute to cultural memory, identity, and community values;
• Integrate local legends into teaching and learning;
• Use local folklore as a teaching resource across subjects such as history, geography, citizenship education, and social studies;
• Design storytelling-based learning activities that promote engagement, discussion, and reflection;
• Discussing local traditions to facilitate classroom tasks that support cultural inclusion, respect, and diversity awareness;
• Guide students in exploring how myths can shape beliefs, stereotypes, and national narratives;
• Encourage critical thinking and reflection through local stories;
• Create engaging outdoor and place-based learning experiences using folklore to explore the local culture;
• Use digital tools to design simple interactive learning experiences (e.g., treasure hunts) connected to cultural traditions.

Tentative schedule

Day 1 – Introduction to Romanian folklore and cultural memory

• Introduction to the course, the school, and the external week activities;
• Icebreaker activities;
• Presentations of the participants’ schools;
• Identification of the participants’ expectations, needs, and goals for the course;
• Introduction to the course structure and weekly activities;
• Introduction to Romanian folklore: myths, symbols, traditions, and cultural narratives;
• Workshop: comparing legends and traditions from participants’ countries;
• Group discussion: how folklore can support identity, inclusion, and learning.

Day 2 – Dracula, myth-making, and storytelling for learning

• Full-day visit to Transylvania and Bran Castle, internationally known as Dracula’s Castle (approx. 10 hours);
• Guided exploration: Dracula as myth, memory, and popular narrative;
• Storytelling workshop: turning legends and local myths into classroom activities;
• Group discussion: fact, fiction, and cultural representation.

Day 3 – Symbols, rituals, and public memory

• Visit to Bellu Cemetery: myths of the afterlife, symbols, and funerary traditions. The cemetery hosts works by famous sculptors, examples of distinct architectural styles, and the graves of important personalities from cultural life, aristocracy, and politics;
• Group discussion: how modern art (e. g., sculpture), architecture, and rituals preserve cultural narratives and combine with ancient traditions;
• Visit to Carol Park: memory, ideology and national traditions (e. g., communism, military traditions, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier);
• Group discussion: how myths shape cultural and national identity.

Day 4 – Traditions, heritage, and interactive learning

• Visit to the Village Museum: traditions, daily life, and cultural heritage;
• Workshop: designing an interactive treasure hunt using digital and AI tools;
• Visit to the Arc de Triomphe: cultural influences and adopted traditions;
• Reflection: how traditions travel, change, and are reinterpreted.

Day 5 – From folklore to classroom practice

• Brainstorming: how folklore can support learning across subjects;
• Sharing ideas and peer feedback;
• Traditional lunch and discussion on gastronomical traditions.

Day 6 – Course closure and cultural activities

• Course evaluation: round-up of acquired competences, feedback, and discussion;
• Awarding of the course Certificate of Attendance;
• Excursion and other external cultural activities.

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